Batesville Launches its ObitLink Service, Linking Funeral Home Websites with the Largest Online Newspaper Obituary Network in North America

BATESVILLE, Ind., Jan. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Batesville Casket Company, the leader in the funeral service industry, launched its ObitLink online obituary offering today giving funeral homes access to the largest nationally networked obituary system.  

Batesville's ObitLink was developed through a partnership with Legacy.com, whose network of 900-plus newspaper obituary sites is the most popular online destination for obituary information. With more than 14 million visitors each month and obituaries for 70 percent of the people who die in the United States each day, Legacy.com is among the 100 most visited Web sites on the Internet.

By establishing an interactive connection between the funeral home website and this national obituary network, ObitLink increases the visibility and impact of the funeral home's online presence. ObitLink helps generate increased online obituary traffic to the funeral home websites and puts funeral homes more front and center in the obituary process. "With nearly 60 percent of all consumers consulting the Internet when they make a major life decision nowadays, we want Internet consumers to form relationships directly with funeral homes through their websites," notes Troy Brake, general manager for Batesville Interactive.

ObitLink offers families better access to obituary information on the Internet, and provides opportunities to use the robust multimedia features of the web to enhance the way that they memorialize their loved ones.  With the Internet, families have a greater opportunity create vivid, meaningful memorials for their loved ones and to share those online tributes with others living around the world.

In addition to offering online obituaries with national exposure, ObitLink provides funeral homes with opportunities to create additional revenue. Two additional online memorialization packages are available for funeral homes to offer to families. These packages offer advanced memorialization options that take full advantage of the latest Web technology, including a memorial website with the ability for visitors to interact through posted comments, pictures, video and music. Families even get a professionally printed and bound book as a keepsake of all of the information shared on their memorial site.

ObitLink is a part of Batesville's new ConnectivitySuite, a group of modular, web-enabled products aimed at connecting funeral homes to the families and communities they serve in new and innovative ways. Other ConnectivitySuite offerings include WebLink funeral home websites and TributeLink™ online video tributes. Each of these affordable products utilizes web technologies that can be easily implemented into the funeral home's operations with minimal infrastructure and training.  To learn more about ObitLink or any of Batesville's Connectivity Suite, funeral homes can visit www.batesville.com/connectivity or call Batesville at 877.287.8661.

ABOUT BATESVILLE

Batesville Casket Company (www.Batesville.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hillenbrand, Inc. (NYSE: HI) is a leader in the North American death care industry through the sale of funeral services products, including burial caskets, cremation caskets, containers and urns, selection room display fixturing, technology solutions, and other personalization and memorialization products. For more than 125 years, Batesville has been dedicated to helping families honor the lives of those they love. Our history of manufacturing excellence, product innovation, superior customer service and reliable delivery has helped us become – and remain – a market leader.

ABOUT LEGACY.COM

Founded in 1998, Legacy.com (www.Legacy.com) is the world's most timely and comprehensive resource for online obituaries and the undisputed leader in Web-based memorialization. The Legacy.com domain is among the 100 most visited on the Internet, according to comScore, and includes a network of more than 900 newspapers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia. By making interactive memorial content accessible directly via the websites of newspapers and funeral homes, Legacy.com helps a fast-growing number of people expand the ways in which they can express condolences and share remembrances of loved ones. A privately held company, Legacy.com is headquartered in Evanston, Ill.

SOURCE Batesville Casket Company