To build or not to build a micro site?
When considering building a micro site. Think user experience.
Opponents of building micro sites argue that it makes dollars and sense to drive traffic to subdomain or a special section of a larger site. That way users are forced to experience your entire brand and hopefully they will become engaged with more than one specific product or bit of information.
The question is, do users want to experience it all?
Most users when searching for something on Google expect to find exactly what they are looking for. If they don’t find it very easily, they’ll pop right back to Google and visit another page. That ultimately hurts your business and your ranking.
Micro sites because of their size, lend themselves well to search engines and to users who really want specific information. They also lend themselves well to designers who don’t have to deal with strict parameters of making the special section fit within a larger site.
If you really want your visitors to experience your entire brand. Find a way to make it obvious where your visitors can go to learn more. Just don’t be too over the top. Blinking red text screams scam and users usually don’t like to be fooled. One of the best methods of creating a conversion online is making the user feel empowered like they came up with the idea. Baiting them into a area might cause them to walk away from something that feels fishy.
To build or not to build a micro site? Go for it!
USC Selling Hope at a Whole New Level
To follow up my last post, it appears as though USC is selling hope for the 2016 season with the verbal commitment of a 13-year-old, David Sills from Delaware.
I wonder if Lane Kiffin still be a USC in 2016? The Orlando Sentinel reported Kiffin recruited a 13-year-old while at Tennessee. I wonder what that kid is thinking now? I hope the NCAA steps up with the regulation here.
Watch Videos of USC Commit David Sills:
What do you think?
College Football National Signing Day and Selling Hope
Today was national signing day for NCAA college football teams. For some reason, it seemed like the hype was higher than years past.
ESPN.com dedicated their entire home page to signing day announcements and the subject was searched for more on Google more than the massive Toyota recall that affected 3.8 million cars.
ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption debated whether national signing day was receiving too much attention.
As a marketer, I would say no. National signing day is all about selling hope for the future. Tickets are sold and sponsorship deals based on the hope that we as fans all feel.
As a former Division-I football player though, I would use some caution. Fans need to remember that a lot of development can take place between the ages of 17 and 22. Rankings and grades tend to be fairly useless. We just don’t know how injuries and unforeseen circumstances will play themselves out.
For more on the where the nation’s best three-star, four-star and five-star recruits landed, check out espn.com.
What do you think? Does national signing day get too much attention?
Managing Email Overload and Gen-Y
It’s unpleasant for most marketing or any professionals for that matter to think about how many hours they are spending reading and sifting through emails.
In 2010, one of my (many) points of focused personal improvement is on my overall work efficiency. Not that I don’t enjoy getting my mind going a little later in the evening, but at some point, being married and a home owner must rule the day.
I asked my wife, a public relations professional, how she manages her email and she enlightened me about the four D’s of managing email overload.
- Delete it
- Do it
- Delegate it
- Defer it
I should mention that neither of us can take credit for this clever wordplay. Upon further review I found it actually came from a Microsoft blog of all places.
To look at the four D’s a little bit closer: If it’s unimportant delete it. If you can do it in less than 2 minutes, do it. If you can delegate it to someone else, forward it and if it is a little bit bigger than that, defer it to a folder in your email reader.
And finally a word to all my Gen-Y friends on the bottom of the totem pole feeling overwhelmed. When starting out at a new job, you will most likely be delegated some unglamorous time consuming tasks. My simple word of advice is to handle it and learn from it as best you can. If you work hard enough one day, you too will be able to delegate more freely.
Going Green & Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Going Green – Corporate Social Responsibility – Sustainability – Whatever you want to call it – Prior to the current economic climate, companies big and small were all buying into the concept that going green could improve their bottom line.
The general thought behind this belief was that a large enough segment of consumers cared enough to not only purchase, but also promote products to their friends that they deemed as better for the environment.
For a time this worked, but as more and more companies transitioned it became less and less of a competitive advantage, which combined with an increased overhead caused many companies to discontinue any green initiative.
It’s a shame that the only reason many companies choose to go green was to make more green, but moving forward if we ever want this movement to continue – it has to come from consumers.
This post was inspired by this nice viral video by the AARP: