Inkwell’s 2024: our year in review
And just like that, we’re saying goodbye to 2024. It’s flown by, as time tends to do when you’re busy doing exciting work for brilliant clients – and having fun doing it, of course.
The new year always makes us a bit wistful, so to give this one a proper send off, we thought we’d round up some of the great stuff our team has achieved this year. Cue the montage…
Producing more video content
As more clients have been keen to showcase their brands through human stories and expert voices, we’ve been asked to produce more and more engaging videos, interviews and podcasts this year.
For Innovate UK’s Next Generation Professional and Financial Services programme, we filmed five video case studies on location with businesses striving to bring those sectors into the future with innovative tech.
We also remotely filmed eight podcast episodes, showcasing some of these organisations and the Innovation Accelerator programmes helping to turn their ambitions into reality.
Video case study filmed on location
Remotely recorded podcast episode
Elsewhere, we were tasked by UCAS to showcase more expertise in their content, and we knew video was the way to do it. To accompany the pieces we wrote for them, we conducted remote interviews with their subject experts and generated video clips explaining key points in more detail.
Remotely filmed videos for UCAS
In 2025, we expect lots more of our clients will be interested in diversifying their content and exploring different avenues to express their message. That’s why we’ll be offering more of these all-round packages, including content, social, video, design and more. Get in touch with us to talk about your project idea – we’ll be looking forward to it.
Hosting The Pitch across the UK
Our pride and joy, startup competition The Pitch continued its tradition of offering support and resources to small businesses on their way to the top this year.
We hosted five regional finals in Brighton, Bristol, Glasgow, London and Manchester, and finished the 2024 competition as always with the grand final in London. Sustainable party decoration marketplace Party Without Plastic scooped the People’s Choice award, while protective sports headwear pioneers Rezon emerged as 2024’s overall winner, selected by our judges.
Away from The Pitch events, we were excited to partner with business bank Tide to run our Pop Up with Tide competition. We gave small retail businesses the chance to sell their wares at our special pop-up shopping event in Sparks Bristol, as well as win a £5,000 grant and receive business advice and mentoring.
Eight retailers got the chance to connect with their customers and get their brand out there at our two-day event. Here’s what it looked like:
Giving our emails new life
Our Inkwell newsletters got an upgrade this year, with a brand new design and regular monthly schedule. Our audience loved it, with around 40% of recipients clicking through to view the content every time.
For us, it goes to show that despite being a digital marketing stalwart that’s faced (and seen off) competition from shiny new platforms over the years, email is central to generating an engaged audience for your marketing.
Read more about the email marketing principles we use to generate our 70%+ open rates.
Hosting industry discussions
This year, we decided it was time to start bringing together the knowledgeable people we’re lucky enough to know through our work with small businesses, and get their expert input on important and topical points related to supporting and marketing to entrepreneurs.
Organisations including Be the Business, Innovate UK and Barclays Eagle Labs joined us for some great conversations, like:
How influencers and community are irreplaceable in building trust with your audience
Offering support and events for free may not be the best approach – no matter how well-intentioned
Personalised outreach takes on a whole new importance when you’re trying to reach scale-ups
We’re going to keep running these roundtable discussions in 2025. Want to take part or know someone who’d be interested? Contact Chris Goodfellow to see what discussion topics are coming up and how you can join in.
At Inkwell, we create compelling content that connects organisations with startups and small businesses. Get in touch with our team for more details on how we can help your programme or initiative reach more entrepreneurs.