Archive for the ‘Random Postings’ Category

Way to go team! JB Systems wins a design award!

Monday, June 6th, 2011
mogies pub, design award winner, jb systems

JB Systems won a 2011 American Graphic Design Award for Mogie's Pub

Last week, JB Systems was chosen as a winner for the 2011 American Web Design Awards for our design of the Mogie’s Pub website! (See the winning design here: www.mogiespub.com) Mogie’s Pub was one of only 100 winners that were chosen out of 1,000+ entries from across the country. Meghan Bauer, JB Systems’ Art Director, was the lead designer on the project. Way to go team!

About the Mogie’s Pub Design:

Inspiration for the Mogie’s Pub design came directly from their local establishment and the character of the building. The client wanted the website to feel like you were really at Mogie’s Pub, and wanted to portray its fun atmosphere. The brick textures and colors we brought in are actually taken from the building itself. We shot the majority of the photography on the site and used it to showcase their delicious food and ice cold regional brews. A lot of research was done to find some creative ideas in the design of restaurant websites. We also used some pretty cool technology to make the site functional and easy to use.

The Mogie’s Pub website has also been showcased in prominent CSS galleries online (CSSMania.com, TheBestDesigns.com), highlighting the various textures and bright colors used to create their one-of-a-kind look.

See more of our work in our online Portfolio!

About the Contest:

For nearly five decades, Graphic Design USA has sponsored design competitions that spotlight areas of excellence and opportunity for creative professionals. Their online competition – American Web Design Awards – is a celebration of the power of well-designed websites and online communications to attract audiences, disseminate ideas and information, generate response, and promote products, services and ideas.

Since 1963 Graphic Design USA has been the news magazine for graphic designers and other creative professionals.

The Power of the Promo Code

Monday, May 16th, 2011

Still trying to figure out how to tell if the ads you’re placing in the newspaper or magazines are actually working? Enter: The Promo Code.

promo codes, online coupons, ecommerce

A Promo Code, as used by Walgreens

You’ve all probably seen them – codes that may look something like “JUNE2011″ or “SPG56″ or “COUPON11″. These are lovingly referred to in the e-commerce world as “Promo Codes” and they can be extremely powerful, if utilized to their full potential. Some of our clients use promo codes in their online stores promoting sales, offering exclusive discounts to their Facebook followers, or as a customer service ‘thank you’. Promo codes also work great for tracking offline marketing efforts like direct mail or trade show leads.

Promo codes are really not a new concept in the marketing world – traditional marketers have used these for eons, except they have been in the form of coupons. Now with the explosion of e-commerce, the promo code is making redeeming those coupons even easier – and simple is definitely a key element in the online world.

If you’re a retailer who is already using coupons, and you’re thinking about e-commerce, you’ll probably love using online promo codes in your store. Through our e-commerce system, you can easily create your own codes, name them whatever you’d like, and attribute them to either a dollar amount or percentage off. (We’ve even gone so far as to do some crazy buy 1, get 1 kind of stuff – but that’s a little more involved.) Then, all you have to do is promote the heck out of your promo codes – email them to your customers, post them on Facebook, add them to the back of your business cards – make them all different and track which ones bring in the most sales. What?! Tracking your marketing?! That’s why we love the web!

Give us a call if you want to chat e-commerce or promo codes – or even if you just want to come up with some new ways to use your website as a marketing machine.

Purchase Your .CO Domain Names, Before Your Neighbor Does

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

by Gerald Bauer, owner of JB Systems, LLC

Greetings JB Systems Blog Subscribers! As most of you know, .CO domain names were announced at this year’s Super Bowl. We’re learning that many companies are buying up these domain names – just to sit on them and resell them at a later date. This is known as domain squatting and is frowned upon by most professional web agencies.

If you’d like your domain name in the .CO extension, please call us right away. Registrations are only $15.00 per year and we can secure it for you. As always, you own your domain name with JB Systems. Your receipt of purchase entitles you to that.

Call us before it’s too late – if another company purchases your .CO, they have legal right to charge whatever they’d like for you to obtain it. But at JB Systems though, $15.00 per year (like all of our domain registrations) is all it takes.

Until next time….

Check Out Our Updated Website Portfolio

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Boy have we been busy! Since May 2010, we have launched over 15 new websites! All of these, along with our previous work, can be seen by visiting Our Work!!!

From all of us at JB Systems, we hope you enjoy browsing our work!

Scam Alert – December 2010

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

by Gerald Bauer, owner of JB Systems

It was recently brought to our attention that some customers were receiving “mock” emails from Charter Communications politely asking users for their email usernames and passwords. The exact email looks something similar to this:
————————————————————
From:
customercare@charter.net [bcc12@rogers.com]

Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 12:35AM

To: customercare@charter.net

Subject: Your Account Update

Dear charter Customer
There are some changes necessary in order to upgrade your e-mail account.Please send us your e-mail
ID and password so that we can upgrade youraccount and avoid any interruption in service.
Thanks,charter Support Team.
——————————————————————————–


There are several things to note here – such as the improper capitalization of things – but most importantly, review the “To:” address – and note the [bcc12@rogers.com]. This is dangerous – at Outlook will “blind carbon copy” your reply to an address at rogers.com. Do you really think this is Charter Communications? Probably not!

Also – for everyone’s information – Charter would have all the tools necessary (or we hope that they would) to manage their email accounts without soliciting their users for passwords. NO EMAIL PROVIDER SHOULD EVER REQUEST A PASSWORD FROM THEIR CUSTOMER. This is bad practice – and they have the tools to manually reset the passwords if they needed to.

Until next time everyone – have a great holiday and stay safe – both offline and online.

Our Newest Projects Come Alive!

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

We’ve launched several sites recently and we’d like to give those sites a little bit of our blog attention! Check ‘em out by clicking on the images!

Shining Light Advocacy Services

Shining Light Advocacy Services

Shining Light Advocacy Services

Sherry DeRosa must be the most positive person that has ever walked through our doors. Her genuine compassion for people is infectious , so we needed to give her a web presence that emphasized that. This site features a personal “web walk” introduction – thanks to Don Byrne at The Post House – simple navigation, a customized blog, and a look that fits Sherry’s style. A great simple site for her to grow her business!

Investment Realty

Investment Realty, Eau Claire

Investment Realty

As one of the largest real estate companies in Eau Claire, Investment Realty needed a website presence to match their success as a company. The site features ‘micro-sites’ for each of their divisions, putting essentially five websites all under the Investment Realty umbrella. This site also features easy administration tools for their staff to manage their properties without hassle.

Gold Collar Careers

Gold Collar Careers

Gold Collar Careers

Gold Collar Careers is an initiative led by the technical colleges and manufacturers in western Wisconsin to promote a positive image of manufacturing careers among young people. The site needed to be fun and entertaining for a younger generation, but also needed to be simple, easy to navigate, and useful for manufacturers, teachers, and school administrators. Lots of video on this site – again, courtesy of The Post House. Almost makes me want to be a welder…

Air-Tite Window Systems

Air-Tite Window Systems

Air-Tite Window Systems

Mark Perry is an expert at windows – quality from start to finish. But when he came to us, he hadn’t yet explored the power of the web. JB Systems built him a site that offers detailed information about his window products, tips on energy efficiency, special promotions, and easy to find contact information. It’s a great resource for anyone with a window purchase in their plans.

Cadeaux Gifts

Cadeaux Gifts

Cadeaux Gifts

One of our newest e-commerce stores to hit the web, Cadeaux’s website has all of the bells and whistles of the most popular e-commerce sites out there. Cadeaux has a variety of products ranging from soaps and lotions, to baby gifts, to wines and cheeses, and selling them online was a natural next step to grow their local downtown business. The site displays products beautifully, makes online shopping a breeze, and allows Lorraine to manage her inventory with a couple clicks of her mouse. This is a great site for holiday shopping!

Stay tuned for more to come from JB Systems!

Visit us at the Business Expo!

Friday, October 15th, 2010

Are you ready to STAKE YOUR CLAIM on your website??

This year, we’re spreading the word that owning your website is CRITICAL! And when your website is built with JB Systems, it’s yours.

We’ll also be talking about some pretty cool things we’ve been working on at the JB Labs (our “black-ops” division, as we so affectionately refer to it):

* New Custom E-Commerce Platform
* Custom Multi-Lingual Websites
* Easy-to-Use Content Management Tools

Join JB Systems, The Post House, and Highland Fitness at the Business Expo – we’ll even have the massage chair ready and waiting!

PLUS:
We’ll be giving away some awesome prizes! Write us a testimonial on our blog and you’ll be entered to win even more!

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery, but…

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

Yes, that’s what they say. However, when it comes at the expense of a client’s branding being copied…it just doesn’t have the same appeal.

One of our website designs was blatantly copied by a web design firm out of Minneapolis… and while we’re flattered that a Minneapolis design firm copied us, our client is not so thrilled. The firm not only copied the site almost to a T, but the site they designed was for a major competitor of our client within a 90 mile range. I don’t know about you, but we think that’s just bad form.

Of course we contacted the firm to see what they had to say about it – they didn’t think they were all that similar. Tell us what you think:



JB Systems version of CV Bean, launched February 2010






























And now, the other guys (launched some time around June, we think)



























We think that’s pretty unfortunate that Minneapolis designers can’t come up with an original design. We’re happy that they’ve recognized that the designers at JB Systems have some pretty cool ideas. Kudos, Meghan & the design team!

Thanks for tuning in…

Social Media and Your Website

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Inspired by Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae (check it out here – the YouTube video is entertaining)

Because consumers (or buyers for business services) have so many choices, and can decide more freely how to receive marketing messages these days, they don’t have to settle for what marketers are telling them anymore. They can now listen to their friends, and their friends’ friends, or seek out other independent third-party credible sources about where to shop, eat, get their car fixed, etc.

That said, your social media strategy is only as good as the website you’re directing your friends, fans, and followers to. If the two aren’t consistent, and aren’t geared at turning those friends, fans, and followers into customers and raving fans, then how can we expect social media to work?

So, take a look at your own website. Is it ready for the social media world? Ask yourself these questions. What changes can you make?

* Is your website social? Does it allow people to share information with you and about you easily?
* Does it focus on things that people are really interested in or does it just focus on you?
* Does it let them interact with you, and with others?
* Are you listening and responding to them?
* Does it allow them to share their own content that’s relevant to your products/services?

I’ll be talking about this and more at a social media conference coming up next Wednesday, September 29th for the Eau Claire Chamber of Commerce. To register, go to their website. For website questions, contact me at JB Systems and I’d be happy to help!

Email Scam Alert

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Hi All,

JB Systems has recently uncovered a new scam attempt being sent by email.
If you receive any message with the subject “FINAL VERIFICATION OF YOUR ACCOUNT” - please disregard the message and delete it promptly. The email will ask you to confirm your email account and personal details, such as:

  • Email Username
  • Email Password
  • Date of Birth
  • Country You Live In

Once again – DELETE THESE MESSAGES.

JB Systems will contact you personally should we have any issues with your email accounts – or if we need to verify your information. We’ve taken necessary measures to block all future attempts of these messages on our mail servers but even that is never foolproof.

Thanks for tuning in – and let us know if you have any questions.