Melon Corporate Blog
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Flash video promotion for Decideware.
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Jun 19, 2009
Conference animation played behind booth to promote Decideware.
Melon spent five weeks from concept to design and build to produce this fantastic video for Decideware.
If B2B marketing emails could talk
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Jun 19, 2009
A skit on classic mistakes made by B2B email newsletters: failure to deliver value, use of no-reply addresses, poor targeting, failed personalisation, etc… Enjoy.
Spam ACT and you - 5 things to increase your deliverability
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - May 25, 2009
The best way to check if your message is going to be caught by a junk mail filter is to test, test, test.
There are many different types of email browsers and ISP settings behind them. If you have access to an email browser checker like litmus then use that, otherwise set up a ‘test database’ of email addresses going to Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook and Thunderbird.
Both Hotmail and Gmail have very good spam checkers and a problem with either of these should indicate a problem across the board with your message.
If the email gets caught by your ISP there are a few things you can try…
The first is to try sending the message as a plain text version only. This will alert you to something in the HTML if it doesn’t get caught.
Ubiquity
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - May 22, 2009
Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that the world that we know it is coming to an end… but not for the reasons apparent.
Yes, the economy is geting worse, planes are dropping out of the sky, mother nature is sending whatever she can throw at us and human nature is leaving a lot to be desired.
But my anticipation (or trepidation) stems from a change coming on the technological side of things, a change that will affect how we function as a society, a change that has been building for some time.
This change is ‘ubiquity’. It is everywhere. It is the turning point from where we view technology as a tool and instead view it as an integrated, invisible part of our lives.
It’s where we wonder how we ever survived without it in the first place.
Ubiquity is - in essence - being everywhere at once. A balanced harmonious correlation of many different aspects.
The first of which is communication.
Apple to buy Twitter?
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - May 07, 2009
I read an interesting intro this morning from ITWire:
“Twitter is the hottest Internet social networking property right now. Apple has a ton of spare cash. So are the rumours true, can Apple really be about to buy Twitter for US $700 million?”
I barely got past the heading. This is ridiculous, right? What would Apple have to gain from purchasing Twitter? They just don’t fit together.
Somehow I didn’t think there was any credence to this rumour… but then I started to think about what exactly Apple could do with the 140 character social phenomenon.
Australian Anthill Article - Innovation During Perspiration
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Apr 20, 2009
My most recent article in Australian Anthill Magazine has been published.
You can read the article direct on the Anthill website or view the PDF from the printed version.
Kevin
Pixels VS Vectors
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Feb 13, 2009
Pixels VS. Vectors
If you’ve ever had to try to explain the difference between pixels and vectors or if you’ve never been able to understand the difference yourself, this edition of MacMerc.TV is for you.
NOT hating the hired {DIGITAL} help - 8 questions you should ask
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Feb 13, 2009
Melon Media started out as a specialist email marketing agency but has evolved into full service digital agency.
As we assist an increasing number of organisations with their websites and general online marketing one consistent surprising theme has emerged: the ongoing poor experience clients have with their suppliers assisting them with their websites.
“My freelancer disappeared to India for 3 months and we have no way of contacting him - can you assist with these urgent updates?”
“We have been unhappy with the service our web development company has provided to us, but they want to charge us an exorbitant amount of money to provide our data to us in a form that we can use in another content management system.”
“My web development company are smart people but getting them to do anything the way that I want it is such a struggle.”
The above are a sample of real life comments from clients that have asked us for assistance after struggling with other suppliers.
I thought it would be useful to put together some questions that you should ask your prospective web development/web design company/freelancer.
Optus Cops $110 000 Fine for SPAM
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Feb 05, 2009
In January 2009 Optus - one of Australia’s largest telecommunication companies - was fined $110,000 for sending 20,000 electronic messages to its customers in contravention of the Spam Act 2003. This fine is the second biggest penalty imposed for a single breach of Australia’s anti-spam laws.
OptusZoo Entertainment Services sent SMS messages to its customer’s mobile phones and used the sender identification “966”. Optus assumed recipients would make the connection between “966” on a mobile phone keypad, and the word "ZOO" which can also be spelt out using the three numbers. However the Australian Communications and Media Authority disagreed and the fine was imposed.
Marketing is obviously a key factor to creating a brand and increasing customer awareness of a business or product. However it is important that business don’t break any laws when using the details of their customers or potential customers to market their business or product. Customer details such as name, address and contact details should be handled carefully to avoid prosecution under the Spam Act 2003.
Forbes.com’s Four Email Marketing Blunders … in One Campaign
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Jan 06, 2009
HTML emails are a notoriously inconsistent technology and without proper quality control can be prone to errors. Every html email campaign is made up of several intricate elements where even a one character mistake can result in a significant error such as a broken link.
An email arrived in our inbox on Thursday 11 December 2008 which provided us with a good case study as to how easy it is to make a multitude of errors in an email campaign - even if you are a very large established company like Forbes Publishing.
Forbes distributed an email campaign that advertised a competition whereby entrants could win a skiing holiday and a diamond pendant. This was a decent prize considering there was no purchase necessary to enter and all one had to do was register to be entered into the draw - a simple process in theory.
The email however contained several errors that made it difficult to work out what the campaign was about and how to get to the destination competition entry page.