One of the revelations from the most recent Marketing Sherpa report on email marketing is how the preview pane has become a dominant force in the way people read their emails.

In fact, after people look at the “from” line and the subject line, their next stop before they decide whether to open the email is increasingly the preview pane.

While it’s long been a factor when you’re sending mail to the corporate world, more than 50% of consumers are now using a preview pane for their home mail as well.

Of those, 76% of people use a horizontal preview pane (across the bottom)–with half of those using the default small pane. So this has BIG implications for email design–especially graphics.

Those huge ezine headers may not be a good idea anymore. For one, many internet hosts (including Yahoo and Gmail) and email programs have turned off automatic image download.

So unless your reader has figured out how to change that, all they probably see is an empty box that says “Right-click here to download pictures…” or a small red “x.” Obviously, neither is going to get them excited about reading your email.

But it also means you should…

• Move any administrative copy or logos to the bottom of the email.
• Consider putting your call to action in the top left corner so it shows up in both types of preview panes. If you need some copy for it, use a short headline and bullets.
• Place a “boring” table of contents (plain text with just a hyperlink) above your designed newsletter template so at least they can see why they may want to open it.
• Include an ALT-text tag on graphics you do use. Apparently that may help it avoid the dreaded red x.

And of course, you should definitely test your own emails in various preview pane settings to see what your readers are seeing.

How to Check Your Emails in MS Outlook

If you’re an Outlook user, here’s how to do it:

Click on the email in the main part of your inbox. Then…

1. Click on “View” then “Reading Pane” then “Bottom” to see the horizontal pane
2. Click on “View” then “Reading Pane” then “Right” to see the vertical one. (You may also want to try it with and without the To-Do bar if you’re an Outlook 2007 user.)

If you’re seeing pictures:

1. Click on “Tools” then “Options”
2. Go to the Security tab and click on “Change Automatic Download Settings”
3. Check box for “Don’t download pictures or other content automatically in HTML e-mail”
4. Click OK

I’m testing a few changes with my ezine after reading the report. Let me know if you do too and how it turns out.

Here’s the scoop. It is NOT law yet.

It is STILL in conference committee where the House and Senate members  have to hammer out a bunch of differences. Once they do that, then the bill will be re-presented to both chambers for another vote. If it passes both without amendments, it will go to Perdue for a signature.

I have not followed her take on the budget bill (other than the fact she seems to completely misunderstand this tax), but unless NC has a line-item veto (which I’d have to check) she would have to veto the bill if there is anything she objects to in there.

Now, the new regulations were supposed to start on July 1. But since they haven’t been able to agree on a new version yet, they’re delayed until the 15th–when the House version of the temporary funding bill would run out. (The Senate is obviously less optimistic that it will be resolved by then since they didn’t put a deadline in theirs.)

In the meantime, in order to keep the NC government from shutting down tomorrow (ala the federal government in December 1991, if anyone else remembers that fun), they’re trying to work out a temporary funding bill.

But, of course, it’s different from the one the Senate passed. So now that’s in conference committee. And given the chaos that would ensue if the government shut down, it’s top priority at the moment.

What this means is that it’s not yet time to give up.

1. Keep calling & emailing your House and Senate reps (find them here)

2. Then focus on conference committee members (Senate ones here and House ones here)–they’re the ones duking it out to come up with one bill everyone can live with

It is rather late in the game to be fighting this, but it’s not over until Perdue signs on the dotted line.

By the way, to find out what affiliate programs have pulled out of North Carolina, see the list posted here.

If you have a small business in North Carolina–and especially if you make money via internet marketing or info products–you need to be aware of two items in the budget bill the legislature is trying to finalize for the governor’s signature.

I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.  So this is based on careful reading and deciphering of legislative gobbledygook in the actual bill (who knew my former stint on Capitol Hill could be helpful someday?!)

The bill (S 202) has been passed by both the House and Senate–they’re just trying to get the two versions to agree via a conference committee before sending it on. But it’s supposed to go into effect on July 1 so everything will happen fairly quickly.
Here are two issues that could have a BIG impact on your business:

1. We’ll be required to collect and pay sales taxes on more items we sell, when the buyer is another NC resident. This includes:

• Electronically delivered/accessed products, including books (aka ebooks and programs), audio, and audiovisual (I suppose video)

• Events–whether held a single time or multiple times–as well as membership fees and dues

• Possibly continuity programs and teleseminars, due to proposed new tax on “transfer of a digital code”

They define digital code as one that gives a purchaser the right to electronic delivery or access of an item. (But they do say it excludes gift certificates and gift cards.)

• Service contracts as well as repair, maintenance, and installation services. I’m assuming this is more for computer repair, HVAC companies and the like

2. Affiliate income is in jeopardy. The legislature is also set to require any company that makes more than $10,000 a year from sales through NC-based affiliates to start collecting sales taxes on ALL sales in NC (whether they came through an affiliate link or not).

Amazon.com has already announced they’ll be terminating their Associates program if this happens rather than go through this hassle. Overstock.com did the same when a similar measure was passed in New York and it hurt many small businesses. (A legal challenge is winding its way through the courts and may take up to 2 years before it’s resolved).

While this is definitely bad news, my bigger concern–especially with the addition of digital products and events–is about the affiliate programs from various internet-savvy marketers or even places like Clickbank.

Obviously, a couple sales of a $500+ program or $3,000+ event would put them over the $10k limit in a heartbeat. So they too may terminate relationships with NC affiliates to avoid the hassle.

So I thought you should know there’s a big effort underway to contact our NC state reps and senators about this. Here are a couple of opportunities if you want to get involved:

• Contact YOUR state rep and senator. Emails and phone numbers are available at www.ncleg.net. (You can also look up to see who yours is, if necessary. I had to do it because they just appointed us a new one.)

• Follow the discussion on Twitter by setting up a search for #ncaffiliatetax (obviously, they’re more focused on the affiliate part of it).

Notes:

Some people are recommending that you contact as many members of the General Assembly as possible. But I can tell you from experience they most won’t care unless you live in their district.

So if you have the urge to do more, it would be smarter to focus on the conference committee members who will actually be deciding what stays and goes. They may be interested in what people outside their district have to say, and they’re listed here. (Click on the link at the top of the page for the House list in pdf.)

A Cary business is organizing a trip to the General Assembly on Tuesday. They meet to prepare on Monday. More info here . (The info at the top of the page with the other bill numbers is outdated–start from where the font changes.)

We’ve covered Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg’s entertaining presentation on blogging and more, SEO for Wordpress, Getting Others to Create Blog Content for You, and Staying Out of Hot Water with the Law so far this week as part of our series on last weekend’s Wordcamp RDU.

Today, we’ll wrap up with some tips on turning your blog into a community and a presentation I missed on Twitter.

Angela Connor, Online Community Manager for WRAL, talked about building a community with your blog–and that means a lot more than providing really useful content (which should be a given!)

• Ask questions of your visitors and even ask for their help. Blogging is meant to be more of a discussion among equals than one wise man (or woman) speaking from the mountain top.
• Also, thank commenters and visit their blogs. Of course, if you get a ton of comments on a post you don’t need to respond to all–but do respond to some so everyone can see you are participating.

Finally, I had to miss Wayne Sutton’s Tweetshop but he’s posted slides and notes from his terrific session on his social media blog.

Speaking of Twitter…like always, attending an event like Wordcamp is a great way to finally meet friends from the Twitter-sphere! Online social networking is even more fun and productive when relationships created online go offline as well.

Continuing with our series of highlights from last weekend’s Wordcamp RDU Lawyer Chris Gatewood (Hischler Fleischer) talked about how to keep ourselves out of hot water.

Key points included:

• Copyrights.  You should include the copyright footer in your documents, but you’re still protected if you don’t. (It can also be a deterrent to prevent others from lifting your work.)  But copyright protection actually begins the moment you put your content into or onto some type of media.
• Can you use it? Laws are still evolving around fair use for text content, but news agencies, music publishers and others will hunt you down for using their materials without a license. The so-called “30 second rule” (you can use up to 30 seconds) is a myth.
• Borrowing videos–it’s generally safer to embed from YouTube or similar site instead of directly.
• It’s easy to fight back. If someone’s illegally using your content on the web, you can just send a “take-down” letter to their hosting company or the social site–you don’t need to track down the offender directly. Congress gave ISP’s the ability to take down material that violates these laws and they are typically quick to enforce it.

Finally, before you get all fired up to for a rant, remember that it’s easier to avoiding cries of defamation if you’re–

• Telling the truth (technically, defamation is making a false statement)
• Saying something so outlandish it borders on parody
• Giving your opinion

And of course, there’s more leeway if you’re talking about a public figure rather than the neighbor down the street.

It’s surprising the number of people who have already run into these issues and received letters from lawyers telling them to cease-and-desist or take down content. Has it happened to you? If so, please share in the comments below!

If you missed it, so far I’ve covered…

Wordpress News, Tips & Stories from founder Matt Mullenweg

SEO for Blogs from Andy Beal

5 Ways to Get Others to Create Content for You

Tomorrow…building a community around your blog and Tweetshop.

Today, some tips from another Wordcamp RDU presenter, Jason Keath.

Jason is Social Media Director of Heels.com and a social media consultant. He talked about ways to have others provide blog content for you. My five favorites of the suggestions he shared were to:

• Build a circle of people who comment on each others’ blogs. An “informal” blog network, so to speak. You can even arrange to talk about the same topic once or twice a month and link to each other’s articles.

• Do a round-up of Tweets about some hot topic in your market to show different sides of the discussion.

• Write guest posts for others and have them do the same for you. (give before you get)

• Create a topic series where you interview other experts on a related subject.

• Interview your customers–either in text or video–or invite them to write guest posts. (Brilliant because it’s not only interesting for visitors–it also provides social proof of your work!)

So far in this Wordcamp RDU wrap-up series I’ve covered:

Wordpress News, Tips & Stories from founder Matt Mullenweg

SEO for Blogs from Andy Beal

Tomorrow…how to stay out of trouble with the law.

It was a lovefest for WordPress in the Triangle area this past weekend with the debut of WordCamp RDU. Yesterday, I covered WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg’s keynote speech.

Today, my favorite breakout session–SEO for WordPress by Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim and author of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online.

Since it was a fast-paced, info-packed presentation  I couldn’t begin to pick highlights, so I’ve just posted his slides.  (Unfortunately, you don’t get to hear his awesome British/Southern accent!)

Tomorrow, tips for getting others to create content for you.

“I don’t like iPhone version of Wordpress,” admitted WP founder Matt Mullenweg during his often candid and funny keynote presentation at Wordcamp RDU this past Saturday.

(Good news–a new version is coming soon, along with one for all of us with crackberries.)

He also discussed other new projects such as:

• Microblogging platform P2. You control it–so you can delete those posts you wished you didn’t make!
• VideoPress, which doesn’t automatically convert files to 30 frames per second (and cause jitters in the visual) and also has friendlier terms of service.
• BuddyPress, which adds social networking features to WordPressMU accounts. (By the way, he says he doesn’t know what he was thinking when he came up with the MU name using the Greek symbol–very few pronounce it right and it will probably be going away.)

What’s not on the list anytime soon–a desktop program for WordPress. He says Microsoft LiveWriter already (surprisingly!) does a good a job of that.

A few off the cuff tips he shared for blog owners:

• The size of your comment box will influence the length of the comments you get.
• In WP under Tools, there’s a button called “Press This” that you can drag onto your browser toolbar which will automatically bring in embedded code for videos, photos, etc.

What’s ahead?

• Possibly a WP-only URL shortener so people can rest assured when they’re clicking it that they’re going to a legit link and not a spam or malware site.
• Posting to Wordpress will eventually be as easy as posting to Twitter…

And what’s the deal Hello Dolly?

Hello Dolly was the first ever WP plugin, and he wrote it to show others how easy it is to create plugins. He chose that song because it was the first jazz song to breakout into the mainstream market…obviously hoping WP would do the same.

People have campaigned to have it removed from the default install, but that’s not happening. It’s curently the 12th most active plugin in the world (and yes, that’s people who actually have it on). Plus, it perfectly embodies the soul and quirkiness of WordPress.

Some personal thoughts…

I have to admit, Matt is now on the shortlist of entrepreneurs I truly admire.

He had a vision of creating a company that is fully aligned with the interests of the users and open source community and has worked hard to make that happen.

There are now almost 14 million Wordpress blogs (about half .com and half .org) with 10,000 WP plugins and themes. And all commercial themes for WordPress run off the open-source General Public License except one (which he hopes comes back to the “family” soon.)

In fact, when someone asked, “What’s your business model–how do you all make money?” he said he’s glad he still gets asked that a lot because it shows they’re not “in your face” about the way they do it. (Don’t worry, they have four big revenue generators so they’re doing fine.)

Finally, I think a lot of us can definitely relate to his statement, “You can ask me any questions but one–where Wordpress will be in five years. I can’t even imagine because I would have never predicted we’d be where we are today.”

Photo courtesy of Social Media Strategist Jeff Cohen

…when it comes to the word “UTILIZE” in your marketing copy (or really, anything you write for your business).

First, a definition from good old Merriam-Webster:

utilize (v)–to make USE of, turn to practical USE or account

See a pattern here?

Twice as many letters and three times as many syllables add nothing meaningful to the word “use.” So just use “use”! (Or something more colorful.)

While some -ize words like “strategize” have moved into regular everyday use, -ize words in general scream, “I’m trying make myself to sound important.”

But it’s not about you. Simplicity and clarity achieve what’s really important–engaging your readers so they keep reading and ultimately do what you’re asking them to do.

So it’s definitely time to kill off “utilize” when it comes to your marketing copy (and take a hard look at other -ize words you may be using as well.)

Just a note to others who upgrade and find themselves unable to access their dashboard because of a fatal error with the Google Analytics plug-in…

Menoob has posted a solution to the problem which saved me from much insanity this morning. For others on Bluehost, I thought it’d be helpful to clarify that you go to File Manager, then choose Home Directory from the hover box that comes up. Then wp-content is the file that contains the plug-ins folder.

And once the plug-ins folder is displayed in the box on the right (not in the left hierarchical diagram), just put a check next to sem-google-analytics, click Rename above and you can change it like the post says.

Refresh your error page and you should be back in business!