Melon Corporate Blog

Your website may have more power than you think.

Mariah Gillespie (Intern) - Sep 07, 2009

As the world turns increasingly towards the internet for almost any possible need–from grocery shopping to buying iPods to finding a soul mate–it’s important to keep in mind the vast quantities of content available on the world wide web. In January 2009, the average web-using American went online 62 times,  visited 115 domains, viewed 2,580 web pages and spent nearly 75 hours online, according to data from Nielsen Online.

But you can and should use these numbers to your advantage. Since people are already online, all you have to do is direct them to your site, and keep them there. And trust me, you want to.  Three of the top four marketing channels for generating quality leads are online: websites, e-mail marketing, and SEO (search engine optimisation).  According to a report done by the American Business Media and Forrester Research, 62% of business-to-business marketers said industry specific websites are effective at generating new leads.

Think of your website as a way of fishing for clients. Your bait has to be appealing enough to attract all sorts of fish, and luring them toward your hook is the first step to a successful catch.  Will the fish bite, or will he keep swimming along?

Websites are often the first point of contact for potential clients. You only get one shot at a first impression,  so you need to make it a good one. The first thing to think about is the overall appearance of your site–is it eye-catching? Are there flashy colours?  Can you navigate around easily? Visually attractive websites form a positive impression in users’ minds, and this impression sticks–despite any successive negative experiences that may occur. Researchers from Carleton University have found that the brain makes a decision about any given webpage is just 1/20th of a second. You don’t have much time to impress, so drawing the customer in straight away is essential.

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Internet Censorship in China

Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Aug 14, 2009

Kevin talks to David Oldfield on 2GB in the (very) early hours of the morning about the hows and whys of China’s censorship laws and how they affect us here in Australia.

Click below to listen:

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Broken Images = Broken Brand - the Importance of External Testing of Your Email Newsletter

Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Jul 09, 2009

Occasionally (but often enough to warrant a rant about) I receive an email that was obviously sent by somebody who didn’t know what they were doing.

Many (too many) people see email as a quick and efficient means to an end - rather than an effective brand empowering communication tool. It is from these people that I receive emails with broken images, typos and broken links.

I shouldn’t need to point out that sending an email with broken links and images in it undermines the point of sending it in the first place, and may end up doing more harm than good.

So I present here for you a problem and solution list for the more common issues that I see coming through my inbox…

1. The images and links are BROKEN.

Well. If things aren’t showing up or linking how they should, it’s most probably because the boffins who put the email together linked all of the images locally, rather than giving an absolute path.

You see, if you link to an image on your desktop or your local file server, only people on your local network will see them. Great if you want to test the email to everybody in your office. Not so great when the email leaves the nice little bubble you created it in and gets flung out into the big wide world.
Because people outside your network can’t see in. And so the image (and your reputation) breaks.

Email newsletters should be tested on multiple computers and in as many different browsers as possible.  A good way to check is to send to a Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo account.  Basically any webmail browser will show you pretty quickly if there are any issues with your links.  Do this BEFORE you press send - because once it’s gone, there ain’t no getting it back.

2. Blocked images tell me nothing.

If I don’t trust you (and let’s face it, I hardly know you) then chances are I haven’t added you to my safe list. If I haven’t added you to my safe list then all of the pretty images that make up your email will be invisible.  Therefore, if your very pretty email is made up entirely of images (and I’m sure you can tell from my tone that isn’t recommended), then I will see nothing. And if I see nothing, there is little to encourage me to click the ‘Show Images’ button instead of the delete button.

Never fear - not all is lost.

When you insert your image, make sure you put in “Alt” tags. No, alt tags are not some emo-hippy-goth accessory - they are the alternate settings applied when the images can not display. So if my email browser is preventing your images from displaying, I will still be able to read the alternate text to get the gist of what the email is about.

It is important to note that Gmail, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, AOL and Windows Live Mail all contain the default setting which initially blocks images in the inbox. However regardless of personal or default settings, Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail, Hotmail, Apple Mail and AOL do not render ALT Text, thereby leaving the recipient completely blind as to what that image is.

Try not to include any important information within the image because of these reasons. Having a plain text portion of your email with all the details in it is your best plan of attack.

3. Your email is broken, and you don’t want to hear about it.

Warning - personal pet peeve alert.

When your email arrives and I see it has come from “donotreply@wedontcareaboutyou.com.au” I get annoyed.  If I have decided to grace you with my personal email address so that you can grace me with your sales pitch, you can at least do me the honour of allowing me to contact you directly from the email.

This comes into play even further if something is broken in your email.

Earlier this year I received a promotion from Forbes.com which rendered terribly in Outlook 2007 and also had a the main link broken. This email also had a do-not-reply address, which meant I couldn’t just respond to let them know they had made a fairly major boo boo.

It is really not that difficult to set up a monitored email address for responses - and your receivers will appreciate it much more than having to hunt around for a contact us page on your site.

—-

In conclusion, companies which continuously send emails with broken links and images will quickly loose subscribers/customers. It is easy to forget to test email newsletters or to assume that because it works on your computer it will work on the recipients’.

I’ll tell you now - DON’T ASSUME!

It reflects badly on the brand and makes subscribers/customers think the company is careless, untrustworthy, thoughtless or unprofessional.

15 minutes of testing could potentially save you from an unrecoverable disaster.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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

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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.

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