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Promote Your Business with a Microsite
A microsite - or a 1-page web site - can help you coordinate your networking information and promote your business value in a personalized way.
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A microsite - or a 1-page web site - can help you coordinate your networking information and promote your business value in a personalized way. This can be effective for new entrepreneurs, small business without a current web presence, and even job seekers. It's an inexpensive alternative to building a full website and is easy to coordinate with your other promotion efforts.
Start by putting together a coordinated self promotion plan. The idea here is to offer a short, punchy, and value-adding pitch and brief background about yourself, with supporting links to documents and online profiles/networking spaces. Overall, plan to use professional language, but make sure to have your personality, style, and uniqueness show through - folks want to meet/hire/buy from real and quirky people, not sound bytes.
Second, get your information together:
- Prepare a 200-400 word business bio of key value-added experience you have or your business offers.
- Consider adding a solid goal or vision statement - business goal-specific, customer centered, etc.
- Have the contact information - email at a minimum, address and phone if you want that kind of contact.
- A quality image of yourself, the business, the product, whichever is your aim. If you don't want a personal photo, that's fine.
- If you have a PowerPoint business, product, or sales presentation, consider adding a pdf of that - small size but high-impact.
- Note your 2-8 top online sources to link to - your blog, your LinkedIn or similar profile, your main 1-2 professional networking services, and your main 2-3 professional affiliations if they will help your customer search.
Get help to put together a professional, personalized, and high-quality "look" for your microsite and get it built. This is critical because if you self-promote without a sense of professional visual style, organization, and tightly written content, or if you use canned templates other businesses also use, your business will seem much less appealing than if you do nothing at all. Find a friend/colleague who has professional web design skills to help out in exchange for bartered service, a discounted price, etc. You should be able to get something great prepared for under $100 if you don't have the web design and building skills yourself.
Determine where you will have your website posted. Does your existing email account service provide free web site space, and most importantly, can you create an original website there rather than use a canned template? If you choose to use a free web hosting service instead, make sure it does not force ads, does allow FTP for files, and is easy to use.
Once your microsite is live, coordinate your new microsite url link with your other online profiles and networking bios. Add it to your business cards, in your email signature line, in your blog (if you have one), and in any online resumes you have out there that are relevant. Also, check for your local online business directories and see if you can list it free.
What do you want prospective clients, customers, vendors, and colleagues to know about your business at a quick glance? Think of a microsite as a screen-sized business card with more info than you can actually fit on your real one.
Good luck!
Learn more about the author, Lisa Bothell.
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Article tags
- microsite
- web site
- networking
- self-promotion
- marketing
- design
- customers
- l.j. bothell
- studiobast
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