Element 14 the launch of a community for engineers

 

element14 is a new, innovative information portal and eCommunity specifically built for electronic design engineers.  It provides product data, design tools and technology information, whilst incorporating web 2.0 functionality to facilitate communication, interaction, collaboration and information sharing between colleagues around the world.  

 

element14 is even customizable to each individual user, so they can display information that suites their unique needs.  There is even a translation module that allows users of different languages to converse in real time.  Users can also secure quotes, discover industry trends, post blogs, articles and comments in this forum. 

This new type of social media platform and its benefits needed to be conveyed to the electronic design engineering community.  In an industry that typically relied on paper catalogues and simple web pages for information, coupled with an older generation that typically did not embrace social media, the challenge would be to get them try this new technology, see its benefits and create buzz that ultimately heightened its profile among the engineering community.

Strategy

Pinnacle Marketing Communications developed a public relations program that addressed element14’s marketing objectives to progressively improve the company’s placement within target markets.

The target markets included design engineers, suppliers and design engineering students. Target media included design engineering trade print and online publications, social media outlets and student engineering design communities.

Our strategy to heighten awareness through print, online and social media coupled with the following tactics, ensured maximum coverage; liaison with editors, viral marketing, news release generation and distribution, article generation and placement, case studies, opinion pieces, media interviews, phone media tour, a specially developed online digital media centre for the press complete with demonstration videos on element14 and the latest news around the launch, search engine positioning, blogging, link backs, keyword research and placement of generated content on webportals.

Results

The campaign was a stunning success. The eleemt14 launch press release was distributed via Business Wire’s Global Technology Circuit, and Pinnacle Marketing Communications’ Electronic Design Engineer’s press list, with a much higher success rate than projected, a total headline impression of 43,400 were viewed in the first week alone.  Also, there were 3,582 journalists that clicked through to read past the headline onto the entire press release.  There were 44 social media links as a result of the initial element14 social media press release in the first week and 97 clicks from the press release to the element14 digital press media centre.

In the first week alone, there were 6,000 new members and the rate of new members grew daily to 16,000 by the end of the 4th week of the campaign. From a PR perspective the total return on investment (ROI) to date stands at 8 to 1.