Feature: Microsites

Sales promotion typically requires two way communication between the consumer and brand. The internet provides a media that is ideal for this relationship and microsites in particular are changing the way in which promotions are built.

The rapid expansion of broadband means graphic rich data and a channel that allows the consumer to act and engage is readily available to most people at home and work. Whether it’s in the format of entering a competition or downloading a voucher, it is no surprise that if you scroll through an archive of last years award winning promotions, most will have used the internet in some way.

Microsites provide a brand with a dedicated site that is tailored for a specific promotion. Often forming the core of a campaign it may act as an information tool, explaining the mechanic of a competition and how to improve the chance of winning. It can also give answers to frequently asked questions and features of a prize. A good microsite can also provide the facility to capture data and build demographics of customers, all of which now comes in standard software that is available.

Ray Welsh, Head of Sales and Marketing at Mailtrack, who provide digital marketing techniques explains: ”While email is a notification tool, the amount of information contained that is actually read by the receiver is low. Also it is often the case that we all receive too many emails, even the ones we have opted- in to, so we rarely study every one of them from top to bottom. However if the information contained in the email is relevant, then the receiver can click through to a promotion specific microsite, where all the information and the full experience promised by the email is on offer.

As well as containing large amounts of information, another advantage of a microsite is the amount of measurability available. When used in conjunction with email, reporting the whole process from sending the email through to the number of re-visits made to the microsite becomes possible. Providing the marketer with highly valuable information.

Companies are not now only using email to drive people to a microsite. Instead offline, TV, on-pack, banner advertising and SMS are also used. Microsites have become the single point of focus for multi-channel campaigns and the growth in the use of microsites will be exponential."

As the industry embraces digital media, more agencies are having to adapt and offer an in-house team of experts to provide tools such as microsites.

However, not all agencies sit comfortably with digital, some of the larger or more specialist companies will of course, but for smaller agencies, it can be costly to establish or will have to be outsourced.

For those that have the expertise to construct a microsite it has become easier. They are built using established web technologies, both financial and time costs, are not prohibitively high any more. A three page microsite with rich graphical content and some data capture would take less than a week to set-up. More sophisticated sites will obviously take longer and cost more, however a good microsite will cost less than other forms of promotion and the ROI can be significantly higher.