I'm back from Chicago where I attended PROMO Magazine's PROMO Live event last week. I stayed a couple of extra days and my husband Kevin came out and joined me so that we could spend our anniversary together. We had a wonderful time. We both love visiting Chicago...it's got a beautiful lake front, great shopping and restaurants, but mostly we enjoy the people. They're always so friendly and welcoming to all visitors. Plus they love their sports (Go Cubs!).
So I apologize for not getting some more postings done on the conference. I promised to write one about a session I attended that I really enjoyed entitled Destination Online by Bill Hanekamp, CEO of The Well Advertising. Micro-sites have been becoming very popular and successful over the past year and Bill spoke about the differences between a promotional micro-site and a corporate website. His theory for their success is that most corporate websites are managed internally by the company's IT department where a micro-site is managed mostly by the marketing team!
The main objectives of a micro-site are to engage, act, build relationships and share. The site should contain content that entertains, is relevant to the audience, timely and exclusive. Micro-sites may also include consumer generated content that the audience provides and engages in. Some ways to get users involved are by providing an opportunity for them to post comments and reviews, rank or vote online, use widgets, download/upload files, share content and of course buy.
Brands can use a micro-site to develop databases by including an incentive for the audience such as a chance to win through sweepstakes, contests or games or by offering free gifts or samples. Here are a few great examples of popular micro-sites that Bill shared with us:
Philips' Norelco Bodygroom: ShaveEverywhere.com - This hilarious site became one of the most popular viral ad campaigns receiving 1.3 million unique visits in the first 3 months and was Philips' most successful new product launch to date.
WillItBlend.com presented by Blendtec: This micro-site features the Total Blender shown in their test lab as they ask the question... Will It Blend? In this funny video they chose to blend an iPhone. They received 6 million visitors in the first 5 days and it was the 3rd most watched video on YouTube.
Dove's CampaignForRealBeauty: This very popular micro-site I have written about in several posts in this blog and Dove continues to create separate micro-sites for their new products. Here is the first video that they ran called Evolution which received 1.7million views in the first few months.
Office Max's Elf Yourself: For last holiday season Office Max created this fun little micro-site where visitors could upload a photo of themselves, crop it to fit their face on an elf's body and then watch themselves dance. The cast from ABC's Good Morning America elfed themselves and featured it as the opening segment of one of their shows. I found the video here on YouTube. The micro-site received 36 million visits in 5 weeks with 10 elfings per seconds tracked. Unfortunately, Office Max didn't keep the site up, but a search says that it will be back up soon for this holiday season.
Bill's advice to any of us who would like to create a micro-site is to start out small and make sure to track, analyze and optimize. Over time you can make corrections and end up with a highly successful program. You can learn more about micro-sites and reach Bill by visiting his website: TheWellAdvertising.com
Donna, you did a fantastic job of summarizing my session. One point I'd really like to stress more and more – as it seems to be misunderstood – is the shear luck involved in creating content that goes viral, which is substantially different from creating good content. No one really knows why things go viral. Most after-the-fact assessments are merely guesses. If we really had a clue why things are passed along, we could predict it. We don't, so we can't. I post this to all companies out there who think creating a viral campaign is an assignment. It's a result. Creating relevant, strategic, entertaining content is an assignment.
Posted by: Bill Hanekamp | October 14, 2007 at 05:35 PM
Thank Bill for adding that insight into going viral. You're absolutely right, you really never know what's going to be a hit. Look at this fall season of new TV shows. So far the viewers haven't warmed up to any of them, but instead are staying with the shows that they are familiar with. So when it comes to creating content that does happen to go viral it really must be a lot of trial and error.
Posted by: Donna DeClemente | October 15, 2007 at 10:03 AM