Welcome to Fresh van Root newsletter #64.
A personal update: For the last 6 weeks, I have been traveling in Spain and Canary Islands with my family. I got a little work done on some days, but it was really offline time for large parts. When possible, I left the phone and laptop in the apartment, and this turned out to be a real boost to relaxation.
Now I am fully back online, energized, and looking forward to heavy blogging, growing my newsletter, and geeking out. Have a great 2022.
For all new subscribers, here’s what this newsletter is about: I am exploring content and apps at the intersection of marketing, productivity, content creation, and social media. My bi-weekly newsletter is a curated and concise summary of that exploration. Stay fresh. Rolf
🧠 Hand-Picked Content
Hiring Your First Marketer Of Your Company (Blog, 10min)
Lots of practical advice for hiring the first marketer at your company. And a reminder for anyone on what it takes to get from individual contributor to managing a team of marketers. More
Sharpening Your Storytelling Skills (Article, 5min)
Sharpening your skills in storytelling needs practice. In this article, the author of the Micro Flash Fiction Twitter account shares his learning after writing 4700 short stories and publishing them on Twitter. What can marketers learn from that? More
Social vs Email Marketing (Blog post, 5min)
Looking for reasons to take building an email list seriously? Email is not dead, it’s alive and well. This post shares some stats and arguments on why turning your followers into email subscribers is a good idea. More
Marketing Means Being Considerate (Blog post, 2min)
“Don’t confuse the word ‘marketing’ with advertising, announcing, spamming, or giving away branded crap.” More
Web 3 Learning: A List Of Recommended Resources (Blog post, 3min)
Is one of your goals for 2022 to fully understand what web 3 actually is? Here is a list of recommended articles, newsletters, and Twitter accounts to get started. More
🛠️ Tools & Apps & Services
Wireframes: Very Simple To Use Tool
Do you want to try a new wireframing tool for your next web project? Extremely easy to use also for beginners. Give Zen Wireframe a try. Screenshot | More
Personal Productivity: Get More Done With Virtual Co-Working
Choose a time to work, and Focusmate connects you with another professional who virtually sits down with you to get things done. The psychology behind this is that connecting with another human reduces the likelihood of distraction and procrastination. I have used it once and can recommend it if you have a hard time concentrating on a single task. Screenshot | More
Team Productivity: Run Structured Meetings & Standups
Range is a website that you can use to facilitate online meetings, track your objectives, stay synced as a team. Very interesting service, especially for fully remote companies split across timezones. More
Personal Productivity: Automagically Click Cookie Popup
Sadly, today’s web experience requires clicking away more popups than we want, and the cookie acceptance dialog is one of them. This browser extension does this job for you. I have had it running for some time, and it works on many websites. Add your preferred options once, and let the plugin do its magic. More
Learning About Fonts
Marketers are often asked to give feedback on design. And readability is a top priority for getting your message through. Google published Fonts Knowledge – a library to learn about different font types and typography in general. A great resource if you want to improve your knowledge in that area. More
Polish Website Screenshots
A very easy recipe to quickly polish a website screenshot. More
📣 Fresh van Root
Meetings With Clients
When work needed attention in the last couple of weeks, I attended calls from cafes, hotel lobbies, and other noisy places. Krisp turned out to be a lifesaver. It filtered out all the background noise perfectly well. You can try it out for free next time you are working on the go. More
🏞️ Your Next Wallpaper?
🔗 One More Link
Inspiring Story Format In NYTimes (One Page Scroll)
This story in the NYTimes features 52 places for travelers. What’s cool about it is how the photographs and text are featured alongside, and the overall design and animations used in the piece. More