PUBLISHED: September 2026
By Drew Seale, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Funeral Directors Life
Most funeral homes already have an aftercare program, such as check-in calls, grief resources, and anniversary cards. But few funeral homes connect those touchpoints to their preneed strategy. The families in your aftercare database already trust you because they have experienced your care firsthand. Many are also quietly thinking about planning ahead. This article shows how to bridge what you are already doing into a natural path for preneed growth without turning grief support into a sales pitch.
Your aftercare program is one of the most consistent, trust-building things your funeral home does. You check in on families, send anniversary cards, and share grief resources. Those touchpoints do exactly what they are supposed to do by showing families your care extends beyond the day of the service.
But here is what often gets overlooked: those same families are some of the most natural starting points for a preplanning conversation. They have seen what happens when a preneed plan is in place and when one is missing. Plus, they already know your name, your staff, your building, and many of them are thinking about how having a preneed plan in place can help their own families.
The challenge isn't that funeral homes don't care about aftercare. It is that aftercare and preneed usually live in separate parts of the business with different staff, goals, and tools. Because of this, the connection never gets made.
But here’s the thing: you don't need a new aftercare program to get started. You just need to connect the one you already have to your preneed goals.
When most funeral homes think about growing preneed, they think about generating interest from families through seminars, digital marketing, direct mail, and website forms. Those strategies work, but they often overlook the families who are already in their database and already trust them.
Based on our own research, we’ve seen that families engaged in post-service follow-up are twice as likely to respond to preneed outreach. This makes sense when you think about the relationship you have already built. You aren't a stranger on a postcard. You are the person who helped them through their darkest hour.
Consider what makes a family ready for a preplanning conversation. They understand the value of planning ahead, they know where to go when they are ready, and they trust the funeral home enough to start the conversation.
Aftercare families check every one of those boxes.
They have experienced a funeral firsthand. That means the common barriers to preplanning have already been lowered, such as not seeing the value, not knowing where to start, or avoiding the topic altogether. They don't need to be convinced that planning matters because they have lived it.
There is also an important timing element. The realization that a preneed plan is necessary rarely happens during the service when emotions are at their highest. Instead, it surfaces weeks or months later (during the aftercare window) once the initial fog of grief has cleared and the practical weight of the loss sets in.
Your aftercare program puts you in front of the family at exactly the right time.
This is probably the most common concern funeral professionals have about connecting aftercare to preneed, and it is worth addressing head-on.
The short answer: it depends entirely on how you do it.
If you use grief touchpoints to pitch products or bring up preneed too early in the grief journey, that is inappropriate. The same goes for making families feel like their loss was an opportunity for your business. That will cost you more trust than you gain in contracts.
But that is not what we are talking about here.
Connecting aftercare to preneed doesn't mean turning a check-in call into a sales presentation. It means making sure families know your funeral home can help them plan ahead and that you’ll be there when they are ready. There is a big difference between selling to a grieving family and letting a family know you are here when they want to take the next step.
Here is a simple test: if your aftercare touchpoint would feel exactly the same whether the family preplans or not, you are doing it right. You aren't selling a preneed contract. You are providing clarity for the families in your community and extending the care that already defines your funeral home.
When you approach it that way, bringing up preplanning isn't inappropriate – it is one of the most helpful things you can do. Many aftercare families want to plan ahead. They just don't know you offer it, or they don't know how to start the conversation.
Your job is to open the door. Their job is to decide when to walk through it.
With that foundation in place, here is what it looks like in practice at 3 common aftercare touchpoints.
When you call a family 30, 60, or 90 days after the service, the purpose is to see how they are doing. Listen to what they share. If a family member mentions that the loss made them think about their own planning, that is a natural opening. The same is true whether they express gratitude for having a plan or regret not having one.
If a family seems hesitant, it is worth mentioning that preplanning doesn't mean prefunding. It is simply a conversation about what matters to them, with no financial commitment required. Let the family's words guide you, not a script.
The practical side of settling an estate – handling death certificates, closing accounts, and navigating legalities – is often when the weight of a missing plan becomes most apparent. When a family is in the middle of this logistical heavy lifting, they are naturally looking for ways to simplify the process for the next generation.
Within your resource library, a brief mention of preplanning serves as a helpful tool rather than a sales pitch. You can include educational materials that explain how documenting wishes now can eliminate these specific logistical hurdles for their own children later.
By providing this information alongside other practical resources, you give the family permission to explore the idea on their own terms while they are already focused on getting their affairs in order.
Remembrance events and community gatherings bring aftercare families back to your funeral home in a relaxed, low-pressure setting. You don't need to turn these into preneed presentations. Instead, you can make educational preplanning materials available for families to take home or mention upcoming seminars.
All you have to do is be present and available. When families are ready to ask questions, they will come to you because you have consistently shown up for them.
The common thread across all 3 aftercare touchpoints is that care comes first. The preneed conversation follows naturally if and when the family is ready.
Building trust with families takes time, consistency, and genuine care. Your aftercare program is already doing that work. The opportunity isn't to overhaul what you are doing. It is to recognize that the families you are already caring for are often the ones most ready to plan ahead.
When you connect your aftercare program to your preneed strategy, you are completing a cycle of care from first contact to long-term support and back again. You are not adding a sales layer to something sacred. You are making sure the families who know you best also know you can help them take the next step whenever they are ready.
At Funeral Directors Life, we help funeral homes connect every part of their business, including preneed, marketing, and aftercare. The goal is a strategy that serves families and supports your funeral home's future.
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Drew graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Business Administration and began his employment in FDL's active sales program, selling over $1 million in preneed volume in his first year with the company. Within 2 years, he transitioned into Sales Operations, where he served as Vice President of Sales Operations until his promotion to Chief Marketing Officer. Drew is committed to growing FDL's service options, serving funeral home clients in the best, most-respected way, and providing valuable information to families