PlusOne – Marketing Musings

Here I present another webmater interview. A while back we had Stephanie from BlahBalhBox showing how age is no barrier to having a dream and chasing it. This time we hear from Andy MacDonald a 19 year old from Plymouth, England who is a never give up sort of guy who takes life by the shoulders and is giving it a good shake! That’s him on the right, done by artist Zalo at Caricature King

Post script: It’s just a shame he never paid for the next caricature of he and his “Mrs” he had done…

Over to you Andy…

If you run more than one website, what is the name and URL of your primary website

In my field of work I run many of my own and clients websites. My two primary businesses’ and their websites are my website design business, which is www.swiftmediauk.co.uk, and I also own a mobile disco & karaoke business, whose website is www.digitaltrax.co.uk. I put a lot of my time into my biggest business which is Swift Media UK, this company supplies all services related to internet and design, for example, web design, web hosting, search engine optimisation, logo design to name but a few! DigitalTRAX is as you can appreciate, more of an evening related business, supplying mobile disco & karaoke entertainment to the licensed trade and the public for events such as weddings, birthdays, stag/hen nights and much more.

The internet provides access to global audiences and markets. Where are you located and is your market influenced by your location?

I live in a city of approx 300,000 people known as Plymouth which is in the South West of the United Kingdom. The internet does provide access to global audiences, but in terms of where we are located, this doesn’t affect my business. The internet enables companies like mine to be able to do business with companies and businesses throughout the world, no matter where they are based. Long business meetings and tedious driving journeys are no longer required, all we do is communicate via email, and video, etc. many of my clients I have never met, and come from as far and wide as Australia to America. I find this is a much more efficient and convenient method of doing business.

What were the circumstances that led you to start your site/online business?

I never in my life dreamed or ever thought about having an online business. I am physically disabled so I always realised that I could never do a manual job, however I was always determined I was never going to work for anyone else, and wanted to be my own boss. All I needed was an idea! When I was 13 a mate of mine told me of a Blog that he had made, I’m the kind of guy that’s got to have what everyone else has got, so I wanted one. My mate told me he would only ever show me once how to install a blog, and would provide no further help! Once I had one online I was hooked, it made me probe into other aspects of the web I could get involved with. I thought myself how to make a very basic website; once it was done I was so proud!

I have a lot of older friends who own businesses, so I persuaded 4 of them to buy a basic website from me at £100 each. At 13 years of age this was an amazing amount of money to have. I started getting more daring in the projects I took on, slowly teaching myself how to design using Photoshop & Fireworks, and adding features such as online forms, forums and much more using Dreamweaver. In 1997 Swift Media UK was born, and that was the story of how I got into an internet related business. I haven’t looked back since!

What does this site do?

My website provides such services as website design, ecommerce development, internet marketing, search engine optimisation, logo design and web hosting. There are hundreds of thousands of my kind of business’s out there; so competing with the big guys with endless amounts of money to spend on attracting new customers can be pretty difficult. At the moment our demand is getting much higher, so soon I’m not going to be able to keep up with demand and will need to hire some help. I will reveal a bit later on what our marketing strategies are!

Is this your only site?

www.swiftmediauk.co.uk isn’t my only website, but it does occupy 40% of my time, coming second to current projects which are on the go. I am about to start a new webmaster related website which will include forums, information and articles, and search engine news, which is still under construction and not yet ready to be released, so watch this space, My mobile disco companies website www.digitaltrax.co.uk also requires a couple of hours work each week, which only involves uploading photos taken at events we have been at for that week.

Are you a full time web business person or do you have other income as well?

I’m definitely a full time web-business man. I realised when I was 15 that I wanted to be a full-time businessman who operates on the internet, and didn’t see the need for school; Using my disability as an excuse I gave up school 14 months early and didn’t sit any of my scheduled exams. I was told by many people that I would regret this, but I haven’t looked back since. I now regularly spend 10 hours a day, 6 days a week on the internet working on my own and my client’s websites. I devote about 40% of my time to www.swiftmediauk.co.uk and the rest of my time gets spent on on-going projects. Swift Media UK accounts to 75% of my gross annual income, with DigitalTRAX coming second providing 25% of my income.

There are many methods of promotion for website. What do you do and which do you think are the most effective?

I have never spent money on advertising Swift Media UK, or on promoting its services. All I have done is put pure effort and years of un-paid hard work on promoting the business and its services. Such techniques I have utilised to gain business is getting a link to my website wherever I can on the internet, this includes taking part in over 45 forums on a daily basis, having links to my website in signatures on each of the forums, offering incentives to current customers when they generate a sales lead for me, for example, one months free hosting, free website updates etc.

I also offer my services to websites that display my banner adverts, I also spend a lot of time reciprocal link building with related websites, I spend a lot of time writing articles, and offering them as exclusives to popular Ezines and newsletters, this is by far the best marketing campaign I use, and generates 80% of new business.

Where do you see yourself in a few years time?

In 2 years time I see myself with an even bigger, ever expanding business, settled in a new office with a few guys working for me. With the current client base and demand ever expanding, I see this to be a move being sooner rather than later. Within the next few months I aim to spend some money on nation-wide advertising to further expand Swift Media UK. This time in five years? Who knows!

If you could give two pieces of advice to aspiring or new webmasters/internet business owners, what would they be?

The first piece of advice I would like to pass onto aspiring or new webmaster/internet business owners is don’t expect your business to take off overnight, I waited weeks wondering why I wasn’t getting business, then months, believe me, these things take time, unless you have a lot of money to put into advertising your new business, then be patient.

Secondly I’d like to say you don’t necessarily have to put money into a new business to get it off the ground, with a bit of careful thought and consideration, a lot of hard work, and being in the right place at the right time speaking to the right people, can really help you along the way to achieving your long term business goals.

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If you’d like to ask Andy a question, or comment on his experiences, feel free to drop us a comment.

If you would like to be interviewed, please drop me an email with a bit of background.
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Andy has also supplied us with an informative article on search engine optimisation
Technorati tags webmaster interviews | web building

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