Americans - Don't You Just Love 'Em?

A setting designed for US customers could be reducing your new signups by up to 50%.

George Bernard Shaw once said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language."

Despite similarities, Americans can be very different to us. Or should that be "very different than us"?

Most companies that supply software systems for sending email marketing campaigns are American.

But Americans react very differently to (than) Brits when it comes to how they react to unwanted emails.

Their systems often have a default setting called "double opt-in" that isn't necessary in the UK. And that setting could be losing you up to half of your new signups.

To find out how to stop US systems from ruining your UK marketing, grab a Twinkie and a root beer and watch the 3-minute video below. It explains what double opt-in is, and why you probably don't need it in the UK.

You could double your volumes of new signups in the process.

If you've ever wondered how to create HTML emails, you might be interested in a presentation that I did recently.

I was invited to speak at the Designers' and Developers' Fiesta in London a couple of weeks ago.

The subject of the talk was "Why Don't my HTML Email Look Right?" It was about how to make HTML emails that look good in any email client, no matter what device the email is viewed upon.

If your job requires you to know how to design HTML emails, then you will know that this task is not as simple as it seems.

Different email clients render HTML differently, and the result can be that your email, which looked great when you tested it, looks awful in Microsoft Outlook.

Fortunately, there are a few simple guidelines which can prevent HTML email problems. Once you understand these principles, your emails will look great first time, every time, in every browser.

If you would like to see a recorded webinar version of the session, you can view it on my YouTube channel. During the session, I also cover image-related issues and layout issues to ensure that your HTML emails get the best possible response.

It's about 50 minutes long, so grab a coffee or a light lunch, sit down and enjoy. Please let me know what you think of the video if you have any feedback.

If this sort of stuff interests you, you might like to check out my new website "Inbox Income". This site will provide a whole host of online learning materials about how to make more profit from your email marketing. Sign up on the site now if you'd like me to let you know when new content is added.

Watch the Video

Everyone knows that Christmas is the busiest time for retailers both online and off - but when is the busiest day for online retailers?

Although each of likes to believe that we are individual and unique, human beings are basically herd animals, and in large numbers our behaviour is extremely predictable. For the last few years, the busiest day for online sales has been the same. It's the day on which UK shoppers spend a million pounds a minute on the Internet.

Surprisingly, whilst offline retailers are usually busier at the weekend, the busiest online shopping day is on a Monday. It has become known in the e-commerce world as "Manic Monday" or "Cyber Monday". So when is Cyber Monday? And why is it so predictable that more people will shop online on that day than on any other?

Cyber Monday occurs when it does because it is the first Monday after the last payday of the year - so it's simply the week when people are feeling most flush as they fritter away their disposable income on gifts for others. People want to shop as soon as possible so that gifts arrive in time to be wrapped and, in some cases, posted in time for Christmas.

Since online retailing began, every year has broken the previous year's records for online sales. PayPal have predicted this year that online sales will soar by up to 60%, with the peak being expected on Cyber Monday - last year's was the busiest ever.

This year's Cyber Monday is 28th November. Online retailers would be wise to organise promotions and special deals around this date, and promote them to their customers using well-planned email marketing and social media campaigns, in order to grab their share of the massive amount of money that will be changing hands in just a few weeks time.  

The two biggest bulk emailing services, iContact and ConstantContact, are both based in the United States.  However, this has several disadvantages for UK based businesses.  Aside from the inconvenience of having to do business with those across the Atlantic who work on different business hours, there is also the issue of SPAM filters.  Surveys have estimated that 86 percent of all spam comes from the United States, with some saying that as much as 95% of all spam originates there  (this is a little odd, by the way, as the US has far more restrictive regulations in the form of its CAN-SPAM legislation, although perhaps we should give it more time to deal with the problem before we point that out).

But anyway,  what does this mean for email marketing?  Given that most spam comes from the US, it is hardly surprising that SPAM filters are harsher towards email originating from there.  Marketing emails from US based servers are statistically more likely to be unsolicited, and are therefore more likely to be identified as junk by spam filters.  The answer?  A UK based service with strong anti-spam credentials means increased deliverability.  And that means better communication with your customers.