New cemetery sales strategy: if you have fun there now, maybe you'll decide to reside there later on.

If you didn't think of graveyards as places to party--think again.

It's not entirely a new idea, but the concept of using cemeteries for the enjoyment of the living instead of just a resting place for the departed is a novel idea to many people today.  That they are more and more being used as places for concerts, picnics, parties, weddings [yes, weddings!] and other kinds of public events is disturbing to many people.  

The planned use of graveyards for the living, however, is growing in popularity among owners and operators for two reasons:  first, fees from cemetery events provide a new revenue source and, second, it represents an opportunity to expose a generation of people increasingly exercising the option of cremation instead of burial at death to see the possibilities of being buried in beautiful, serene surroundings.  

Hey, wanna be entertained in the old burial ground this evening?

Cemetery operators are fundamentally seeking to reverse a trend away from traditional burial and gain receptivity of those yet to die to come to think they might want to have their remains placed in places they are not that familiar with and, in the case of most individuals, down-right apprehensive of.  Today's Wall Street Journal ran an article on this new development, "To attract future customers, cemeteries hold parties to die for."  

Clearly, it's a new "product," i.e., finding new uses for cemeteries.  The problem with the concept is what's being proposed--no,make that practiced now in many locales--is, in the abstract at least, perfectly compatible with the alternate-use role but--and this is the important part of the point--incompatible with mind-set of the very patrons targeted; in other words, many people find it a creepy-to-sacrilegious idea. 

Try to change buyers' behavior at your own commercial peril.

It's a fascinating story, for it makes perfect sense--and then again it doesn't make perfect sense.  In marketing there is a truism that in effect says that trying to be successful in business by changing the way people are inclined to behave normally is to flirt with commercial risk.  Turing graveyards into playgrounds might very well the ultimate test of that notion.  
_______________________________________________________________

Follow Keith's biz blog on Twitter for updates and see more of what he's reading about on his Facebook Page.