Thanks to all who participated in my recent Reader's Survey.  I thought you might be interested in seeing the results. - Thomas Cott

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 In what format you would prefer to receive You've Cott Mail?

(multiple answers allowed)
 73%      daily email
38%      weekly email
15%      Website/blog
10%      Facebook
9%       Twitter
1%       RSS feed
1%       Other (my favorite: "Personal phone call from Thomas")

 How do you PRIMARILY read You've Cott Mail?
 65%      on a computer at work
19%      on a computer at home
12%      on a smartphone
2%       on a tablet device
2%       other (most said they used some combination of the above)

 How do you PRIMARILY define yourself professionally?
 18%      Executive or Managing Director/CEO (non-profit) or Producer (for-profit)
16%      Marketer
14%      Administrative staff
13%      Fundraiser/Development staff
10%      Artist
7%       Artistic Director (non-profit) or Creative Producer (for-profit)   
3%       Educator
3%       Grantmaker/Funder (government/foundation/corporate)   
3%       Student
2%       Consultant
2%       Publicist/Press Rep
2%       Journalist/Blogger   
1%       Board member   
1%       Artistic staff   
1%       Financial staff   
1%       Production staff    .
1%       Researcher   
2%       "Other" (includes web-related jobs, box office/ticketing, attorneys, and retirees)

 How old are you?
 12%      18-25
31%      26-35
20%      36-45
20%      46-55
14%      56-65
3%       over 65

 Where are you located?
 93%      United States

Survey respondents who live in the U.S. reside in 42 of the fifty states - everywhere but Alabama, Alaska, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming. The biggest percentage of U.S.-based survey respondents live in New York (29%), California (11%), Illinois (7%), and Washington DC (5%).

7%        Outside the U.S.

Of those living outside the U.S., the majority of respondents were from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.  But there were also people weighing in from Chile, China, Germany, Israel, Macedonia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and Spain.
 

How did you hear about You've Cott Mail?

(multiple answers possible)
 81%      a colleague or friend
9%       link on a website/blog
4%       Twitter or Facebook mention
2%       internet search
2%       assigned to read YCM by a teacher
7%       Other (includes: via industry conference, people who know me personally, and many who

just didn't remember how they heard about YCM)

 Any suggestions on how to make YCM more useful to you?
 I'm happy to report that the vast majority of those who responded asked me not to change anything about YCM.  But there were a few folks who suggested some ways they'd like You've Cott Mail to evolve, including: 

• MAKE IT EASIER TO READ ON A MOBILE PHONE: I agree about this -- on my iPhone, at least, I find the point size too small to read and it's frustrating to have to keep zooming in and out to read YCM on my phone.  I'm at the mercy of my email service, Constant Contact, which currently doesn't offer a mobile friendly template.  I am investigating other email providers.  Stay tuned.
• ADD A SEARCHABLE ARCHIVE: This is another weakness of my email service, but one trick I've learned for myself is to direct all my YCM emails into a separate folder in my email software and then I can just search for a keyword or phrase within that folder.  And, for those who don't know, I provide a link to a basic archive (where you can browse by the title of each day's theme) at the bottom of each YCM edition.
• ADD VISUALS: I used to include photos, charts and other visuals in YCM, but I got complaints from people that it made the email slower to load, especially on smartphones, so I took them out.  Only a few people mentioned this, but I'm willing to try adding images again.
• ADD A "READ LATER" OPTION TO EACH STORY.  I need to do some research into the best service to use for this.  I know there are a number of platforms/plug-ins that people use for this purpose like ReadItLater, Readability, Safari's Reading List, and the "Send to Kindle" options. 
• INCLUDE FEWER ITEMS IN EACH EMAIL and/or PROVIDE A ONE-LINE SYNOPSIS FOR EACH ITEM AT THE TOP OF EACH EMAIL.  Most respondents said they like the number of items (typically 3-5) in each day's email, so that will probably stay the same, and the headline I provide for each item is meant to synopsize the item below it, but I will look at providing a 'table of contents' at the top of each email.
• ADD A WAY TO POST COMMENTS OR JOIN A CONVERSATION ON A PARTICULAR DAY'S THEME: I like this idea, but it would require me to devote extra time to monitoring and perhaps moderating such a conversation.  And YCM is not my job; I do this as a hobby, and I've only got so many hours to devote to it each week.  But if someone else wants to take this on, I'm certainly open to the idea.
• GUEST CURATOR: I'm open to this idea, too, especially since I've been doing You've Cott Mail for about 15 years now and would love to have other people share the workload.  (I did mention I do this as a hobby, yes?)  So if you're interested in guest curating YCM, please email me at thomas.cott@verizon.net.  And if you don't have the time to guest curate, but have a particular topic you'd like me to explore, feel free to email me those ideas.  The only thing I ask is that you don't send me press releases or other self-promotional items about you or your company.  Thanks.