Simon Campbell set up online marketing service The Sandpit less than six months ago, but is projecting £1 million in sales for its first year of trading.

Simon Campbell set up online marketing service The Sandpit less than six months ago, but is projecting £1 million in sales for its first year of trading.

What’s the big idea?

What tend to happens in the start-up space is that there a lot of clever guys developing technologies but their skill-set isn’t necessarily about how to market their ideas, so a lot don’t get off the ground. My company is focused on marketing strategies for these types of companies.

How do you do this?

Our first product, SEO Sandpit, provides a blogging service for companies using proprietary technology for producing and publishing content that is quickly indexed by Google. We set up and write a series of sector-specific blogs for customers, get them published and have a linkback programme. That helps their websites reach higher positions in search engine results and increases their exposure.

How did you fund the project?

I managed to keep the basic start-up costs down to around £10,000 which I funded myself and spent on laptops and developing our website. Everything since has been funded by initial sales.

How did you market it?

Online, we’re starting to build a web presence through blogging and social media, publishing content about best SEO practices and leveraging it through social media platforms. Offline, it’s a combination of face-to-face networking, getting speaker opportunities and going out and finding the right trade fairs.

What next?

The plan is to drive sales for SEO Sandpit, after which we’ll get to the stage where I can put a business manager in place for that unit. Then we’ll set up the second vertical which will be in the social media space.

See also: Make sales through your website