Fleet Graphics and Promotions' willingness to accommodate customers' needs has driven the firm's success. Santangelo started his company in 1988 strictly as a forms distributorship. Today, it also provides commercial printing, promotional products and direct mail for customers in the medical, manufacturing and hospitality markets. In addition to web site design and maintenance services, the distributorship offers free warehousing; in-house, short run, color printing; graphic design services; forms management services; and UPS order tracking via its web site. It also creates banner ads and manages customers' advertising campaigns, including billboard advertisements. The firm's annual sales volume ranges from $1.3 million to $1.7 million.
Before establishing it own web presence, Fleet Graphics and Promotions was approached by several design firms. "One of the things we found...was that you never seemed to really know what you're getting for your money," Santangelo says. The firms quoted dramatically different prices for similar site designs, he says.
Santangelo put that knowledge to work for his business. Fleet Graphics and Promotions offers customers seven tiered web site design packages. "We decided to come up with simple web site packages so customers could see exactly what they're going to get for their money," Santangelo says. The packages range from simple, 3-page sites to sites with several hundred pages that include e-commerce shopping carts and secure credit card transactions. Design fees range from $199 to more than $20,000. The distributorship also offers custom site designs and features such as custom Flash animation for additional charges.
| Fleet Graphics and Promotions Inc., a 14-year-old distributorship
in Deerfield Beach, Fla., created a multipaged web site for a day spa in
Boca Raton, Fla. The site features custom Flash animation and e-commerce
capabilities. Customers can place online orders for lotions, body washes,
sugar scrubs, exfoliating soaps, skin masks, facial cleansers and
more.
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When customers first sign up for web sites, Fleet Graphics and Promotions gives them packets requesting company information, product and service details, and goals for the site. After clients submit the information, the design process begins. The distributorship's designers can create simple sites in as few as seven business days. After initial site designs are completed, customers meet with the designers, who give demos of the sites and discuss any changes customers want.
"The one thing I like about doing web sites as opposed to doing printing is that if you design a web site and find that changes need to be made, you can just simply go in there and make the changes," Santangelo says. "With printing, you have to get it exactly right the first time. If not, you can end up with 100,000 pieces that are wrong."
Fleet Graphics and Promotions adds additional value to its web site design services by offering site maintenance for $90 an hour. Customers can pay discounted rates by signing annual maintenance plans, which provide a certain number of hours of maintenance services--for example, sale and product changes--each month. Fleet Graphics and Promotions has landed new accounts--businesses displeased with their current web site design firms--solely because of its maintenance services, Santangelo says.
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After designing its web site, Fleet Graphics and Promotions
recently provided the spa with a 4-color advertisement that
appeared in
Ocean Drive Magazine, a monthly lifestyle magazine in Miami Beach,
Fla.
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When a day spa in Boca Raton, Fla., wanted to establish a web presence, it called Fleet Graphics and Promotions after receiving a referral from a modeling agency that had worked with the distributorship to create its site. After meeting with the day spa's owner to discuss her goals for the site, the distributorship's graphic designers created a multipaged site showcasing the spa's services, facilities, and health and beauty products. Designed with colors to complement the spa's purple logo, the site features custom Flash animation and e-commerce capabilities. Customers can place online orders for lotions, body washes, sugar scrubs, exfoliating soaps, skin masks, facial cleansers and more.
Fleet Graphics and Promotions' designers photographed the spa's products and facilities, and hired a freelance photographer to photograph models receiving massages, applying facial cleansers and using other products and services.
"When we talk to customers about web sites, we let them know we can take that same theme and carry it over into their advertising and printed materials," Santangelo says. Since designing the spa's web site, Fleet Graphics and Promotions has provided the firm with business cards and 4-color brochures and post cards promoting its products and services. The distributorship also provided the spa with a 4-color advertisement that appeared in Ocean Drive Magazine, a monthly lifestyle magazine in Miami Beach, Fla.
--Kara S. Carpenter
While some distributors stay competitive by offering services such as e-commerce and online inventory management, David Santangelo adds value for his clients by offering web site design and maintenance services. "I knew web design was going to be big," says Santangelo, president and CEO of his 14-year-old distributorship, Fleet Graphics and Promotions Inc., Deerfield Beach, Fla.
Santangelo was turned on to the idea of offering web design in 2000, when customers began asking if Fleet Graphics and Promotions provided such services. "It was just such a huge growth market that I felt if we didn't start going after that business, we'd be missing the boat," he says. He soon hired two web site designers, who also handle the distributorship's graphic design needs. Since introducing web design services, Fleet Graphics and Promotions has designed approximately 75 sites for a variety of clients, including modeling agencies and health spas.
