Fifteen Digital opens outpost in the North East
Nov 18 2010 by John Hill, The Journal
NORTH East native John Borthwick has returned to his roots to set up a North East outpost for an expanding online company.
The Middlesbrough-bred director of Fifteen Digital is now coming to work at Darlington’s Lingfield Point, branching the company out from its base in Stoke-on-Trent.
Fifteen Digital was set up in 2006 and is now split into IT, web development and online marketing divisions. Borthwick has moved the online marketing division to Darlington, and has hired a member of staff to assist him. The other two divisions will continue to operate in the West Midlands.
He said: “Predominantly, I wanted to move back up to the North East to be closer to family. We were looking at Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough and eventually decided on Darlington. We don’t necessarily have to meet clients face-to-face, so it doesn’t necessarily matter where we are based, but when we came to see the offices, it just clicked for us.”
Lingfield Point is tailored to start-ups and SMEs and features space from 540sq ft upwards as well as flexible lease agreements. Borthwick also hopes to benefit from the crops of graduates emerging from local universities.
While the company’s client base is mostly those generated while in the West Midlands, Borthwick is confident that one or two North East clients will sign up following recent networking. He said one of the benefits of the company is that it does not tie clients to long contracts, giving them the opportunity to walk away if the relationship does not work out.
The Darlington office will provide services including pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimisation and email marketing. The division hopes to attract another member of staff in the new year.
Borthwick said that e-commerce work remained the biggest growth area for the division, and Fifteen has developed its e-commerce system Fifteen Shop to allow it to quickly set clients up with a working system.
He said: “Over the last three years, we’ve built an e-commerce system and now can have an e-commerce site and running in a few days.
“Since we drew up the business plan to open the new office, we’ve added new staff, and now we’re making a concerted effort to expand.”
