Local marketing specialists Coconut Creatives and ourselves have recently teamed up to launch a pilot project to offer local businesses an integrated solution to managing online and offline marketing. The project which has now been running for several months has been hugely successful with a range of local and regional businesses realising the benefits of approaching their small business marketing needs in this holistic way.

We both decided to launch www.fruitandnutmarketing.co.uk after having worked together on a number of hugely successful joint campaigns. One such project was with FitKid.co.uk which had complex requirements to meet the demands of their UK Training qualifications, National Franchising Operation and FitKid Dorset Clubs.

Nicky Kay, Development Director for FitKid has seen the benefits in working in this way;
“We have ongoing assistance with our on and offline campaigns, regularly achieving newsworthy national PR coverage. Our new website and online shop was specified, created and designed beautifully and our customers have provided fabulous feedback. Coconut Creatives and Strawberrysoup work seamlessly together and we have seen significant company growth during the time we have been working together”.

“We’ve found that there is a certain mix of on and offline activities which bring our clients success. It just seemed logical to package this up and offer it to businesses throughout the region” adds Sarah Dyer, founder of Coconut Creatives.

You may have noticed that our website has changed slightly – the design is pretty similar, but the site itself, the code it uses and its ease of navigation has improved dramatically.

The site also features new areas including some website testimonials, web design articles and pages specifically for each of our offices. We have now added more recent sites to our portfolio too (which has also been redesigned.) – keep your eyes peeled for new sites that are still to be added as we have been quite busy!

We would like to say very well done to Sarah, Ruth, Lianne and Stef who ran the Race for Life in aid of cancer research on Sunday. The weather couldn’t have been much worse, but this didn’t dampen their spirits for the run which measures at just over 5km.

The girls did fantastically and ran the distance in about 28 minutes and raised over £400 for cancer research – a charity close to our hearts. Over 3000 women attended the run (or walk) for life and the atmosphere was great – well done to everyone that got stuck in!

Yes that’s right – we have teamed up with Coconut Creatives to setup a new marketing website offering SME’s the chance for some very exciting marketing advice.

For a limited period, we are offering potential clients the chance to have a free marketing healthcheck. This healthcheck will consist of a full review of current and future online marketing and offline marketing, plus some handy hints and tips along the way.

For more information on Fruit & Nut Marketing, check out its own website – http://www.fruitandnutmarketing.co.uk.

Our latest e-commerce website, YourWhiteSpace.com is now online. YourWhiteSpace.com is a new business, specialising in designing and sourcing affordable art for both consumers and trade customers – who can browse their large range of art online, choose the paintings they like and get them shipped and hung on their walls within 72 hours!

They have a great range of unique art including original oil paintings, giclee art, contemporary art and canvas paintings suited to a wide range of tastes. YourWhiteSpace source their art from renowned artists around the world including Mike Dethick, Darren Baker and Joanna Urwin. They also have an offline art catalogue which is available online.

Wow – two years have really flown by… we can’t believe that Strawberrysoup is 2 years old already!

We have done some fantastic things over the past couple of years and worked with some truly inspiring people. In the last 12 months we have grown by over 340% and have spread our client base further across the south coast and beyond.

The next year is going to be very exciting with plans for us to start our own hosting business called Woofti, offer offline marketing as a dedicated service and increase our team by 100% – don’t panic though – as we grow and expand, we promise that we will remain as approachable and easy to talk to as ever.

We just want to say thanks to all our clients for trusting in us and giving us the chance of working with them. To celebrate our birthday we are having a birthday bash at our Bournemouth office. Bring on our 3rd birthday!

A local Solent Boat Charter company ‘4Charter’ have taken their business to the next level by re-designing and building their new website to assist them in achieving improved search engine rankings on a UK basis. The new website is built using the latest CSS technology and has fully optimised content to ensure the search engines can position it effectively above other Solent Boat Charter companies in the area. It’ll take a few months for the new 4Charter website to be positioned on the search engines, but once visible there’ll be no stopping them!

4charter have been running for 3 years providing a range of marine services including Rib charter, Yacht charter and boat maintenance in the Solent area.

They have a diverse range of Ribs for hire throughout the Solent. They offer Rib and Yacht charter primarily from Portsmouth, Southampton, Chichester, and Cowes. Rib hire is available for bareboat and skippered Rib charter throughout the Solent.

We are really pleased to announce that we have helped raise over £4300 for the Southampton Hospital’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

The PICU is a 14 bedded unit currently funded for 9 beds and treats over 700 patients per year. Children range in age from 0-16 years old. Specialities include cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, trauma, medical emergencies, and neonatal surgery.

We took part in a charity golf day at South Winchester golf club along with other local businesses which included some great prizes! We look forward to next years charity golf day! More information about PICU can be found at www.friendsofpicu.org.uk.

Keith, Tony, Simon and Neil spreading the Strawberry love!

We are pleased to announce that we are one of the main sponsors for a leading sales and marketing seminar that is being held on Thursday 17th May 2007 at the Hilton Avisford Park, just outside Chichester.

This innovative seminar delivers 12 dynamic and practical lessons that new startups/small business can use for immediate effect, helping them to outsell, outmarket and outperform their competition and is a benefit to any business, large or small, irrespective of industry and length of time established.

If you would like tickets to this FREE event, feel free to contact us, or call the events hotline on 01983 869020.

We are currently recruiting at our Chichester office – and are looking for a talented PHP/XHTML developer to join our team.

You would be implementing client website development projects using a combination of well structured, reusable, modular, annotated code written yourself or open source. This career requires someone to create bespoke websites using our very own StrawberrySystem content management system, and liase with clients on a day to day basis.

For more information on this PHP developer career, click here to download the job description.