Docucopies.com Gets a Makeover - Website Redesign is Complete!

It's been a while since we checked in with you. That's because there's been a lot of projects going on here, one of the biggest being the redesign of our website!

The new layout is mostly aimed at simplifying the navigation and ordering process to be as intuitive as possible for as many product types as possible. Let's do a quick overview...

1) Simplified Product Layout. With the old site, the different order forms for various products were stuffed into the body of the website and bulky top-navigation links. It wasn't always clear where to go for certain products, like calendars, hand flyers, etc.

Clearly not the most intuitive way to order color copies!

The new design simplifies this. Instead of guessing what order form to go to, look to the list of most common product types on the left side. We've included the jobs we see most, such as tri-fold brochures and newsletters. Meanwhile we kept a couple buttons for the most common, or "featured," products right in the middle of the page for quick, easy accessibility.

Clean and clear design concept -- now that's more like it!

2) Automated Fill-in of Order Details. Though many of the products use the same ordering form, the specifications you put in line by line will affect what kind of product you're getting. For example, clicking on Newsletter will prompt you to specify whether you want a single sheet folded in half, multiple sheets stapled, or an actual saddle-stitched booklet. 

Your selection here will bring you to the appropriate order form and automatically fill in the required details to reflect that sort of newsletter. So for a 4 Page Half Fold, you'll get our color copy order form filled in with an 11x17 sheet size, with a half fold so that you essentially get 4 "pages" out of a single sheet. When appropriate we'll also pre-choose an appropriate paper type. In this case we automatically selected the 24/60# white laser bond, because this is the minimum thickness we recommend for double-sided color printing. You are still free to change whatever details you want.

We hope these changes to the website will let you order your color copies, books, booklets, postcards and other digital printing products with unprecedented ease and flexibility. Any suggestions or comments? Please let us know!

A Big Wave in the Social Pool

It's been two weeks since we announced plans to give away an 8-Gig iPod Touch to one lucky member of our online social circle.

The results have been huge! Our social network has grown over 2000% percent since we announced the sweepstakes. This is far beyond what most of us expected in much less time than we thought it would take.

This has led me to develop a few hypotheses about the new "social revolution" and about what users expect and value from a company's social presence.

Regarding social content, and people's expectations of a company's social presence:

• Most of our customers seem to value coupons above all else
• Social media can be a good channel to ask questions and leave feedback
• More coupons please!
• People don't like to be overburdened with posts by trigger-happy social marketers

Regarding this last point, consider this comment left by one of our fans:

"What I really like about DocuCopies is that you don't overload on your postings. People don't like to see a company post every hour - you do a good job at keeping it fresh!"

This was in response to us asking our fans exactly what they would like to see from us on our page. Did we mention they also really seem to like coupons?

If you have any ideas for how Docucopies should use the social landscape to engage our fans and customers, please let us know!

And if you really like us, please Like our website on Facebook, and +1 us on Google!