The Story of InkpactFebruary 2021 With it being International Storytelling week, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to tell you our very own story. Who are we? What a good question. Well, after this blog we guarantee to be “unforgettable.” Do you remember 10 years ago when the thought of an email was fun, new and exciting? Well, I don’t, because I was 13, but I am sure some of you do. Now, emails are very easy to ignore and quite frankly annoying most of the time. Enter Inkpact. What is a customer? – “a person who buys goods or services from a shop or business.” Uninspiring right? Not for Charlotte Pearce, our wonderful CEO. Most people focus on the good, service, shop or business. However, what about the person? Primarily, a customer is a person – so let’s turn our focus to that. Charlotte developed leadership & skills that allowed her to be the best boss in the world. Alongside that, she fell in love with the idea that you can make money and help people at the same time. It was at an Action-coach conference that Charlotte met Matt. Matt was working to coach CEO’s, 1-1, and did all his marketing online and through emails, with a tiny open rate. In a job which involved coaching people so personally, he loved sending handwritten messages but could only send 10 before his hand started to hurt. Charlotte quickly came up with a solution, “I am going to write 100 letters for you, well no, I am going to get people who I know need some money and have great handwriting to write them for you.” The Inkpact Scribe Tribe was born. Matt told other coaches who got the same results and suddenly Inkpact was born, but the big question – how do we scale this? How do you scale handwritten letters? Charlotte looked at other tech companies out there that relied on humans - Deliveroo, AirBnb, Uber, and realised it was all possible with one magic word; technology. She didn’t know much about tech, but was deeply curious, so sat down with the founder of Skyscanner and mapped out a future for Inkpact. She shared that with a friend of hers, Andrew, who was on the same entrepreneur course as her and a techy through and through. Andrew left his job the next day to join her on her mission! Inkpact was initially built for SMEs, but very quickly very big brands like Moet Hennesey, Mr and Mrs Smith, Gymshark and many more saw great results with what we were doing. We evolved from a single drop handwritten marketing business, to one of the most impactful CRM and Loyalty tools for retailers. We now send letters daily for some of the biggest and fastest growing brands.
There have been many bumps, hurdles and setbacks over the years, operationally it isn't easy to be able to deliver 100,000 genuine handwritten notes in one month, but we are now there! Throughout the whole journey one thing remained centre – the desire to build a “human first” tech business that delivers meaningful moments and helps brands to grow. Today more than ever we are living and breathing our human first approach to technology – and our scribe tribe has grown to over 700 people. We helped people get back on their feet after COVID, supported mothers, helped people back into employment, gave people a purpose when recovering from cancer and so much more. And the brands? 2020 was a big year for us working with brands like Facebook, Uber, John Lewis, and let’s just say 2021 will be even bigger if January is anything to go by. It is only my 3rd week at Inkpact and it has been great to be part of such a fast-paced business. The energy and passion within the team makes it all very easy to enjoy. Annie & The Inkpact Team.
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Charlotte came into entrepreneurship from a young age, starting her first business at 14. She soon went onto university and stumbled across Enactus; the world’s largest experiential learning platform. Here she led a group of 150 students who were aiming to start businesses that make money but also, importantly, have social impact.