Cornerstone Design & Marketing invest £250,000 on new offices amid ongoing growth

David Wadsworth of Cornerstone with plans inside the empty building following hand-over and more recent building work inside the premises at Acorn Street, Lees, Oldham.

Cornerstone Design & Marketing is investing up to £250,000 in creating new, bespoke 6,000 sq ft headquarters in Oldham which will help with further expansion.

The move comes as the full-service Oldham agency is enjoying significant growth estimated to be above 40 per cent this year after multiple contract wins resulting in the recruitment of five new roles to the business and with two more recruits on the agenda.
 
Cornerstone was founded in 2007 by David Wadsworth, initially working on his own. Since then it has been based at Woodend Mills, Lees, and then at its current base on Lees High Street. It currently has 16 staff and works with two consultants. 
 
The agency is due to move to its new offices nearby at Acorn Street, Lees, this summer. The new base will is a light industrial building which was previously home to a children’s indoor play business.

The property is now undergoing significant building alterations including the erection of steelwork for a new first floor to extend an existing mezzanine platform, new offices, meeting rooms, graphic design and website development studios, a print room and video/photography studio space. 

 
Managing director David Wadsworth, who grew up in Clarksfield, Oldham, said, “The business is experiencing exciting growth across all sectors and expanding each of its teams significantly including creative, digital, website development, marketing strategy, video, PR and copywriting.
 
“We have secured a new building in a good location, which is being converted from light industrial use to bespoke, luxury offices for the team to further enhance what we do for our clients. Cornerstone’s own design team is developing ideas for the look and feel of the new offices, including interior and exterior design, visuals and signage.
 
“We are working with Cheshire-based Parkholme Developments on the new building with legal services from Pearson Solicitors & Financial Advisers. 
 
“The bigger premises will offer exceptional meeting rooms, a large video studio for Cornerstone’s expanding video work, and enhanced production facilities for our wide-format print products and services, which is a key area of the business.
 
David added, “Cornerstone’s development and growth has come through new and continuing contract wins from local and national businesses across all sectors. Our client retention rate is also very high.”
 
Cornerstone works with clients in sectors including gyms and leisure centres, healthcare, building societies, manufacturing, precision engineering, civil and structural design, pharmaceuticals, property, arts and tourism.  In addition, the agency works with charity and research organisations including Cancer Research UK.

 
In the past 12 months, Cornerstone has enjoyed a number of award successes.  
 
It received two joint-awards with long-standing client North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) north-west awards in late 2018. These recognised two highly-successful marketing campaigns across a range of media platforms designed to spread key messages to the public. 
 
One aimed to reduce the number of unnecessary 999 calls. The other was to recruit more volunteers. 
 
The results far-exceeded the ambulance trust’s expectations. NWAS saw large rises in social media engagement and website views. Within the first week alone of the volunteer campaign, 500 requests were received. This was ten times that of the entire campaign target.
 
Elsewhere Cornerstone was shortlisted as a finalist in the 2018 and 2019 Oldham Business Awards, and as a finalist at last year’s Manchester Publicity Association (MPA) Awards.
 
David said bespoke website development is one of the services that makes Cornerstone distinctive to many other agencies. One recent example was the development of a major e-commerce website for a leading sat-nav brand, he said.
 
The sat-nav brand develops and sells devices tailored for car, truck, motorhome and caravan markets. It has seen a 200 per cent year-on-year rise in website users since the new, bespoke site was launched, supported by Cornerstone’s other digital and marketing activity.
 
Other Cornerstone services include journalism and copywriting services for websites, PR and news requirements. Written content further enhances clients’ website SEO rankings and also achieves valuable publicity.

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