Everything’s Possible in Print – over 180 delegates attend.

Posted on August 01, 2016

THE IPIA LEADS THE WAY WITH THE INAUGRAL EVERYTHING’S POSSIBLE IN PRINT CONFERENCE

Earlier this year, Marian Stefani made the decision to use the annual IPIA conference as a platform that would enable our Print Manager’s to connect better with their clients and support them to educate and inspire buyers about the true value of print, thus driving print to our trade manufacturers.

Everything’s possible in print (EPIP) was conceived with the primary intention of educating buyers about some of the great innovation in print and to give our PMs a chance to showcase their expertise, including demonstrating how they help navigate a brand through the minefield of managing truly integrated communications.

We booked Rory Sutherland (Ogilvy) as our keynote, who was very well supported by our other speakers all delivering the same message: Print is powerful and viable.  We partnered with Earth Island and The Drum (the leading marketing industry magazine) and worked hard to attract big brands and marketing agencies into the room by advertising in the marketing journals and immersing ourselves in the marketing industry.

And we set up telesales to directly invite some top brand marketeers and tried to encourage younger people to attend – those who have never known a time without mobile phones and Facebook!

So did it work?

On the 5 July over 170 delegates attended and of these more than half were not directly involved in print and were marketing or procurement professionals from major Brand or Agencies keen and eager to learn how to use print to improve their campaigns

The feedback was amazing with over 75% confirming they would be likely to book again for next year and over 95% marking EPIP as good to excellent.

But the real sign of success was the number of people networking and connecting on the day and the number of delegates who came up to us to say how much they had learned and how valuable EPIP had been for them. A few even told us they would rethink how they looked at print and how they engaged with their print providers.

We also had lots of new member interest; 4 members have joined as a result of the conference with several more pending.

EPIP was such a success it will now become an annual event.  Make a note to put the 5 of April 2017 in your diaries!  We will be continuing the theme of educating and connecting with the end users and buyers of print.

If we want more new print to be purchased, we have to create our market by reaching out and telling people who don’t think about using print in the first instance that we do so much more than putting ink on paper.

The IPIA is committed to growing EPIP as a positive voice to champion print.  Keep up to date with EPIP here www.EPIP.London