We regularly hear unique success stories from our owners regarding how they are using their website to build relationships and drive sales. Below are just some those stories that have been shared with us. Hopefully, they provide ideas to enhance your own business strategies.
Fred Polizzi
Minuteman Press, Centerville, OH
"Not fully understanding the power and flexibility of our Firespring website, we were planning on creating a new website that better reflected our current business model. That was until we had a personal training session with one of Firespring's support representatives who helped open our eyes to the tremendous capability we had with our Firespring website.
After seeing how extremely easy it was to make the need changes to our website, we were able to implement major changes in just over a week. If not for customers placing order, which is awesome, we could have completed the entire project.
Our team is convinced that the internet will be a driving force in our sales growth, and having a first class website, like our website from Firespring, is paramount to that success."
Cindy Winkle
Minuteman Press, St. Paul, MN
It's no secret that spam email annoys business people every day. But when Cindy Winkle of Minuteman Press in St. Paul began receiving over 50 junk mail messages a day, she knew that this nuisance had crossed the line. It was more than an inconvenience for her business; it was a waste of valuable employee time and a risk for potential viruses.
So Cindy took the initiative to fight back. By subscribing to the spam and virus protection service offered through her Minuteman website, she eliminated the problem before messages ever reached her inbox.
"We just signed up for the spam protection and I love it! I used to get 50–60 emails per day of junk, and I think it's more like 5 now," said Winkle. "It has been a big timesaver for me."
Dee Bisel
Minuteman Press, Lawrence, KS
Time is money. That is the mantra of today's fast paced world. Therefore, businesses that offer convenience and efficiency are capturing and keeping customers like never before. Realizing this mindset, Dee Bisel utilized efficiency enhancing tools from her website to capture new business and lock in existing customers.
"We just landed a new client that was shopping around for a printer. When my competitors' prices came in, they were cheaper than mine, but I was selected based on the efficiency of online ordering," said Bisel. "And once the client uses customer portals, it is very difficult for them to leave."
Since launching her site in 2001 Dee has been able to convert 60-70% of her customers to handle proofing online. This has led to faster turnarounds and happier clients. In a world where time is money, Dee is enjoying an increased supply of both thanks to her Minuteman website solution.
Don Krieger
Minuteman Press, Napa, CA
Everyone has heard the old adage, "It's better to give than to receive." Don Krieger from Minuteman Press in Napa, California, proves it is actually better to give AND receive, through the effective use of vendor links.
Don has leveraged a link on his website that directs customers to a vendor's site, where they can order their holiday cards. By giving his customers such seamless simplicity in the ordering process, he has received increased orders and improved profits this holiday season:
"In cooperation with Birchcraft we can now put in our daily message to go to our website and order your holiday cards. Yesterday we received our first order for $1,310 in Christmas cards. All we had to do is read our email and bill the customer. How easy was that?"
Joel Steinman
Minuteman Press, Hartford, CT
Without even making a sales call, Joel has used Adobe® PDF JobReady™ to get new customers that were referred from existing customers.
According to Joel, they started the conversation like this "Joel, I heard you were the guy to instruct me how to get software that makes it easy to print?" During that same call Joel walked them through the installation setup and was printing a $1,000 job the next day.
With dozens of clients using Adobe® PDF JobReady™ Joel says he can "now skip the proofing process all together, which is a huge time saver."
Joel has also used Customer Portals to keep existing customers even when they move thousands of miles away. After one regular customer that orders for all their offices nationwide was transferred out of town, Joel was worried about losing the $1,500 a month business so he set him up on customer portals. Now the customer can place an order from anywhere.
As Joel has also found out they'll place orders at anytime of the night, too. "You should see the times they place orders, 3:00 a.m., midnight, etc., it does make it convenient."
Ingrid Herzog
Minuteman Press, Waukesha, WI
"I have participated in a number of your training classes from how to improve our website, to how to market our website. Within minutes of completing each class, I was able to apply what I learned and update our website and create complementary marketing pieces. We continue to receive compliments on the layout, content, and ease of use of our web pages.
I would recommend Firespring to any of the Minuteman owners."
