The Daily Carnage

The savvy marketer's hub for industry news, insights, resources, and culture.

Today’s Issue

The Year of Slop

SEO bait, syrup sneakers, and more.

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Can You Sign This?

Need a downloadable e-signature in less than 30 seconds?

Here’s your tool: Docsketch.

What we like: It’s free and exports as a .png.

What we don’t like: A stylus doesn’t pop through the screen.

Is it Readable?

Picture this.

It’s Sunday night, daylight savings kicked in and you’re exhausted, but…

you need to get an email out to your favorite people (ya, we’re talking about you).

Enter Hemingway App. This beneficial web-based application makes your writing bold and clear by checking your grammar and ranking readability.

What we like: Simple and intuitive to use. It helps you communicate better.

What we don’t like: No complaints.

Let’s Get Creepy

Do you know how people are interacting with your website? Where are they clicking? How long are they spending on the site? You get the point.

Sure, you can use Google Analytics for that data, but sometimes it’s better to actually see it.

Enter Hotjar. This amazing tool helps you eliminate guesswork with recordings of visitors on your website. You can see where they click, how they navigate their mouse and where they get held up at.

There are a ton of features including tagging, polls, conversion funnels and more.

What we like: It’s overwhelmingly awesome. The pricing is on point.

What we don’t like: n/a

Focus on the Task at Hand

Let’s talk Pomodoro.

Pomo- what? It’s called the Pomodoro Technique, which happens to be one of the simplest productivity methods to get started with.

Here’s how it works:

Choose a task to be accomplished.
Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)
Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper
Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)
Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break

You can actually buy a Pomodoro (from the Italian word for ‘tomato’) timer on Amazon or just the web-based app below.

This method actually works btw. Give it a try.

The Idea Generator

Need some content ideas? ‘Answer the Public’ could be your new best friend. This slick web-based app aggregates data from Google and Bing with an easily digestible visual of what your audience is actually searching for.

The tool allows for a few free searches throughout the day, so use them sparingly.

What we like: All of the things including the ability to export the data as a csv.

What we don’t like: So far, so good.

Way Back

“…we walked to school uphill in the snow, both ways.” Today’s tool likely didn’t have anyone walking uphill in the snow both ways considering it was created in 2001.

It’s called ‘Wayback Machine’ and it allows you to search over 349 billion web pages saved over time. Wanna see the first iteration of Coca-Cola? You can do that. Flash anyone?

It’s a fun tool. Check it out below.

Shakr

Now that you’re firing off IG stories right and left, how about a tool to spice them up a little bit?

Try Shakr. It’s been around for a minute, but it’s a pretty solid tool.

Pros: Tons of templates to choose from. Create a video in less than 5 minutes.

Cons: Slight learning curve.

Company Wiki?

We just got turned onto this tool and are really digging it. It’s called Slite.

It’s a really useful tool for keeping your team content organized in one place. From onboarding documents to your marketing plan, Slite has a ton of templates to choose from. It’s marketed as “your company Wiki.”

Pros: Free to start. Integrates with Slack. UI is on-point!

Cons: TBD

Get More Done

Do you ever wish you had a clone to double your production? Today’s feature won’t allow you to clone yourself, but it’ll definitely make you more productive.

It’s called GenM.

Here’s the skinny:

For $49/month, you get 10 hours of work per week from a fully trained marketing apprentice. Yes, this is real.

Pros: This is a great service to vet entry-level work without the risk of a full-on hire. The price is unbeatable.
Cons: None so far.

Head over to GenM and find your ideal marketer today.