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VistaPrint.com is a pretty famous online printer. I think they are best known for giving out free business cards (they put their logo and slogan on the back of these cards. You get free cards, they get advertising – works just fine for some small business owners.)
I made a purchase at Amazon.com and in my box was a “90% off Rubber Stamp” coupon from VistaPrint. By golly, I needed to get some custom Rubber Stamps created so I took them up on their offer.
See my review of VistaPrint below and, more importantly, some Marketing Takeaways…
Shopping Cart – Adding products to cart – Grade: A+
Their shopping cart system is fantastic. Easy to follow and fast. I was able to create four different custom stamps in 10-15 minutes.
Checkout – Grade: E
Checkout is a pain. They make you go through 5+ pages of offers. Other products you might want to buy, offers from various partners, etc…
Amazon is famous for 1-Click Ordering. VistaPrint.com should be infamous for 10-Click ordering.
Shipping – Grade: A+
I used their “Shipping & Processing (Slow 21 Days)” which was free because my order was over $40 (part of the coupon I had.) This “Slow 21 Days” ended up being a total of three (3) business days – Placed order on Tuesday, received order on Friday…. Don’t be afraid of choosing their slow shipping option – it won’t be as long as they say.
Products – Grade: B
I have ordered Rubber Stamps before, they came all ready to go. These came “Ready to Assemble.” Not really a big deal – just had to adhere the stamp, they included the instructions – 4-5 steps and they were ready to go.
One thing I am scared about is future e-mail from them. The fact that they put me through 5+ pages of offers when I was ready to checkout (and the fact that I’ve already gotten a couple e-mails from them in the last week!) tells me they will be sending plenty of offers to my inbox…time will tell and I can probably “unsubscribe” from them – but still a pain.
Marketing Takeaways:
They sent a “90% off” offer to me – that got my attention and while my first stamp was $1.99 – I ended up buying three other stamps at $17.99/each… The “big sale” got me in and then I bought more…don’t be afraid of making a big offer to attract new clients!
If you paid attention above – I received their coupon inside an order I received from Amazon.com. Strategic Partnership! They work!
Find a company that you can partner with. VistaPrint probably spends pennies to have their coupon in front of each of Amazon’s customers – these are customers who purchase online – good fit for VistaPrint. Certainly there are local businesses you could partner with – get creative.
Don’t overwhelm your customers – especially at checkout! There is nothing wrong with suggesting a complementary product and doing some cross marketing, but don’t overdue it. That was a major turn-off and gives me an idea of what’s to come from them now that I am in their database.
So – I was impressed and depressed with my VistaPrint experience. Would I use them again or recommend them? I don’t think so – there are several better printing options out there online.
At the same time, for budget conscience small business owners, keep an eye out for their offers – you can score a nice deal - You will just have to put up with the “baggage” that comes with it.
Posted by Kyle Hunt | (0) Comment
A nice Label Printer can save you a lot of time…
I have used the Dymo LabelWriter 400 for the last year to print Mailing Addresses and love it.
It prints in black and white - the labels are a little pricey - but the printer itself and it’s ease of use is as good as it gets.
It beats the socks off hand-writing the address or running an envelope thru your printer.
Posted by Kyle Hunt | (0) Comment
E-mail spam is a major problem online. Future posts will tackle this subject and offer tips and tricks on how to combat the spam you receive in your inbox. However, this post contains information on how to limit the junk mail you receive in your home mailbox…
I received the following information in an e-mail from my mortgage company and thought my blog readers might find it useful:
Question: How do I stop getting credit card junk mail?
Answer: It’s easy! Just call 888-5-O-P-T-O-U-T (888-567-8688) and the three major credit bureaus will remove your name from the lists they sell to companies sending out unsolicited, pre-approved credit and insurance offers. You can have your name and address removed from future lists for either five years or permanently. The three major credit reporting bureaus – TransUnion, Equifax and Experian – are required by law to remove your name from these lists once you opt out.
You may also contact the three credit bureaus directly and have your name removed from their lists by visiting www.optoutprescreen.com. You can also opt out your spouse as long as you have their Social Security number.
Posted by Kyle Hunt | (0) Comment
I’m not one who passes on e-mail forwards, but I received the following and wanted to share it with you. As a new father it is especially moving.
Be sure to watch the video after reading this great story (link to video is at the bottom.)
Strongest Dad in the World [From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.
But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he’s pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he’s not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars - all in the same day.
Dick’s also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much - except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
“He’ll be a vegetable the rest of his life,” Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. “Put him in an institution.”
But the Hoyts weren’t buying it. They noticed the way Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. “No way,” Dick says he was told. “There’s nothing going on in his brain.”
“Tell him a joke,” Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? “Go Bruins!” And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, “Dad, I want to do that.”
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described “porker” who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. “Then it was me who was handicapped,” Dick says. “I was sore for two weeks.”
That day changed Rick’s life. “Dad,” he typed, “when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!”
And that sentence changed Dick’s life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
“No way,” Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren’t quite a single runner, and they weren’t quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, “Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?”
How’s a guy who never learned to swim and hadn’t ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.
Now they’ve done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don’t you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you’d do on your own? “No way,” he says. Dick does it purely for “the awesome feeling” he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 — only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don’t keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
“No question about it,” Rick types. “My dad is the Father of the Century.”
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. “If you hadn’t been in such great shape,” one doctor told him, “you probably would’ve died 15 years ago.”
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other’s life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father’s Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
“The thing I’d most like,” Rick types, “is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.”
Posted by Kyle Hunt | (0) Comment
"Kyle Hunt is a lover of all things small business and is a Duct Tape Marketing Coach."
