Craig Vestal
Portage Printing • Portage, Michigan
"We had our own web site years ago. A local company spent months getting it ready and when it was finally up we thought it was pretty good. After a while though, it started looking kind of stale to us and there never seemed to be enough time to put new stuff in it. When I saw WebsitesForPrinters.com, it was a welcome solution. Now our site is always fresh and we don't have to remember to update it every few days. We get many positive comments on how professional it looks -- but I like the way that it shows our shop's personality. We put in our promotions, news and industry honors and use some of our own graphics so the whole thing still has the 'look and feel' of our shop.
The email newsletter, Printer@Work that comes with the site has been a big surprise. Every single month, I get personal replies from recipients who appreciate the content and value the contact. Now we have done quite a lot of direct mail over the past 18 years (and will never stop), but no one has EVER sent a thank you before!
Last year, we published a giveaway promo calendar that created a huge demand. There were many folks who stopped by or called only to be disappointed. We ended up getting the local radio and newspapers (for FREE) to direct prospects to our web site so they could see for themselves what all the excitement was about!
We are a small shop in a small market, but over a year's time we get THOUSANDS of visitors to our website. Compared to competitors' homemade sites and the franchise-with-local-phone-number ones that are used in our area, we look so much more capable."