New job and new here, too. :)

[StacieWPQ]

Hi everyone,

My name is Stacie Clark and I am new to the forum. I joined searching for ways to promote the website I was hired to manage and promote -- Full-Color Printing Services at WePrintQuick.com (http://www.weprintquick.com).

I come from a hospitality background and while I have done some social media promotions, online marketing is very new to me. I would love some advice or suggestions on how to draw the right people to our website.

WePrintQuick.com is a full service printing company, a division of Eveready Printing in Cleveland, OH. Not to get too sales pitchy, I will note that we offer high quality printing services for reasonable rates. This company has been around for more than 100 years, and while it is very popular in Cleveland, I am having a difficult time establishing a strong web presence for it.

I would be thrilled if some of you veterans would be willing to offer some suggestions on what steps to take to promote this website with basically no budget at all?

Thank you!

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum Stacie. We do have plenty of conversations about marketing and promotion so feel free to start some threads asking questions. You'll probably get better responses in threads dedicated to those questions than your intro thread.

There are obviously lots of different specifics, but the general way to promote the site is to get the word out. For example you added a link in your forum signature. The more you now post here, especially if the posts are helpful with good information, the more likely people will visit the site through that link. The same thing can happen if you comment on blog posts or on social sites. You also want to make sure the site has content on it that people want to visit. If all the content on the site is sales pages then you're probably going to have to spend some money to promote it. If on the other hand you can create informational or entertaining content and provide a way for the content to spread (say with an rss feed on a blog) then your content helps promote the site.

There's more to it, but I'll leave it for more specific questions. Looking forward to chatting and thanks for joining the community.

[Business Attorney]

Welcome to the community, Stacie.

We've got a great variety of members, including several that are involved with promoting their own web based businesses and other who promote websites for others as part of their business. As vangogh pointed out, you'll probably get more useful comments by creating specific topics in the appropriate sections of this forum.

[cbscreative]

Welcome, Stacie. As vangogh and David already mentioned, having your own threads in appropriate sections will get better response, but I also encourage you to delve into the Marketing sections (especially Internet, Copywriting, and SEO). You'll find a lot of valuable insights from the discussions already in those areas.

As you research the online competition, one of your key tasks is to evaluate how they are presenting themselves and brainstorm how to separate yourself from the pack. You certainly don't want to be another Vistaprint, you want to give potential customers a compelling reason to choose you.

One thing you'll definitely want to do if you're not already, is stay active on Linkedin. Join discussion groups centered around graphic design and participate in discussions without pushing your service. It takes time, but when you gain respect for your expertise, you'll establish trust and get business. Facebook is good for B2C, but with your business model being more B2B, you should focus more on Linkedin.

[TomWbl]

Good luck with the new job... I know how you feel!