Grain Elevator and Processing Society
As a member-driven global agriculture association, GEAPS addresses the industry’s critical grain handling, storage and processing operations needs by providing networking, professional development programs and access to a global marketplace of industry suppliers.
With a global network of nearly 3,000 individual members from more than 1,150 companies, GEAPS is highly focused on improving the lives of their membership. That focus was the center of this website redesign.
Project Goals
- Personalize content to fit the needs of each visitor
- Increase revenue through increased membership
- Grow influence through improved member engagement
- Grow revenue through a modernized ad platform
- Increase attendance at regional and national member events
- Improve access to educational content and video libraries
- Optimize member experience on mobile devices
- Provide a platform for collaboration between chapters
- Guide members through important consumer research.
The Results
Using our proven Discovery, Strategy and UX/Design processes, our team produced following deliverables to achieve GEAPS primary goal of aligning content to each type of website visitor.
Relevant content through self-identification
People crave clarity and simplicity especially when searching for content on a website. When GEAPS gave us the challenge of making the content on their site easily searchable, we focused on understanding their user personas. By identifying what types of people used the website regularly we were able to more easily align content to the people who needed it most.
The result is the self-identification “I am a grain industry…” section that helps operators, suppliers, affiliates and students quickly navigate to parts of the website that offer content relevant to their specific questions and challenges. Built in WordPress and powered by tags and faceted search, this feature personalizes the experience of each user based on their selection.
Other Important Website Features
- An online buyers guide for easy product research and advertising opportunities.
- Easy access to membership login on desktop and mobile devices.
- Calendar of events “above the fold” for easier access and making registration call-to-actions easier to find and use.
- Intuitive search features for a newly expanded resources section including video search capability.
- A searchable map functionality to help people find their local chapter quickly.
We want the website to not only be a resource for our members, but a source of interest for those in the grain industry. We hope the new website serves as that.
Betsy Polis
GEAPS Senior Project Manager and Unleashed Client