Have you been wanting to join the Blend team? Well, good news: We're hiring. Check out the full job details. 

A Hybrid Approach to Conference Content Management

NAFCU needed a website that could integrate information across its numerous microsites without losing the feel of its brand. That's when Blend stepped in to integrate a hybrid approach designed to seamlessly navigate any content.

People join an association or professional organization for two major things: connections and community. This means the work that goes into an organization’s annual conference is a critical event.

While decisions about speakers, location, and lodging get the most attention, the conference’s digital footprint can be just as important. Behind the scenes, digital teams must figure out how to represent the annual conference in a way that communicates logistics without disrupting existing tracking or content strategies.

In other words: does an annual conference warrant a stand-alone site — with the unique content types, user journeys, and conversion goals entails — or should the conference details be housed within the main site to prevent siloed experiences and reduce editor strain?

There isn't one correct answer. But for the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU), the answer was: both.

For NAFCU, the focus was on providing a hybrid approach to managing conference content, with Blend providing design and technical recommendations driven by new content types, integrations, and functionality. This allowed NAFCU to create conference microsites nestled within the main website, allowing editors to leverage the existing design language while still preserving a microsite feel.

Microsites are built with a unique navigation menu, providing a custom experience for all potential attendees. From here, the journey continues to the individual conference microsites, each complete with integrations to pull in event information, new functionality allowing editors to display video content, and a brand new content type showcasing vendor registries.

The best of both worlds, really.

Project Results:

  • Integrated conference content within the larger site and site search - allowing for a seamless communication method without creating a gap in the user experience
  • New functionality and content types, allowing editors to manage content in a way unique to the needs of the conference event planning