Content marketing offers many helpful tools for promoting individual campaigns, products, or promotions. These include individual social media channels, blogs integrated into websites, landing pages, and even microsites.
These are websites with reduced content and structure designed to promote advertising campaigns and individual products. The first sites of this kind were launched at the beginning of the millennium because the main sites and homepages proved to be too inflexible for specific measures and it would have been too costly to redesign existing websites.
They have now firmly established themselves in content marketing!
How can you optimize your content marketing in 2019 by using a microsite? What does the definition of a microsite say about its design, structure, and content? And what advantages does it have over other formats, such as a landing page? We'll reveal all in this article.
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Fact check: What you need to know if you want to create a microsite
There are several factors that define a microsite. For example, microsites are often launched as additional websites to the actual company homepage.
Care is taken to ensure that the design and content are consistent with the actual website. Nevertheless, a microsite also stands and functions independently of the website and is characterized by very minimalist functionality. It has few subpages and flat navigation levels.
It is usually used exclusively to present and deal with a specific topic, product, or campaign.
The primary purpose of a microsite is lead generation!
Such mini-sites are usually launched with their own domain, but they often run on a subdomain. This is how companies try to lend their microsites credibility and establish a concrete link to their actual website.
What else you need to know before launching your own microsite in 2019:
- A microsite is not a landing page!
- The advantages of a microsite.
- What disadvantages it may have.
- And what elements a microsite absolutely needs.
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What is the difference between a microsite and a landing page?
It cannot be denied that there is some overlap in the purpose or scope of microsites and landing pages.
- Both can be used to promote specific campaigns or individual products and services independently.
- None of them can be accessed via the navigation menu on the company's homepage.
- Both feature a sleeker design than the main page.
- And both can, but do not have to, be online only for the duration of a campaign.
Nevertheless, there are also significant differences between the two mini websites:
<span id="test" class="kool-class";" fs-test-element="test"><table class="customTable">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Microsite</th>
<th>Landing Page</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Hat Unterseiten, aber keine tiefe Navigationsstruktur.</td><td>Besteht aus 1 einzigen Seite.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Sind immer von der Hauptwebsite ausgelagert.</td><td>Ist in der Regel in Unternehmenswebsite integriert.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Individuelle Domains ähnlich wie DeinBrandMicrosite.de oder www.DeineKampagneMicrosite.de.</td><td>Meist URLs wie www.DeineDomain.de/LandingPage oder LandingPage.DeineDomain.de.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Dient der Leadgenerierung und Bereitstellung von Informationen zu einem Produkt oder einer Kampagne.</td><td>Dient üblicher Weise als Call-to-Action oder Registrierungsportal.</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Kann zum Content Marketing rund um das promotete Produkt oder die Kampagnen eingesetzt werden.</td><td>Bewirbt meist Angebote wie Produkttests, Downloads, Webinare oder Erstellung individueller Angebote.</td></tr>
</tbody>
</tr>
</table>
</span>
Whether a landing page or a microsite is more suitable for your content marketing depends on your goal and your product. To help you figure this out, we will devote a separate paragraph to this question below.
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What are the advantages of a microsite?
A microsite allows you to completely outsource the promotion of a product and separate it from the company website both visually, in terms of design, and thematically.
Because a microsite can be accessed via an independent URL, it can be designed to be very target group-oriented. Since it offers more space than a landing page, for example, it is even possible to integrate shops there or to launch the product advertised on the microsite as a separate brand.
This allows microsites to be used to market products and services that, for various reasons, should not be associated with the manufacturing company. This may be because they differ greatly from the usual product range or because a new target group is to be tapped that is not interested in the other products.
The information on a microsite is less related to the manufacturer and more to the product being advertised. It is therefore more concentrated and keeps the user's focus on the campaign.
In marketing, microsites are veritable playgrounds that can also be used for market research, for example by testing designs, functions, and target group reactions.
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What are the potential disadvantages of microsites?
Due to the company-independent domain of a microsite, users do not immediately understand the connection between the manufacturer and the product. In some cases, this is a desirable outcome...
... in other cases, however, it could confuse the target audience, causing them to become skeptical and question the credibility of a product promoted via a microsite.
Another pitfall lies in the positioning of the microsite in the SERPs. Under certain circumstances, it may rank higher than the website of the company behind the campaign or product.
Then the microsite would be the bigger traffic generator, which means it would take traffic away from the homepage and, moreover, fail in its purpose as a lead generator.
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What makes a microsite?
The microsite definition already reveals the most essential components of a minipage.
First and foremost, it requires an individual URL and a design tailored to the advertised product. The content and information provided must focus exclusively on the promoted item, which is treated as a separate brand.
Last but not least, although subpages are common and desirable on a microsite, the navigation hierarchy should remain very flat and not go too deep.
Examples of good microsites include
- Facebook's business page: https://www.facebook.com/business,
- Red Bull's goal-oriented mini-site: https://www.redbull.com/us-en/theredbulletin
- or Zach Golden's promotional page for his cookbook: http://whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com.
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Which is better: a microsite or a landing page?
There are certain differences between microsites and landing pages. Once you understand what these are, you can decide on the best solution for your goal and your campaign.
Are you still building your brand awareness, or would you like to improve your users' interaction rate and their customer experience with your product?
Then a microsite offers you the right opportunities to engage in targeted content marketing.
With a landing page, you don't provide immediate information, but offer users (often in exchange for their contact details or even payment) what they want: to register for a webinar, download a white paper, or test a product.
Both website variants are effective tools in content marketing, but they pursue different goals and address different target groups.
The decision for or against a microsite is therefore the answer to the question of what goals you are pursuing.
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How you can use a microsite for your content marketing in 2019?
Are you planning a product launch or a special campaign in 2019? Then take advantage of the opportunities a microsite offers for your marketing activities. However, don't view it as a platform for your general content marketing strategies, but exclusively for marketing this one specific campaign.
The content on your microsite should focus on information about the product or brand. Optionally, you can create a link to your actual company website by using a design based on your corporate design, or you can leave the page online for a limited time only.
Domino's Pizza did the same thing in the US in 2015: to launch a special pizza delivery car with an integrated warming oven, the international pizza service launched an interactive microsite.
As user interest in the innovation slowly waned, the site was taken offline.
Everything else you need to know to get the most out of your microsite is taught in our Academy. With just one click, you can become a microsite expert in just 6 weeks.
