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Optix Solutions announces new partnership with website developer morphsites

Sue Cade
Authored by Sue Cade
Posted Tuesday, March 7, 2023 - 8:30am

Exeter digital marketing agency Optix Solutions has revealed a new collaborative partnership with Ilminster-based website developer morphsites.

The collaboration means clients will benefit from a wider range of marketing and development services that is set to rival those provided by larger agencies.

Although remaining as separate entities, the two businesses will work together in a seamless way to deliver a superior client experience.

Optix Solutions founding partner Alastair Banks explains the reasoning behind the move. “Ours has been a successful agency from the earliest days of the web, and over this time we’ve made changes in response to sector demands. At one point we were offering a mix of marketing and web design, but over the past five or so years the web design element has become less of a focus.

“Whilst we will always have our own creative department to provide design services, we took the decision not to have an in-house development team, but with the aim of finding a practical solution for clients wanting the full suite of digital services .”

Alastair says he didn’t want to create a white label situation so looked around for a suitable partner. He found the right fit with Pete Fairburn, Director of morphsites.

“We had an existing relationship as we are part of a supportive peer to peer agency group that was set up during the pandemic. So I already knew that Pete and I have a very similar ethos and approach to work.”

Introductions were made between Optix MD Rob Stevens and morphsites MD Tom Savage, after which the wider teams had the opportunity to get to know each other.

“The calibre of our talent is really hard to rival, not just in the South West but in our sector in general. We have several big hitters between us, including our Director of Design Paul Lawrence. In addition, morphsites’ knowledgeable team of developers - who have accumulated over 100 years of collective experience - build a wide variety of simple and complex websites.”

Paul has 25 years’ experience working as lead designer for the likes of Virgin Media, Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia, creating and evolving branded digital projects, and designing and developing digital campaigns across responsive web, social and campaign platforms. Meanwhile morphsites’ team of talented developers has extensive experience building global organisations’ integrations, front and back-office projects, and tailor-made sites. This has transformed B2B/B2C ecommerce clients including award-winning businesses in the legal, electric car leasing and organic retail sectors, empowering them to become market industry leaders.

This unique collaboration will see Optix providing front end strategic digital marketing services, including website design, branding and creative campaigns, as well as SEO, content marketing, social media and PPC with morphsites supplying software development, coding and programming, ecommerce and complex integrations, with the provision of hosting, servicing and maintenance. Clients will have access to the flair and experience of around 60 team members, spanning developers, engineers and strategists to designers and client account managers.

“It means that our discovery process, which has proved a major game changer in the calibre of our pitches, now has an instant mix of branding and creative ideas with the technical know how to make them work.”

Both businesses boast outstanding client successes covering a wide variety of sectors, including work for Exeter University, NHS, Michael Spiers, Race World, McKie Legal and Miles Tea & Coffee.

Pete Fairburn adds, “It’s quite unusual for two agencies that could potentially be competitors to collaborate in this way. For me this just highlights the level of trust between us.

“The true value of the collaboration is that by working together we can enable clients to be versatile, to develop and grow, even more critical during the current economic uncertainty.”   

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