The Independent Plumbing Group (The IPG) was established in 2013 with one mission; to bring independent plumbing specialists together. They are the largest and fastest-growing membership group for plumbing, heating, and bathroom specialists. Since 2013, they have three flagship stores, along with an established network of over 200 member locations nationwide.

At Creative Pod, we work to become our clients outsourced marketing agency. The IPG had big goals for 2019, but had limited resources internally. So to achieve these ambitions they really needed an agency that could be an extension of their own team. The IPG came on board as a full-service client, which included, full management of their social media channels, PPC, PR, content creation, media buying, design and a new website.

‍

1. Situation

As well as the day-to-day marketing, The IPG decided to take on a very special project with some of their members, with the unveiling of three first-ever IPG Flagship stores: Newline Plumbing & Heating Supplies, Kingswinford, Plumb Inn, Enfield and Gas & Plumb Bits, New Milton. Not only was this an exciting and pivotal moment for both The IPG and their members, for the Independent merchants. It was also very exciting for Creative Pod to advertise this amazing project across the various marketing platforms. 
‍

2. Solution

Through marketing activity, our number one goal was to advertise the launch of the three flagship stores, across various social platforms. This was in order to raise awareness in the independent plumbing group marketplace, whilst promoting The IPG strapline ‘supporting independents/stronger together’. 

We wanted to invite guests, potential customers, and people in the trade to join The IPG and the chosen store for the ‘official unveiling’. Across each campaign, we included the below incentive:

‍

‍

Where to begin? 

• Press Releases: for each of the three flagship stores, we wrote a pre-press release for the announcement of the launch and a post-press release for the success 
• Billboard advertising: outside of the digital world, billboard advertising and out of home advertising is a very attractive way to reach a wide target audience and this was great exposure for The IPG

‍

‍

• Local newspaper advertisements: We sourced and worked closely with newspapers and magazines in the area to secure a series of adverts to promote the launch week in each of the three local areas
• Email banners: we ensured that every employee’s email had a banner highlighting the flagship store and the incentive
• Hoarding advertising: similar to a billboard, we used hoarding advertising to raise awareness of the campaign 
• Postcards: we created a postcard to encourage people to tell us where they have heard about us, for example: social, billboard, word of mouth etc. By participating they would also be entered into our competition (the incentive) 

‍

‍

• Organic social posts: across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram we created social content to highlight the build-up and count down to the launch of a new store
• Website banner: we added a new website banner that carousels through the three new stores and also provided the stores themselves with their own countdown banners
• Facebook event / PPC: we used Facebook events with localised targeting to invite people to the store to see the new facelift of the stores and to get involved with the week activities 
• Invitation: we designed and sent out an exclusive VIP invitation asking guests to join us for the official unveiling of The IPG flagship stores and again, this included the competition (incentive)
• Special guests: We invited sector-specific influencers and local dignitaries to attend the event, which resulted in the CEO of On The Tools, Lee Wilcox speaking at the Birmingham opening and the local mayor of each location to officially opening each store 

‍

3. Results

• 24 pieces of press coverage (trade-specific and local publications)
• A huge amount of brand awareness was achieved, with over 1 million impressions achieved organically through Facebook alone
• LinkedIn received a 70% increase in impressions and gained 34 new followers in one month
• Overall, our clients were happy with the results: 

‍

“This week has marked a huge milestone for Newline, and we couldn’t be more pleased with how the launch has turned out.”

‍Steve Kendrick, Managing Director at Newline Plumbing and Heating

As a full-service marketing and design agency, we pride ourselves on achieving the best outcome for our clients and we are proud of the services we offer. The IPG gave us a wonderful opportunity to highlight our marketing skills with this launch and showcase our ideas and creativity we have as a team. We were thrilled with the numerous advertising platforms we reached for this campaign and it was an exciting journey for The Creative Group, The IPG and the three flagship stores. 

‍

Contact Creative Pod on hello@creativepod.net to discuss your marketing requirements today!

‍

‍