What is a microsite and how can it help me with my marketing campaigns? You can use a CUQuickSite to create a microsite to effectively market your credit union, products, services and events.

What is a microsite?

A microsite (sometimes known as a minisite) generally refers to a small website that is the off-shoot of your credit union website. It is considered a separate entity as it may present different information and even have a different URL. So for example, a credit union will have its main website but when they have a special promotion or event, they will create a microsite with specific information on it. This would normally be linked to the credit unions home page when specific information is requested.

When to use a microsite?

You should use a microsite when you want to distinguish a campaign, product or promotion differently from the rest of your marketing efforts. Build a microsite when you are trying to speak to a unique audience (youth marketing, latino marketing, SEG marketing) with different messaging than the rest of your website.

Here are a few credit union-related examples of good uses of microsites.

• A Youth Campaign – If you want to inform your youth members or non-members about a campaign or special promotion that requires a hard upfront sell that can not be effectively accomplished on your credit union home page. A youth oriented credit union campaign microsite can include videos, picture galleries, chat rooms, games and links to forms, online banking or pre-approval services.
• Second Language Campaign – Are you planning a bilingual campaign? Do you want to see if your current Latino membership is interested in a Spanish language site? With CUQuickSites you can create a small web presence in the language of your choice to "test the waters" before investing in the expense of converting all your marketing to bi-lingual.
• Direct Mail Marketing Campaign Tracking – Want to separate your tracking on a specific campaign? A microsite with full site traffic analytics to your next campaign. This way you can separate your regular site traffic from your marketing traffic. With the added bonus of reinforcing the marketing pieces with a marketing focused and conversion oriented site - you will watch your campaign succeed! 
• An Employment Campaign or Human Resources Service – If you are trying to attract new talent or hire new staff, a microsite may be a good place to outline your credit union as an excellent plce to work. This site can also be password protected for employees that are looking for documents, phone numbers and other information normally directed by the HR department. A small investment in this type f microsite can save your HR department much time and effort (and money!).

How should it look?

A microsite should look different than your primary website, however it should maintain your branding. You want users to subtly realize the difference between this site and your primary website by utilizing different colors, different menus and / or different creative design. You should pick visual imagery (and multimedia) that will appeal to this microsites audience, which may be different than your primary website.

Conclusion

A CUQuickSite microsite is an effective tool for credit union marketers to reach out to new or different audiences and to drive them to a different outcome. Marketers and credit unions should consider using a CUQuickSite microsite to help promote campaigns that need to stand on their own.