SEAMUS stands for the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States and is the premiere organization for composers, performers, and audiences of electro-acoustic music. Their list of members is a who’s who of the most accomplished musicians on the cutting-edge of technology and musical expression.
We were honored that SEAMUS trusted Punkt Digital to rebrand their organization and build their new website as part of their 30th anniversary celebration. Throughout the process, we faced numerous challenges common to many arts organizations and thought it might useful to shed some light on some of our solutions.
Transition from newsletter to e-zine:
Being a SEAMUS member has numerous benefits, one of which is their newsletter. It’s packed with exclusive articles, interviews, and reviews — all sources of insight and important updates for composers and performers working in electro-acoustic music. But prior to the new website, these resources were delivered in print and as PDF attachments to emails.
Our new website design allows SEAMUS to present highlights from these important resources in a publicly available e-zine format while ensuring that only members have access to the full content. Additionally, we created a members-only area with full download access to archives of past publications. This strategy promotes opportunities for return visitor engagement and at the same time, offers prospective members an incentive to join SEAMUS!
Automating the Membership System
We linked site membership with a flexible dues payment system that keeps tabs on subscription level and automatically sends reminder emails to members when it’s time to renew their membership.
This also allowed us to tie in an easy-to-use member directory that showcases individual biographies and allows external links to portfolio websites, online media, and social services.
To ensure the functionality would remain bulletproof with hundreds of users, we developed custom forms linked to custom post types that allow each member to simply copy and paste links directly into their profile. From there, our system formats and encodes all of the data in the directory layout. No matter how much or how little data is entered, each profile looks great on all devices.
Best of all, members can complete their great-looking profile in less than 5 minutes.
A bright future!
Although the new SEAMUS launched only a month ago, the response we’ve seen from the community has been fabulous. SEAMUS is making the seamless transition to our new member payment system and is using the site to promote exciting new opportunities to their members and attract attention from the larger community.
Building a new website for any fine arts organization brings many challenges. We hope this look into our process might spark some ideas for your own site. And Happy 30th to SEAMUS!