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Media Technology Update

BenefitsPro.com Portal Launches

BenefitsPro.com

Another month, another new launch for the Media Division. BenefitsPro.com launched as our newest portal in the benefits space. Where other portals have combined multiple magazine sites into one, this site has taken BenefitsSellingMag.com, expanded the audience and integrated FreeERISA into the site as well. In addition to reaching the benefits sellers, we're now targeting content for benefits managers and retirement advisors.

The first day saw over 2500 visits and 6300 page views…triple the average for weekdays so far this year. The first full week saw almost 50,000 page views and 17,500 visitors. The first two months of this year averaged 44,500 page views and 12,500 visitors. Please check out BenefitsPro.com, and let us know what you think.

Tech Department Updates

We're excited to have Stacey Price on the Tech Team as our new Web Producer. Stacey will be doing production work on all of the Media Division sites, as well as taking over creation of the newsletters that our department handles. Stacey reports to Amanda and is working out of the Erlanger office. She can be reached at [email protected], 859-692-2165 (ext 2165). If you are in the Erlanger office, Stacey can be found in the cubicle between Brendan and Adrienne. Please join us in welcoming Stacey to the team.

In addition, congratulations to Adrienne Baker and Brendan Rice on their recent promotions. Brendan has been promoted to the position of Front-End Developer, where he will be responsible for maintaining and developing the front-end for all the sites on the open source platform. Adrienne has been promoted to Web Designer and will play a lead role in design projects managed by our group, as well as focusing on the design and user experience of the sites over time.

Coming soon:

Re-launch of TreasuryandRisk.com, coming to the new platform in April

Followed closely by InsideCounsel.com coming to the new platform in May

Feature Focus: Dashboard Primer

Many of you are familiar with the Dashboard reports that we produce each month to track the key performance indicators on each of the sites. But some people aren't as familiar with these reports, or maybe you track one part of it but not all. So I thought the time might be ripe for a quick primer.

The dashboard reports are located on the Summit Portal in the Report Center (select the Media Division Dashboard Reports to see a folder for each site).

The Web tab shows key stats on the site's web traffic, along with a comparison to the goals that we've set for the year. In addition to the page views, unique visitors, and total visits, we calculate the average visits per visitor and the average pages viewed per visit. An upward trend on those two stats indicates that we're improving the engagement of the visitors to the site (they are coming back more and looking at more pages when they are there). This tab also shows the percentage of traffic that comes from each source: Direct (people visiting via emails, bookmarks, or just going directly to the site), Search (Google and Bing primarily) or Referring Traffic (links from other sites to our sites).

The Email tab gives top line stats on each of the newsletters associated with a website. You'll see the quantity mailed, as well as the percentages of people opening the enews and clicking on them (again, compared against our goals).

The Length, Depth, and Loyalty tabs give detailed information on how long the visitors stay on the site, how many pages people visit when they're on the site, and trends on how often people come back to the site in a month.

Social Media gives details on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (likes, followers, etc), as well as links to our accounts on each of these sites. In addition, you can see how many pages are indexed on Google.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the data we have on our websites and newsletters, and I encourage particularly the editors and marketing people to become familiar with the stats and the trends on your products. If you have access to Google Analytics, spend time poking around. Click through the different sections and see what you can learn. We're all busy, but spending time learning about the analytics on your sites may help you identify positive trends that we can look to repeat.

If questions, please let Amanda, Rob, Michelle or Erin know, and we can discuss with you in more detail.

Around the Web

Each month, we'll bring you highlights of what we're reading to expand our knowledge of all things online.

The 8 Most Greatest Tips to Write Unstoppably Killer Headlines Guide Ever — seriously…with a headline like that, how can you resist?

How to Drive Traffic with Repeat Tweets

You are what you read

The Difference Between Web Reporting and Web Analysis

Getting Creative Things Done — Ok, so this isn't exactly a technology/web article. But I know a lot of us have (or should have) big idea projects that we need to work on…but we struggle to find the time. Some ideas for how you might fit in more time to do "big picture thinking".

What are you reading about the web that you'd like to share? Drop Amanda an email and you might see your link in the next edition.

Project Pipeline

View the Project Pipeline

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