For more than two decades, Pit N Portal operated as a recognised player in the Australian mining sector, delivering everything from heavy equipment hire, market-leading heavy machinery rebuilds, specialised underground mining and geological surveys.
When I joined, the business was at a turning point: expanding rapidly, competing for major clients, and pivoting to new markets.
Over 2.5 years, backed by a $500,000+ budget, I modernised every aspect of the marketing function - expanding reach, elevating the brand, and helping to secure a successful acquisition by a major ASX-listed multinational.
"Using River and his services over the past few years to roll out our rebranding and the entire marketing efforts was a rewarding experience. River's focus and dedication are reflected in our excellent results during the period. I gladly recommend his services to any business wishing to expand".
P. Twine | Pit N Portal
Over 2.5 years and $500K+ invested in building a comprehensive digital marketing ecosystem that drove measurable growth and market leadership.
Full-spectrum marketing execution across planning, brand development and management, product marketing, and corporate identity systems.
Digital capabilities include website design, development and ongoing management, CRM implementation, technical/on-page/off-page SEO, and marketing automation.
Content and engagement through technical copywriting, social media management, public relations, open-field days and trade shows.
Webflow for web development, ActiveCampaign for marketing automation and CRM, Adobe Creative Suite for collateral, and Semrush for SEO.
I led a complete rebrand for the business, balancing big-picture positioning with daily marketing delivery. My goals were straightforward: reposition Pit N Portal as a modern, innovative industry leader, and help the team attract much-needed talent in what was (and still is) a competitive labour market.
To date, this is still one of my favourite projects. I learned an extraordinary amount over the period, gained new skills and worked for well-regarded mining industry icons.
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Here are a range of more commonly asked questions in relation to this B2B marketing case study.
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This was a complete rebrand and full marketing function rebuild, delivered across two and a half years with a budget exceeding $500K.
The scope covered the full marketing spectrum: brand strategy and positioning, corporate identity systems, product marketing, technical and on-page SEO, marketing automation through ActiveCampaign, and a complete Webflow website rebuild.
Alongside the digital work, I handled technical copywriting, social media management, public relations, trade shows, and open-field days.
Every visual asset across the business was revamped, from building and fleet signage through to uniforms and document templates. Photography across live underground mining environments was sourced, coordinated, and creatively directed.
The result was a unified brand presence with consistent commercial storytelling at every touchpoint.
The $100M to $240M figure spans the pre- and post-acquisition period, with the marketing programme laying the commercial foundation that underpinned both phases.
In the pre-acquisition phase, the work modernised Pit N Portal's market presence and repositioned the business as a credible industry leader. That repositioning made the company more attractive to acquirers and easier to integrate post-acquisition.
Buyers in the M&A process were responding to a brand that already looked and read like a tier-one operator, not one that needed cleaning up after the deal closed.
Post-acquisition, the infrastructure (website, CRM, content engine, SEO foundation and tender submissions) continued to do commercial work as the business scaled. The brand could absorb expansion into open-pit mining without re-architecting itself.
The 400% lift came from a structured technical SEO programme applied to a sector where many competitors do almost nothing with their digital presence.
The foundation was a complete Webflow rebuild with clean architecture, fast page loads, and proper schema markup. On top of that sat a sustained content programme targeting the high-intent search terms that mining procurement, equipment buyers, and prospective talent found useful.
Technical SEO (site health, internal linking, crawl efficiency) ran in parallel with on-page and off-page work.
In a sector where most websites are neglected, disciplined SEO compounds quickly. The 400% figure reflects sustained effort across the engagement window, not a single campaign spike.
The 200% growth in qualified candidate pool came from treating recruitment as a marketing problem, not an HR problem.
Mining was (and still is) competing for skilled workers against every other heavy industry. The work positioned Pit N Portal as a people-first employer with a forward-looking culture, then built dedicated talent pathways into the website with role-specific content and clear application routes.
Photography deliberately captured authentic human imagery from live sites, not generic stock shots, so prospective candidates could see themselves in the business.
The 330% lift in digital and social engagement amplified the same story across LinkedIn and other channels where mining professionals actually spend time. The combined effect was a candidate pool that grew through inbound interest rather than outbound recruitment spend.
During rapid scale-up, the brand is doing commercial work whether you've designed it to or not. The question is whether it's helping or hurting.
A rebrand at scale-up phase forces clarity on positioning, audience, and commercial narrative. It documents what the business is becoming, not just what it has been.
Tender teams have consistent collateral to draw from. Sales conversations have shared language. Recruitment campaigns have a coherent employer story. Investors and acquirers see a business that looks the part.
Without that foundation, scale-up compounds inconsistency. Every new region, product line, or acquisition target inherits a slightly different version of the brand. Pit N Portal's rebrand happened at exactly the right moment in the growth curve to prevent that drift.
The same way it worked across the rest of my career: single-point accountability with no handoff layers.
No account managers, no contractor chains, no agency dilution. Every brand decision, line of copy, SEO call, photography brief, and CRM workflow was made and executed by the same operator who carried the commercial outcome.
For a mining business expanding rapidly while preparing for acquisition, that coherence mattered more than agency-style production capacity.
The principal model also meant the work could adapt in real time to tenders, recruitment drives, and executive decisions without renegotiating scope through intermediaries.