I have found a fellow preacher of hate of the micro site…

Microsites = waste

Stop and think for one minute. With all that money being spent on creative expressions online are they serving the clients best interests, or the designers own ego? Surely it has to be the online equivalent of driving a Porsche Boxster, and telling the world I am merely a hairdresser who wants to grow up to be able to afford to buy a 911?!

Be honest. How many people VISIT your micro site – ever? Beautiful creative’s with no one to see them = pointlessness for everyone. We need to learn to take the brand to the user, not the user to the brand, and then maybe, just maybe we make actually drive conversions. Yes I know creative directors need to understand how to justify commercial success (and their jobs) without a micro site, but have you considered that fact that you are 40x more likely to interact then click on an advert. That equates to being 4.5x more likely to convert within an advert then post-click. Remember, un-qualified clickers do not equal conversions…

Reminds me of an article I read a while ago.

Is the Homepage Dead?

Take Amazon. When was the last time you visited their homepage? They stumbled across this phenomenon years ago and then made money proving this principle – up selling and cross selling depending upon my requirements and not expecting me to go on a linear journey. The fact is search engines killed off homepages before most people realised what a website is. Content is king – the online world is not a photocopy of a brochure online with a nice cover and content – it is a dynamic organism that should be developed around “me – the user”.

Personalisation of homepages or jump points are now on the desktop – whether using “Today” in MSN Messenger to get a quick overview of stories and my mail, or whether it is desktop widgets and gadgets as proven by Vista, the question is not so much is the homepage dead, but are websites dead?

Best not tell any clients this – after all they are still justifying online by ‘click thru’…

Here’s a novel thought. Want to get the clients to part with their cash – talk about real ROI rather than clicks and watch their hand twitch towards their pocket.

I know it’s hard for precious ego’s – I have one too – for a start it means media agencies and creative agencies may need to start talking to and appreciating each other – after all, we are all supposed to be on the same side.

Show the real power of digital advertising over other media by the realms on meaningful data that can be re-used for effective targeting to drive actual conversions, i.e. hard cash, and maybe the client will buy you a 911… Or an Audi R8!