Holiday Preparation Starts Now!
Consider a Custom Ecard this Holiday Season
Over a month ago stores began to pack their shelves with Halloween festivities. It’s because companies begin to plan for their holiday seasons months in advance. With the 2011 Holiday season fast approaching, are you considering doing something to show your appreciation to your clients, customers, partners, associations and so on?
As an eco-friendly method, try Holiday E-Cards! Stellar Blue sends one out each holiday season to acknowledge all of those that have helped us to get where we are today.
 Click on the image to play our 2010 ecard. Stellar Blue offers these services to create a custom Holiday e-card.
 Click on the image to play this ecard. McMahon choose to showcase their valued employees in this classically designed card.
Benefits of e-greeting cards:
• Save your stamps and keep mailing costs down
• They work for all occasions
• Conveniently send from any computer from any time
• Integrate the card directly onto your website
• Environmentally friendly
• Have Stellar Blue integrate it into your Facebook using a custom page
• And best of all, show your creative side!
Also consider beyond the holidays. Custom animated ecards can be used as e-vites as well for upcoming programs or events.
Stellar Blue offers three packages to create your custom ecard: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Click here for details. Contact Stellar Blue at info@stellarbluewebdesign.com or (920) 905-0250 to discuss your custom e-card!
Stellar Blue Crew
Stellar Blue Web Design, LLC
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Successful Holiday Ecommerce - Start Planning!
For many people, the leaves changing signify back to school, football games, hot cider and bonfires. As a business owner, this highlights the time of pre-holiday season preparation. Therefore, September is an excellent time to revamp how you reach potential customers.
During 2010′s holiday season (November-December) $9.01 billion dollars was spent online. That’s a 13% increase from 2009 according to comScore. Let 2011 be your heaviest online revenue to date!
Major shopping holidays are on the horizon and it’s time to get prepared.
• Thursday November 24, 2011 Thanksgiving Day (Notorious for online shopping)
• Friday November 25, 2011 Black Friday
• Monday November 28, 2011 Cyber Monday
• Monday December 12, 2011 Green Monday
• Friday December 16, 2011 National Free Shipping Day
So what are some initiatives for you to take to enhance your sales online? Stellar Blue has gathered our top 6 e-commerce trends:
• Highlight low cost items – Give direction and ideas to your website viewer. Providing low cost items are great for stocking stuffers, office party presents and good to have on hand for the unintended gift.
• Holiday Promotions – If you have already been selling items online then you are probably already familiar with promotional codes and coupons. Make the next batch of coupons and promotions holiday based.
• Check competitors – No harm in doing this. Chances are they are doing the same. Look into seeing what your competition has done and is doing for the holiday season.
• Loosen return policies – Typically return policies have a 30 day window. However with a holiday season, consumers who shop early want to know that they can purchase an item with the freedom of returning it later on. Consider offering to customers that all Christmas/Holiday Gift items have an extended return policy.
• Money back guarantees – A standard policy is 7 days. However, extending this as well to at least 30 days removes the perceived risk from your customers’ purchase, which in turn builds customer trust and loyalty. No need to leap into 30 days but run some tests on the return/refund percentages. *Make sure to highlight this special policy throughout your website.
• Innovative Site Search – Can customers search for products easily on your site? You have to make sure that your online search bar helps consumers find what they need – treat it as if it’s a sales clerk. Does it help with misspellings or unsure search queries? A good search feature allows consumers to search by price, color, model, etc.
A well-developed ecommerce plan takes time and effort. But done correctly, the pay off is fantastic with around the clock sales and branding awareness.
We are just over 2 months away from the busiest shopping day of the year, so now is the time to prepare. Contact Stellar Blue at (920) 905-0250 or info@stellarbluewebdesign.com to explore your potential.
Amanda Betts - Marketing Director
Stellar Blue Web Design, LLC
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BlackBerry is from Venus, and Android & iPhone are from Mars
Even putting Android and iPhone (iOS) on one planet might be too much; but the focus is on the high difference between BlackBerry versus the Android and iPhone markets from a developer's prospective.
After several presentations, talks with clients and a blog post, it’s apparent that as consumers we are at a loss when it comes to the pros and cons of the phones we buy. We live in a technologically advanced society that in reality, all phones whether Blackberry, Android or iPhone are simply fantastic. However, Smartphones have their differences and can perform differently. Knowing these differences can help you with your next choice.
Before we discuss the differences, let’s explain what a Smartphone is. A Smartphone is any phone that you can place calls, texts, write email, browse the Internet, as well as other multimedia use such as music and videos. BlackBerry, Android, and iPhone does all of these – they just do it differently. From our experience, here are our top 5 differences:
1.) Apps: Hands down, iPhone and Android dominant the application markets. While BlackBerry is nowhere close. BlackBerry App World debuted in 2009 and had about 26,000 applications. As of April 2011, Android had over 200,000 apps and iOS was pushing 350,000.
iOS and Android were developed initially with touch screens in mind. Blackberry OS was developed without touch screens in mind and was later modified to be more touch screen friendly. This has caused the apps to be behind the curve, especially since the touch driven version 7 of the OS isn't backwards compatible with older devices.
2.) Email/Messaging: BlackBerry is known as the email phone. It’s main focus and strongest abilities are the email and messaging capabilities. It also provides a highly secured network and platfrom.
3.) Internet Browsing: All of the touch screen phones have the highest resolution on the screens for browsing the internet. All Smartphones have touch screen abilities but BlackBerry was behind on coming out with an all touch screen phone.
4.) Battery life: To make cell phones smaller means sacrificing the size of your phone’s battery so phones now use prismatic lithium cells. These cells have less energy density but have a smaller form. But from our experience, BlackBerry beats Android and iPhone in battery life.
5.) Approval Process: For app developers, iOS apps have to go through an approval process from Apple to be in the app store. This process can take anywhere from 1-2 weeks. Android and Blackberry apps can be added to their markets without any large delays.
Additional notes:
• Both iOS and Blackberry OS are limited to 1 manufacturer for the devices, whereas Android can be found on a variety of devices from many different manufacturers.
• Blackberry and Android devices can be found on just about every carrier, but iOS devices (in the US) can only be found on two carriers.
• Blackberry OS is tailored more for business use; Android and iOS have business use qualities but are also great for personal use.
Feel free to contact us at info@stellarbluewebdesign.com or (920) 905-0250 to discuss your smartphone questions.
Ben Benesh - Mobile Developer
Stellar Blue Web Design, LLC
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