SPOTTED program helps boost weekend page views

Sean asked me to share this internal memo with you all:

Just a quick note to let you know the results of our new SPOTTED! program.

What is SPOTTED?

SPOTTED! is a marketing program to drive page views to our online photo galleries. We create event-specific galleries, go to the events, take pictures of the people in the crowd, hand them a business card with the tagline “You’ve been SPOTTED!” and the address of where the gallery is located online (http://www.poconorecord.com/spotted), and then on the same day upload the photos to the gallery. We promote the galleries on the homepage and yesterday (Sunday, March 19) there was a great promo on the front page of the newspaper letting people know we would be at the parade taking pictures.

Did it work?

Yes and No.

Our first event was the Chamber’s Business Expo on Wednesday and Thursday of last week. The first Expo gallery got a total of 1,609 page views which isn’t great when compared to our Pet Photo gallery (6,311 in March to date) and the Highrise Tragedy (8,286). The Expo on Thursday gallery got a little more (1,959).

BUT – yesterday’s St. Patrick’s Day parade got 2,928 page views YESTERDAY. That means on our slowest traffic day of the week, we boosted page views by 2,928. Moreover, the 80 photos were posted between 5 and 6 p.m. immediately after the parade so those page views came after 6 p.m. on a Sunday! That’s huge.

There’s more – between that last report of 2,928 page views (3 a.m. this morning) and now, we clocked another 2,256 page views for a grand total of 5,184 in the first 16 hours or so of the gallery’s creation.

The bottom line for Sunday: We doubled overall page views compared to previous Sunday page views (50,000 yesterday compared to 25,842 the previous Sunday).

Online Editors note: We used the photo gallery tool available in SAXoTECH to create these galleries. No extra cost except for the staff time to take and upload the photos. The SPOTTED! cards we hand out at the event cost less than $40 for 500 and we buy them online at VistaPrint.com.