Microsite Management Tool

Branded Microsite Management & Development

There are many reasons to consider moving some of your web site products and services and giving them their own site.  A microsite gives you the opportunity to break away from your corporate brand, which may or may not is restricting the growth of one of your products or services.  For example, A university might be launching a new master program.

This action allows you to communicate with your target audience.  This target audience is more likely to respond if the website seems relevant to them in terms of graphic design and content. Defining your microsite as a specialist will establish the microsite as an expert.  Highly targeted visitors arrive at your site they will be presented with exactly what they want.  The entire site can be geared towards a single call to action.

By displaying a site with many different products provides too much detail that the visitors will get lost.  A microsite offers the freedom to go into more details, like specifications, features and benefits.  A great example is Amazon.com where you could get lost looking for what you want. Microsites address the overcrowding issue offering visitors a clear choice and obvious path through your site from initial landing to a call to action.  If it takes a website visitor longer than 6 seconds to find what they are looking for the chances are 1 in 2 they will leave your site.

Google likes microsite if you use a domain name with relevant keywords in it and a site which is highly focused around a particular product. A microsite can be created for mail campaigns as a landing point, specifically designed for the offer and reflecting the branding, design of the printed piece to aid the transition from one media type to another. Using analytics it is possible to track the performance of the campaign.  Microsite with web statistics will give a lot of valuable insight into the effectiveness of any campaign.

Remember 45% of website visitors will only look at the home page. So if you do not capture them on the home page they are lost.

Microsite Online Book Store

Microsite management tool allows online book store to offer their products via branded university microsites, thus expanding their online presence and market penetration. Two characteristics that define the look of the microsite:

• Company primary website branding is featured prominently
• Microsite branding and content are displayed secondary

The universities are able to utilize the client’s vast book inventory and offer their student an intuitive easy-to-use interface to find their course-required books. The branded microsite should be marketed and branded to focus attention on the specific product or service being offered in the branded microsite. If marketing efforts for the microsite are successful, the parent company will receive natural exposure through the success of the branded microsite, making the company branding important in the actual design.

MVI has developed a robust site management tool that allows the administrators to upload an HTML file template to generate the virtual bookstore. They can then manage the semesters and review material categories that should display on the microsite as well as the books and merchandise that are to appear.  If a separate domain name is used for the microsite, the similarities between the company’s primary website and the branded microsite reduce the marketing experience.  The branded microsite does not require any unique branding, allowing MVI to create a secondary page as part of the primary website.

The management tool also allows the administrators to set shipping rates and discount offers for each virtual bookstore.  This programming enables the microsite to become a landing page for a specific promotion or pay-per-click campaign. The landing page would direct the user to the primary checkout page, performing as a primary source as a call-to-action. The company branding is still existing but minimal, possibly as a subscription form on the page.

Since this initial project in 2004 we have created a branded microsite for retail travel agency use, tickets sales, auto leasing, boat trailers rental and auto renting. Site branding is a focused approach that is inexpensive but includes their logo, contact information, about us page, office hours, professional affiliations and consumer contact forms are directed to the main site.

MVI created a co-branded microsite for retail travel agency use.  Site branding is focused on the travel agent or agency and includes their logo, contact information, about us page, office hours, professional affiliations and all consumer contact forms are directed to the travel professional.