Interview with Tony Seifart, MD at Incredibility
This month we chat to online marketing veteran and entrepreneur Tony Seifart. An electrical engineering graduate from UCT, Tony has spent nearly two decades in the digital marketing space in various roles including strategist, lecturer, and speaker. In 2015 his company won the Best E-Commerce Company in Europe, Middle-East and Africa from the Business Excellence Awards, and has been nominated again for 2020. Over the last three years he has built up and sold out two online businesses as well as reading his Honours in Theology. When he is not speaking at events or lecturing, he is running his own impressive list of online companies. We pick his brain on the do’s and don’ts of building a successful business online. Describe yourself in 3 words. Stubborn, Loyal, and have I said Stubborn already? When I was a kid I wanted to be… A Fireman! My best friend Craig wanted to be a cop, and since we both couldn’t be cops, I decided to be a fireman! (you can’t defy 5-year old logic!) Tell us about Platinum Club – where did it all start? A few years back I came across a podcast where the guy was giving people advice on how to structure their finances to get out of debt. I bought the course he was promoting, and the information is brilliant. But I realised that nothing like that existed for South Africans – the advice he was giving was mostly relevant only to Americans. Financial Advisors are incentivised to sell policies, not to really help you. Bank Managers are incentivised to sell you debt. But there’s no structured system to help people plan their financial futures without a proper plan. The Platinum Club was born out of the idea of providing the resources necessary for someone to follow a structured path to create their own financial plan. Of course, we need to be careful because we’re not registered with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, so we can’t provide advice – we only provide the tools to create the plan. Once people have a strong plan they can chat to their own Financial Advisor or CFP to put the plan into action. We’ve now also branched out into building our own Legal App for members and partnered with law firms so that our subscribers can now access legal advice 24/7 via an App (so no wasted airtime sitting on a phone). How do you decide which verticals to go into? When I started out with online lead generation, the only companies using lead generation was Insurance companies, so I didn’t have any other choice. Loans and Insurance seem to go hand-in-hand, so I’ve always focussed on those two areas. Why do some internet businesses fail while others succeed? Adaptability is probably the biggest challenge for online businesses. The bigger a site becomes, the harder it gets to change it when circumstances change (and it’s usually at government’s whim). When regulations change, you’ve got to change. When other people see what you do, they try and copy you. They dump large amounts of money into CPC campaigns, which then drives the price up. That’s been the biggest challenge for us. Unfortunately the smaller guys can’t ride out the storm. You’ve got to pick a strategy and system where big guys can’t bully you out of the market. Which channels have proven most successful in attracting visitors to your site/s? In the past we used email campaigns (the CPA put a stop to that), and we moved to Social Media and traditional CPC. Native gets us a lot of traffic, but very low conversion rates. We’re excited to be partnering with AdMarula on some of our new projects though. What is your experience from working with affiliate marketing? Gees, I love Affiliate Marketing! It’s the easiest way to make money online – you don’t have the come up with products and services, you just sell someone else’s product! The most valuable lessons learnt in your professional career, so far? Cash is King. A deal isn’t really done until the money is in the bank. I’ve had so many deals signed and sealed but collapse at the point of payment. What advice do you have for aspiring online entrepreneurs? Don’t be afraid to dump an idea that isn’t working. Some people spend months (years?) on building the “perfect” website, that costs them a fortunate, but never makes a single cent. If a business idea isn’t working, dump it and move on. Best advice anyone has ever given you? Never Give Up! Never Surrender!
Constantly changing, constantly evolving
By the words of world famous inventor and business man, James Dyson, “business means constantly changing and constantly evolving.” It certainly feels like the world is changing at a much faster pace than before. I was recently in Sweden and in just 12 months since my last visit I could see how things have evolved there. New technologies and solutions that weren’t available less than a year ago, have become a part of day-to-day life. For AdMarula, change and evolution is inevitable – in fact, we’ve been doing it for the past 8 years. Being part of one of the fastest evolving industries in the world, we as digital marketers need to keep up and evolve with the industry. Those who graduated with a degree in marketing can’t compete in today’s market unless they know how to learn and adapt as they go. The industry is simply moving too fast. What was popular in internet marketing 10 or even five years ago is now an ancient practice. We all need to educate ourselves on a daily basis. Luckily there are lots you and I can do stay on top of things happening in our industry. Reading, reading, and more reading! I often tell my team this. There is SO much information available to those who are willing to find it. Sign up to blog posts, newsletters, alerts and read articles. Set aside time in your day to do this, because if you don’t you will miss out on more than you realise. Be out there, physically meet and speak to the people in the digital industry. Much of what we do is automated and can be done via email, Skype etc. but in essence Digital Marketing is still a people’s industry so relationships and communication skills are important. Knowledge sharing. Attend seminars and industry events. We can all learn from each other and it’s often the best way to learn about new trends or important changes happening in your immediate business community. For more technical knowledge you may have to attend a course. These days it is really useful for marketing graduates to have some development skills under their belt. The bridge between marketing and tech is becoming smaller and smaller, which means marketers need to know how to ‘speak basic tech’, and developers need to learn basic business skills so they can think one step ahead of the consumer – understand how they can offer a technical solution to a user-driven problem. We are certainly living in interesting times, and I personally cannot wait to see how our industry will evolve even further in the near future. Onwards and upwards! Daniel Gross – CEO
