All of this raises the question: Why are memorials so important? The answer is simple, according to Robin Heppell, an advertising consultant: Social networking sites attract a lot of people.
For example, consider Monique Heller, who dies to his father, which includes how he prevented “lunch thieves and laxative-laced chocolate cake and dung-eating sandwiches,” circulated in 2019. Local newspapers reported on his father’s well-known story, National Public Radio contacted him, and his father’s name was briefly identified. on Twitter. “I was like a sacred cow, Dad, you know, you did,” he says.
Death sites like Heller’s have magnetic field. By 2020, SCI pages attracted nearly 160 million visitors, up from 130 million in 2019, according to its Securities and Exchange Commission report. Some urban funeral sites attract more than a million visitors a year, says Heppell, who also develops and manages funeral homes. In small newspapers, the death toll doubles as much as in the news section, according to John Heald, chief of Legacy.com, a company that collaborates with the press to disseminate information on the dead. he said at a podcast in July.
These cars make money. Leclerc says Echovita made $ 5 million in 2020. The company takes commissions on flower sales, candles, and souvenirs, he says. As of 2018, he is said to have reimbursed more than $ 1 million from Echovita into a new business venture Funerago, which they see as an online funeral market. “I want to use technology to disrupt the business,” he says.
Social networking sites can attract investors with deep pockets. Heppell, a commercial consultant and creator of the funeral website, says Providence Strategic Growth, a private financial fund, approached him in 2018 to find his business. When the discussion turned to the value of the business, it is said that the fund’s attorney asked him how many notes were placed on the pages he had completed. “Their account of the business was based on the word of death,” he concluded. Heppell later ended the negotiations with Providence.
At the time, Providence owned Tribute Technology, which provides professional funeral home care, including website design and management. In late 2020, Providence sold Tribute Technology to two other specialty companies, Carlyle Group and Vista Equity Partners, is said to be worth more than $ 1 billion. Providence was not reached for comment.
On his website, Says Tribute Technology, “changing the world at the same time.” To gain access to these places, one of its sections offers a free home page for funerals, according to Heppell. Brian Waters, Indiana funeral director, says his family’s business received his page for free from the Tribute company. In exchange, Waters claims that the Tribute deducts 50 percent of the total amount of flowers sold along with his funeral home and the large amount of souvenir prices sold at his funeral home. Next, it compiles the manuscript published in a central barn. A Tribute spokesman declined to comment.
The rise in Tribute has forced Legacy.com, which has been at risk of dying online for more than two decades; the site receives 1.1 billion visits annually, according to Stopher Bartol, Legacy founder and CEO. Since 1998, Legacy.com has partnered with newspapers to gain access to the words they publish. In 2017, Legacy.com The Vice President told Cnet that the company publishes a death toll of 75 percent of Americans who die. In the same year, Legacy.com said Slate that it was associated with 1,500 newspapers and 3,500 funeral homes. Legacy says the numbers are still “representative” but declined to comment on the matter. Recently, the company has shifted its focus to funeral homes, Heald said in a July podcast. It has also started selling souvenir prices, according to the Arbor Day Foundation, Bartol says.
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