A NORTHWICH-based marketing agency has celebrated a whole year of offering free support to small businesses to help them survive the pandemic.

Since the beginning of the first UK-wide lockdown last year, Cheshire Cat Marketing - a close-knit, woman-led agency - has been on a mission to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adapt to the 'new normal'.

Co-founder and head of creative, Rhiannon Birch, even invested the money she had saved up for her wedding into the agency so it was better equipped to help others.

During the first lockdown, Rhiannon said she felt she was very fortunate compared to other business owners and, along with her team, decided to start offering advice, support and guidance.

She said: "As a small business ourselves, we know how hard the lockdowns and pandemic have hit companies, but thankfully when the first lockdown hit my partner and I had been saving up to get married, so we decided to invest into our agency instead so we could support other businesses throughout this incredibly difficult and uncertain time.

"As we have an in-house team of marketing experts who all specialise in different fields, we weren’t in a position to fully take advantage of the furlough scheme and decided to try to spread some positivity and community spirit instead."

Cheshire Cat Marketing has since helped to support countless businesses and even assisted a newly formed food bank to get established and spread the word of their work.

The team's community spirit has not gone unnoticed and they are now going from strength to strength, welcoming six new team members this year alone.