RitchieWiki deployed for Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers
"This is going to be a lot of work." That was my first reaction when I was told of the scope of the RitchieWiki.com project. The task was daunting: create the most comprehensive online library of construction equipment, and then tell everyone in the industry about it. I was responsible for training the writers and editors of the Wiki, and for doing the Media Relations rollout campaign for the reporters at MinExpo.
Time for a teaser campaign
The idea I came up with was to send a series of three cards for a media teaser campaign. Each card would reveal something about the project, with the third card announcing the launch of “RitchieWiki.” We also created a very unique and slick media guide that was made to look like the Wiki website – complete with screenshots and tabs – and spiral bound.
We also created custom RitchieWiki USB flash drives that had Media Kits, instructional videos, and additional information about the new website. Our hope was to give the media event at MinExpo a real cutting edge 2.0 feel.
We wanted to make a splash with reporters because we knew competition for publicity would be stiff. There were hundreds of companies all vying for the same eyeballs: the construction reporters who come to MinExpo.
Here is a PDF of the Media Kit I Created
Confidence abounds
Before the big launch, we were feeling very confident that we had done our due diligence. We believed in the website, were confident we had a good publicity strategy, and really felt like we had targeted the right reporters to cover our story.
I waited anxiously at my desk at headquarters to field calls, while my boss traveled to the convention to do the official announcement. It felt like Christmas.
A Caterpillar sized disaster
However, just before our media event, disaster struck. As it turned out Caterpillar was launching their entire line of mining projects at the same time we were holding our RitchieWiki press conference. Given that Cat is the big-dog of the construction industry, we knew that our press conference was doomed - yet – we still had to go through with it because the invites had been in the mail for weeks.
As suspected, the media conference bombed.
Beer to the rescue
Undaunted, we went to the organizers of the convention and plead our case: “you didn’t tell us that Cat was launching their new product line at the same time!” Realizing that we had a point, organizers of the conference bent over backwards to get reporters to a second media conference set to happen the next day.
We had a much cooler facility, got a bunch of free promotion, and were able to offer free beer to reporters who attended.
On the second go-around, we fared much better, and were feeling great about the RichieWiki project again.
Over the coming weeks we were astonished at the amount of content that came through our media monitoring service for RitchieWiki. Bloggers, reporters, Wiki enthusiasts – you name it – RitchieWiki caught on not just with Construction reporters, but also with fans of technology.
Most importantly, the site caught on with users, and was picked up extremely well by search engines. To test this for yourself type in “Crawler Tractor” into Google… RitchieWiki is usually in the top three results.
View the website here
