9 Top Microsites Used by Brands for Marketing

Large companies often incorporate microsites into their marketing plan, even though they have an elaborate main website. Microsites are perfect for branding, and to communicate a singular message that is important to the company.

Microsites are also valuable to small and medium-sized companies. As a matter of fact, many smaller companies use a microsite as their main website. And to step it up a notch, they add a blog to the site and have the perfect medium size website for their company.

What is a Microsite?

A microsite is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a small website that’s usually just a few pages. These pages can act as a separate entity for a brand, or a website for a small or medium-sized business. Usually, a microsite lives on its own domain; however, some live on a subdomain or inside a larger website.

Businesses choose to use microsites in addition to their main website for several reasons. In some cases, companies use a microsite to focus more on a specific campaign or target specific buyer personas, while others use microsites to tell short stories or use a specific call-to-action.

Now, to give you an idea of what a microsite can do for your company, here are 9 of the top microsites used by brands today.

#1 UPS Jobs

The UPS Jobs (Jobs-UPS.com) microsite is a perfect example of a microsite. It is focused exclusively on recruitment, easy to navigate, and is comprised of few pages that include a search function for open positions.

UPS also markets the site with a branded domain (UPSJobs.com), which takes users to a landing page (Jobs-UPS.com/location) where they select their location and language before proceeding.

#2 Year In Music by Spotify

Spotify’s Year In Music microsite features the biggest hits during the previous year. The company uses a branded subdomain (YearInMusic.Spotify.com) that redirects visitors to an internal landing page/microsite that is very concise.

This interactive site serves to remind people of the songs they loved throughout the previous year.

And even better? The microsite is personalized to your specific tastes. You can enter your information into the site and get a detailed report about your favorite music over the past year. Also, all the details are easy to share so that you can show your friends what your playlist looked like last year.

#3 Elf Yourself

Office Max created the Elf Yourself microsite in conjunction with the company’s holiday marketing campaign, as a fun tool for its customers. Although Elf Yourself isn’t a direct product, there are coupons and promotions for customers to enjoy.

“It brought the brand to life for consumers,” wrote Kenneth Hein in Forbes, “and for the business-to-business crowd it provided a human face for the big box retailer.”

#4 Dominos DXP

DominosDXP.com is a microsite Dominos Pizza created to introduce their newly designed pizza delivery car. The car features all kinds of interesting, advanced features to ensure fast delivery of hot pizza. The site also includes an interactive map to locate DXP vehicles in the U.S.

#5 BurgerBFF.com

BurgerBFF.com was a microsite launched by Mellow Mushroom, a pizza restaurant, to introduce two new hamburger menu items – Herb (a vegetarian burger), and Carnie (a beef burger). To promote these new menu items, Mellow Mushroom turned Herb and Carnie into a little cartoon for customers to follow. The site was also a way for people to enter a contest to win a trip.

#6 The Red Bulletin

The Red Bulletin is a promotion magazine by Red Bull. The company uses a branded domain (RedBulletin.com) that redirects to an internal microsite.

Red Bull is always putting together fun events and promoting exciting innovations. The Red Bulletin is their way of distributing their content and providing a place for people to subscribe.

#7 The Hunger Games Exclusive

TheHungerGamesExclusive.com is an immersive microsite by Lions Gate promoting The Hunger Games.

The Hunger Games absolutely exploded in popularity a few years ago. During the height of its popularity, Lions Gate created a microsite for people to interact with the characters and events, while also reading about the backstories and missions.

#8 Will It Blend

WillItBlend.com is a microsite by Blendtec, who produces blenders that can blend almost anything.

To promote their product, their microsite features videos of their blenders blending all kinds of ridiculous things. It’s both entertaining, and an effective way to prove the strength of their blenders. The video featured on the home page, as of the writing of this article, shows an iPhone pulverized by one of their blenders.

#9 Emoji Tracker

EmojiTracker.com is a microsite created by Matthew Rothenberg to show which emojis are being used on Twitter. The stats for the emojis are updated in real-time, and you can click on the emojis to see the tweet stream in which they are being used.

The Takeaway

Microsites have been around since about the time the Internet was invented. They are often used by small and medium-sized companies as their main website.

Microsites are also used by larger companies, in addition to their main website, to focus on specific campaigns and buyer personas.

This is why we created DisplayClicks, which provides an easy and affordable way for businesses to create microsites and landing pages. Also, we provide affordable managed services for businesses of all sizes.

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