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Senior living communities often need to focus their online messaging for strategic business reasons related to community needs or to promote an event or offer.

Microsites provide communities with a cost-efficient way to customize content without completely overhauling their websites every time a campaign changes. Take a minute to learn more about why you should consider microsites as part of your digital strategy.

Microsites, sometimes referred to as minisites or weblets, are individual web pages, or a cluster of pages, which are meant to function as supplements to a primary website. A microsite will have its own vanity or unique website address, different from the parent site. A microsite can provide you with an opportunity to move your customers closer toward a buying decision or to the next level of the sales cycle. 

Here are seven reasons you should consider microsites to focus your online efforts. Microsites:

• Are highly targeted, uncluttered and focus on one or two key points. Here’s an example of a microsite designed to complement a marketing campaign for a senior living community.
• Provide an online location to promote something (an event, available units, etc.) 
• Allow you to break out of your current messaging mode and shake things up a bit. Here’s an example.
• Can be educational.
• Enable you to target a different audience with a specific message without rebuilding an entire site. (Microsites are great for messages geared toward adult children and professional influencers.) Here is an example of a microsite we put together for Presbyterian Homes. The microsite is targeted to adult children and is meant to be a resource of information for them. The site is called “Senior Care Answer Team” and can be found here.
• Streamline your marketing efforts so your offline and online messages are in synch.
• Convert because they are highly targeted and work hard to convey a single message or promotion, while always asking for some sort of information from the user for community follow-up.

And, here are some tips for successful microsites:

• Let your visitors know they are on the right site. It is important to make sure the microsite is consistent with the key message and images from the referral source (print ad, TV spot, radio, direct mail piece, e-newsletter or other referral).  
• Make sure your microsite links to your parent site, so users can get more information and so you get the link credit from search engines.
• Microsites should have a data capture mechanism/form on the first page to gather user information. Consider including this form on all pages throughout the microsite.
• Limit options and lead users to areas you want them to visit.
• Optimize your microsite for search engines.
• Provide a trackable phone number for users who don’t want to fill out an online form.

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