Friday, July 9, 2010

Five best uses for a microsite

[caption id="attachment_916" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Simonds International Microsite, www.neveryieldtosteel.com"][/caption]

Why develop a microsite when you already have a corporate site? There are a number of situations in which a microsite can be an unbeatable marketing tool. Here are five best uses for a microsite:

1-You are running a specialized promotion or contest. Examples may include: an offer that you're making in specific geographic regions and/or to specialized market segments. For example, one of our clients created a B2B promotion for just a few southern cities in which sales had been lagging. All sales and marketing outreach led small business owners from these cities to a microsite that offered business tips and allowed firms to compete for regional recognition... all while promoting our client's best products for small businesses.

2-You have a new Web application or service that deserves its own Web presence. Examples include: training, certification, relevant calculators, product life cycle assessments, competitive comparisons, product specification/product selectors/e-commerce, or specialized product catalogs. The sky is the limit here!

3-You are running a specific advertising/marketing campaign and want to test its success in bringing respondents to your landing page - a microsite allows you not only to track responses but also to continue the conversation or even clinch the sale on the spot.

4-You want to communicate actively with customers and prospects, creating a special place for them to speak or be recognized, through vehicles such as customer-focused case studies, awards, testimonials, Q & A, real-time communications, or other personalized content that develops and sustains relationships between your firm and your customers.

5-You want to entertain, engage or inform customers and prospects on a site that does not overtly promote your products, brand or services as the main corporate site may do. However, consider that you need to plan to "hook" these prospects at some point, so some (even subtle) branding and a link to your main company site are often in order; this is also an important consideration for search engine optimization (SEO).

Your thoughts and experiences? We'd enjoy learning from you.

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