Countdown Creative Limited has been nominated for the UK Enterprise Awards 2024. We have no idea who put our name forward but appreciate them doing so. We never set out to win an award or give reasons why we provide ‘award-winning’ service, however here they are! If you’d like to know why we may qualify, continue reading, given that our content creation service may be of benefit to your organisation.
The UK Enterprise Awards is an annual recognition programme that celebrates the accomplishments of businesses throughout the United Kingdom. Hosted by SME News, the Awards honour innovation, excellence, and achievements across a diverse range of sectors and industries.
Countdown Creative is a content creation business in Exeter. It was founded by former journalist Al Gibson who has 18 years of corporate communications experience working in the UK for a global charity. This is in addition to several years of working as an entrepreneur and recently in tandem with other local businesspeople through networking.
Al Gibson, director of Countdown Creative and Chair of Kondanani UK.
Today Countdown Creative offers copywriting services for projects both on and off line. This means we can handle printed newsletters as well as blogs and email campaigns. All our online work takes Search Engine Optimisation SEO into consideration to help our clients receive more organic traffic directed to their websites. We look to find the most appropriate angle to provide context to a news article or copywriting project giving readers a reason to engage with the content.
UK Enterprise Awards 2024 – What makes Countdown stand out
There are many digital content agencies, Countdown stands out as it has traditional journalism as it’s base. This means content is generated through real life interviews with people, with original quotations and input from their lives. While we may use AI as a tool, all our content is original, not mass produced with sources correctly attributed.
We are not against embracing new technologies. However we use them in the context of tried and tested writing skills that have endured the test of time. “I have had to relearn writing in order to write for SEO,” says Al Gibson. “In order to best layer information for search engines, however all the rules of traditional journalism still apply, including fact checking, appropriate use of metaphor and finding those golden nuggets that retain a reader’s interest.
“Many of our clients find they talk better than they write. We are able to listen to what they are saying and use their unique input to create anything from blogs to ebooks. This is a particularly useful service for coaches and motivational speakers!”
With regard to printed communications we use the full Adobe Creative Suite and aspire to write copy to fit. This provides for ideal typesetting and layout when it comes to printed materials including newsletters and books.
Countdown Creative is more than just about writing. We are also committed to Corporate Social Responsibility. (CSR). This takes place on two levels. One is that we work well with companies and organisations that are committed to conservation. One of our clients is a greentech startup that has discovered an innovative way to remediate pollution using natural processes. We are pleased to have been able to help them achieve a wider online footprint.
Al is also the director of Kondanani UK, a UK charity that supports orphans in Africa as well as a children’s hospital in a poor community in Malawi. Most recently Countdown Creative oversaw the communications for the Exeter Kindness Project at no charge. This revolved around the painting of the largest Charlie Mackesy mural to date on a prominent wall in the city centre.
Our involvement included the set up of a Crowdfunder Campaign that raised £5,300 for the renovation of the wall with the balance going to charity. We also created a website and social media platforms for the project. And, we handled media liaison that resulted in BBC and ITV coverage of the project as well as in the local media. This included a prime time news coverage of the unveiling.
An exciting development for us is that we are building a local publishing platform, DevonBusiness.blog and DevonBusiness.directory to showcase local companies. The blog highlights local business success stories while the directory promotes business leaders and their companies. Local businesses can submit a free company listing and take advantage of sponsored features that can take the form of a company profile, leader profile or focus on a new product and service.
It is still early days for the directory with about 100 listings published to date and we would like to see this grow from month to month. There are other directories of course, however we see ours as an opportunity to give back to the business community in which we work. It is a way of supporting our clients with valuable backlinks and provide them with additional exposure via our social media platforms. Part of this is with fund raising in mind to support charitable causes in our region.
Whether our UK Enterprise Awards 2024 nomination will amount to anything remains to be seen. However we are grateful to just be nominated and will continue to provide the best possible service to our clients.
