My high school sweetheart turned wife and mommy to our babies. She’s as good as it gets…

Look at those eyes (picture taken last summer)…he’s growing up way to fast. The first 18 months have flown…

“One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.”

Forbes

During an old episode of Sesame Street, the Cookie Monster participated in a game show. As a prize winner, he got to choose among door #1, which contained $1 million, door #2, which contained a French chateau, and door #3, which contained a cookie. He chose the cookie! What is your ‘cookie?’

A lot of small business owners don’t know how Google makes their money.

Seth had a post today about Google AdWords - it’s a nice overview, using some good examples and may shed some light on how advertising on Google works - and how Google continues to grow!

Small business owners looking to reach their local market can generate cost effective leads and new business by advertising on Google. Contact us and we’ll explain your options and how it all works.

See Seth’s post here.

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.