Is there an end coming to the use of Microsites? Just think of the time and resources dedicated to generating a decent microsite, and then think of how fast people forget. I can think of a couple decent examples in the past that gained some viral traction, but not many. I must admit, I have been a big fan of microsites, but I am beginning to question myself as I have seen some good rich media ads that can act as a microsite and drive traffic back to the corporate domain. Some argue they are great for branding, I argue people forget the one off domains and remember corporate domains much more. If there is something compelling on the corporate site, there is nothing wrong with that, corporate sites can have fun too.
Ads now have the ability to collect email addresses, do commerce, and promote contests that microsites used to be vital for. If a company truly needs a microsite, think about hosting on the corporate domain and dedicating a small amount of real estate on the home page to drive traffic to the “site”. An average TV viewer has a better chance at remembering a corporate domain, than some randomly generated domain just for the campaign. Don’t just go building a microsite because that is what was done in the past. I ask people to stop and think about what the lifespan of the microsite will be and what they will need to do to keep the campaign alive.
Instead, look at spending money on a quality rich media campaign with all the functionality of a microsite in the ad itself. Once the campaign is over, you can pull ad. You can also design pages on MySpace and Facebook if the audience is right to support the campaign, once again, much less expensive than a microsite. Marketers have so many technologies available to them now, but they must know what to use and when.
Tags: Microsite, multi-channel, Rich media
