Social Media Tools Get a Facelift
Introducing a New Social Media Toolbar to Optimize Traffic to Newspaper Websites
We're excited to announce the launch of our new "social bar," a transformed social media tool that resides on newspaper obituary pages. This updated feature is designed to optimize social sharing with readers and drive traffic to your website. The social bar seamlessly follows readers as they scroll through obituary and Guest Book pages including options for sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and through email.
We've also incorporated our My Memorials Facebook app into the social bar by allowing users to log in to Facebook and "remember" obituaries that are important to them. With this new integration, users can see snapshots of their recent activity, as well as their friends' activity, without ever leaving the obituary and Guest Book pages. At the same time, the users' My Memorials activity will appear in their Facebook friends' news feeds with a direct link to the obituary and/or Guest Book, driving traffic to your website.
The new social bar has been rolled out across our affiliate network. We hope you're as excited about this new feature as we are. |
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Newspaper Obits Drive Traffic to Funeral Home Websites
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In our ongoing effort to strengthen the relationship between funeral homes and newspapers, we recently commissioned a study on the subject and shared the results with the funeral home industry. The study showed that obituaries on funeral home websites receive five times more traffic when they are also published in a newspaper. Obituaries placed on funeral home websites alone - without any newspaper presence - drew relatively little attention.
For the 16,746 obituaries placed on a funeral home website only, the average number of views per obituary was 63. Another 16,438 obituaries were placed on a funeral home website as well as in a newspaper's print edition and on the newspaper's website. The average number of views to these obituaries on the funeral home website alone was 329. In a press release we distributed to several funeral home publications, our chief marketing officer, John Bikus, was quoted saying, "It makes sense that newspaper websites, with more than 20 million monthly unique visitors to online obituaries, help drive a significant amount of traffic to funeral home websites. "By working together online, newspapers and funeral homes can ensure one of the most important needs of most families is met - broad distribution and timely notification of a death to friends and family," Bikus added, noting that newspapers continue to be the single most requested source of obituary distribution by families. |
The Obit Report
Encourages Longer Visits
Visitors to your obit page stay longer when they click on one of our Obit Report stories - the average time for a visit to an Obit Report page is 86 seconds. That's in comparison to the Internet average of just 33 seconds per page visit!
Not only do readers stick around on your site when they read the Obit Report - they click through to your obituaries, too. In May, 25% of our Obit Report stories were about "everyday folks," not celebrities, with links directly to newspaper obituaries. These stories resonate with readers, who click on newspaper obit links to learn more about inspirational lives.
Stories drawn from the obituary pages, like "Don't Hold Back (She Never Did)," "Brief Life Raises Awareness" and "Best Dads and Playmates," catch and keep the attention of page visitors. So do our celebrity profiles - recent favorites include Dean Martin, Levi Stubbs and Rita Hayworth. |
 Legacy Toolkit
Tips for making the most of your obituary section
ObitNetwork Advertiser Tile Ads Drive Traffic to Funeral Home Sites Boost revenue and drive traffic to your funeral home websites with targeted title ads. Take advantage of this method to improve relationship with local funeral homes: 1. Increase funeral home site traffic. Funeral homes receive a 300x100 tile ad next to each online obituary from their funeral home. The tile ad contains the name of the deceased with a call to action to visit the funeral home site for more information. Funeral homes gain more traffic, while visits to online newspaper obituaries remain strong. 2. Flexible revenue strategies let you decide how to bundle the advertising package and how much to charge funeral homes. 3. Legacy.com can do the legwork. We'll provide sales materials if you wish to handle sales, or you can send us a list of local funeral homes and let us do the work. 4. Bundle ObitNetwork Advertiser with other online components to create a more valuable online advertising solution and generate more incremental revenue from the
product. For more information or to get started with ObitNetwork Advertiser, contact marketing@legacy.com. |
