unimail a year in review and a year in preview

A Year in Review A Year in Preview

There’s been so much going on at unimail that we thought we should go through a few of the changing events that have been represented in our company over the past 12 months.

However to set the tone, I thought it best to start with what’s happened over the past 12 months around the world.

The GFC delivered fear, frugality and shaky foundations to homes across the globe with loss of money, jobs and lifestyles…all the while employment rates rose higher and higher.

Forest fires delivered much of the same bringing a whole town to it’s knees and the country to it’s pockets…what followed was one of the highest generating fundraising efforts EVER in Australia.

Sydney-siders awoke to a red sky of their own as dust storms delivered an apocalyptical sunrise to the beautiful harbour city…

It was a year of loss as some great souls were taken too soon…one of them a rockstar that changed the world

Another who taught us to never be put into a corner,

A third who represented the Australian dream

And another who represented a hairstylist’s dream…

A country said sorry after so many years of transgressions...

A Tiger did too…

Another said sorry but sadly too late as the damage was done…and we all know to whom!

Our prime minister was thrown out by a woman

And now we can’t decide if it’s the right thing to do!

There were some significant changes to people’s appearances

And even more so in their relationship status with the entertainment ending

Jon and Kate plus 8 became a minus 2.

Robbie Williams broke all of our hearts by finding true love

And our very own Miranda Kerr showed us we can all dream for our own little Bloom

Whilst the world was kicking on at rapid pace, so were we here at unimail…!

In the past 5 years, unimail ! has doubled it’s team members,

changed office locations 4 times, had an average of 50% increase in revenue, won

11 awards and in general kicked some arse…!

However, the last 12 months have been surreal…!

We’ve grown over 50% in the last 12 months

We’ve grown fast

We’ve grown at a hundred miles an hour!

We launched a brand new website …

…unfortunately, we overshot the landing…

We hired lots of people…

…and got a little cramped in our old digs

so we checked into an inspiring new castle based on Barrack street

We have a lot of new team members, so here is an intro to our lead team members who are heading up the divisions

Adam Culligan: a.k.a. Cully

Job Title: University Liaison and in general office larrikin

Andy Greer: a.k.a. Andizzle

Job Title: Senior Designer extraordinaire

Brett Woods: a.k.a. Woodsy

Job Title: Head of Production for studio and publications

Dave Petzold: a.k.a. Danger

Job Title: Head of Digital Design and Useability

Fiona Luke: a.k.a. Fi Balls

Job Title: Account Director

Jade: a.k.a. Jadeo

Job Title: Business and Office manager

Kate Fizzell: a.k.a. Fizz or 180

Job Title: Head of CRM

John Aufderheide: a.k.a…John…

Job Title: CFO

Sikko Baltus: a.k.a. Sicko

Job Title: Designer Concept Generator

Jeremy Norman-Nott: a.k.a. Jerry

Job Title: Head Geek and programmer

Mahalia Wall: a.k.a. M

Job Title: Head of Admin

Lorna Whitehead: a.k.a…to be honest, I never understand her accent so I stick to the basics here

Job Title: Business Development Manager

Stuart Amm: a.k.a. Stuey

Job Title: Creative Director and part-owner

Me, well, you all know me…

Andrea Culligan: a.k.a. AC

Job Title: CEO unimail CEO Gradad Part-Owner and Founder

We didn’t just hire new people, we did a lot of new stuff! We bought new servers, new software and we switched the whole company to MAC to ensure efficiency, up to date technology and creative opportunity

Then we bonded…

December – Evicted from previous premises due to big train

With a feast of wine and lamb in the Hunter

January

And played some sketchy charades

February- morbid launch of new unigrad site we raced around the ice…

we watched the horses race around the track

and in general had a really good time as a team…izzle

we even spent some time helping others with a few charities.

We won some awards….

October

in fact, we won a lot of awards…

and then we won some more,

and then I won one

and then we won some more.

And some more…

We started a consulting division

…where we work with universities to ensure all aspects of their stakeholders are being met.

By looking at what employers need, students want and careers service provide, we can all work together to provide the most effective solution.

And just when you thought we couldn’t get through any more..

???

We scoured the globe for where to expand our unimail tentacles…

…and fell in love with Canada

So After…35 Meetings

14 business days

8Ci%es

7 Flights

4 long drives

1 CONFERENCE…

…we started Gradad, a Digital Agency specializing in Digital Strategies and Recruitment Videos.

Run by an Aussie in Vancouver, who used to be an client…

…we are expanding the unimail dream by also offering the first of it’s kind student community website in Canada called Mygradguide.ca

And just when we thought it was going to settle down, I went and married my sweetheart of 4 years, in Uluwatu Bali at sunset with 60 of our closest friends and family.

It was an amazing day and week and I thought I’d share a few photos with you today!

And that’s all well and good but where do we go from here?

With all the good stuff happening, and the fast paced growth it became a little unstable.

So we took on and asked for your feedback, and it came in fast and furious

and we listened

You said – hey what about this social media stuff? So we hired the best consultants and in house team to ensure we knew what we were doing and why

And developed facebook fan pages for unigrad.com.au, blog pages, we have twitter feeds, rss feeds, live chat opportunities for clients on unigrad.com.au and forums for students to ask the tough questions

We have a dedicated University Liaison on campus presenting work ready skills to students

Who also spends his time developing relationships with student societies, associations and careers service departments promoting your jobs, culture and your opportunities….so yes, we pay him to do sack races..

We are commencing a student ambassador program for unigrad.com.au where by we will have students on 13 campuses around the country promoting and breathing the unigrad brand to ensure you’re getting the reach you want to the students you need.

Our surveys and info sessions with students, not to mention the hundreds of requests we get for more books each year, are telling us that print is not dead. They love the publication….

it just needs to evolve as the market has. So we have a number of areas we are looking at…

So we ensure the ability to measure the success of unigrad as part of your campaigns going forward …

…and to make sure you’re hitting the target with your candidates.

We took on board the feedback for our distribution service

…and now have a fully dedicated team that will complete the bookings, the summary details, assembly and storage, so your contacts will remain the same.

Our design studio had the opportunity to work with some fabulous brands this year…

and our ability to conceptualise your needs and brand to…

…integrate them into award winning ideas was proven with an award at the AAGE in 2009 and finalist status for the FEMA awards.

Going forward, using our international knowledge and regular investigation of international markets…

…we will bring the best ideas to our clients and ensure success, measurement and efficiency.

And we will be able to achieve all of this, by firstly making sure we focus on our crazy fun company culture,

...that drives people to be unique, innovative, creative, engaging and communicating. So we’re always hiring great people if you’re ever looking!

Thank you so much for your support over the past 12months!

You may have a few questions about the next 12 and we’d love to talk to you about that too…Thanks again and glad to have you here..

To have a chat about all the exciting things going on you can find us here:

1300 134 121 +61 2 8296 7618 andrea@unimail.com.au @unigrad_au @acculligan