I often have calls with potential clients and they say, “We’d
like to create a Microsite”. After
asking several questions about the purpose it becomes clear that they are
really looking for a new section or a few new pages added to the existing website. It seems that microsite has become sort of a
meaningless buzz word. Same with a “viral
site” (but that’s another subject). Everyone
wants one but they don’t really know why.
Perhaps it’s just a misunderstanding of the word but here is an attempt to
help clarify.
There are several reasons why a brand might benefit from
using a microsite versus integrating the content and information into their
current website.
- The look & feel or
voice is different from the overall brand site.
- Information is going to
live for a short amount of time and needs to be taken down
- You want the user to focus
on one specific topic or product and not be distracted by other
information and navigate to other sections of your site.
- Targeting a specific
segment of your audience
Creating a microsite for one of the above reasons is a great
idea. They definitely have their purpose
and can be great ways to market to individuals. Just because you want a particular URL name
doesn’t mean it has to be a microsite.
Offline advertising can give a URL and have that redirect to the actual
page within the site.