On November 4, 2013, MormonThink put up its first billboard. It was off of I-15 just south of Salt Lake City between 33 South and 45 South. It's on the left side of the road. It was up for seven weeks until December 22, 2013. Future billboards will be advertised as we obtain the funding.
This was the result of several readers asking for a billboard in the Utah area to help advertise the site. We thank all those that contributed the funds as well as those that designed the sign and made the arrangements with the advertisers.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the First Presidency said in the Oct 2013 General Conference, "We respect those who honestly search for truth.” MormonThink agrees with that and invites all members to explore Mormonism's fascinating history in detail from all sources. MormonThink discusses little-known historical details of Mormon history and provides information and links to both critics and faithful defenders of Mormonism so the readers can study information from all sides. We are the largest website on LDS history that provides resources from all viewpoints to help those honestly searching for truth. You might just learn something new and interesting from reading some Mormon history on our site that you may not have been taught in Sunday School.
The billboard caused a significant up tick in traffic. Hits to the MormonThink.com site increased 2.5 times in the first week it was up compared to the days preceding the billboard. It sustained higher than normal traffic throughout its run compared to the weeks prior to the billboard. November '13 was one of the best months of the year at 2.3M hits.
MormonThink continues to increase in traffic every year. The start of 2013 was averaging 1.5M hits but grew each month thanks to the billboard and some significant news stories in 2013. For all of 2013, traffic averaged 2 Million hits per month with almost 23.2 Million hits for all of 2013. Months with big news stories get higher traffic with almost 3M hits being our highest in September 2012 when the Church called a church court on a former MormonThink editor then cancelled it a few weeks later after all the publicity it received.
Also, we believe that the billboard hastened the Church's efforts in releasing several essays on troubling issues in Church history. We were informed that the essays were originally planned to be released in early 2014 but they started doing them in 2013 soon after the billboard went up.
Also, emails to the site picked up. We talked to one member on the phone who said she was so grateful to MormonThink for this information. She has been an active Latter-day Saint for 35 years and never knew about any of this stuff until she saw the billboard and spent two hours reading about LDS Church history that she was never taught in church. How great will be your joy if you bring but one person to the truth? This billboard helped bring many members to a greater understanding of LDS Church history.
We look forward to putting up more billboards in the future as we get the funding.
MormonThink Pass-It-On Cards created in the style of our billboard can be downloaded from that link and then printed from your own computer. Templates are available for professional online printing requirements. Also, Print-your-own QR code sticker templates can be downloaded there.
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