SPI The International Plastics Showcase (NPE) Website Redesign

About the Project

SPI’s NPE2009 website needed to be an energetic event website that conveyed synergy between industries while serving the informational and logistical needs of prospective attendees, press and exhibitors. The website was organized to create and reinforce the message that attending NPE2009 is beneficial to individuals and to their organizations.

Balance Interactive teamed with Fixation Marketing to help SPI keep a consistent marketing message online and offline for the attendee website and to present engaging and helpful tools for the exhibitor website.

The Balance Interactive solution included:

Focus on the User

The attendee website information architecture focused on the needs of business people who consider attending NPE and also those who have registered for the event. The website provided easy access to the information these audiences needed. Page text included calls to action to motivate the visitor to act (“Register Now!” and “Look Who’s Coming!”) and communicated new developments.

The exhibitor website focused on the tools exhibitors need to maximize their success at the show. Once logged in, exhibitors could navigate to key areas of interest, using navigation that focused on them.

Harness New Technologies

Website interactivity was improved by harnessing new technologies. The SPI blog was integrated with the site, as were the organization’s LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. Subscriptions for an e-newsletter were collected directly from the site. The Share This social sharing tool was implemented on all pages to facilitate sharing information by email and through any social media network.

A social media newsroom was added to give the media rich resources for covering the show. This included SPI press releases, partner press releases, calendars, a multimedia gallery and links to key related sites.

Collaboration and Data-Sharing Among Show Partners

This show had partners to handle marketing, public relations, exhibitor services, show publications and more. Balance Interactive led the effort to have all partners share data across their applications. And, all the partner services were integrated into the website. This allowed visitors to see all NPE2009 resources in one place, and gave exhibitors one-stop shopping for all the services available to them.

Tools for Exhibitors

A password-protected exhibitor services area was built around the needs of exhibitors. Upon login, exhibitors were able to view their profile and make changes. All show partners were able to see these changes. All of the forms required by show partners were integrated into one interface. Exhibitors could access and complete the forms, mark them as complete and set reminders for forms to be completed at a future date.