Unlimited everything for $19 monthly!?

Even with pretty words, no one wants to read an ugly email.

• Not Gen Z

• Not Millennials

• Not Gen X

• Not Boomers

I am a minimalist.

I like Mozart. I like avos. I love Apple.

When I hear seamlessly, effortlessly, or Apple's new adverb fluidly, my toes curl.

No email marketing tool gave me that feeling.

As a marketing consultant helping high-growth brands create marketing that doesn't feel like marketing, I've worked with every email marketing platform imaginable, including that naughty monkey and the expensive platform whose sales teams don't stop calling.

Most email marketing platforms are flawed.

1. They are overpriced.

2. They use dreadful templates.

3. They employ a poor visual designer.

4. The user experience there is awful.

5. Too many useless buttons are present. (Similar to the TV remote!)

I may have finally found the perfect email marketing tool. It creates strong flows. It helps me focus on storytelling.

It’s called Flodesk.

It’s effortless. It’s seamless. It’s fluid.

Here’s why it excites me.

Unlimited everything for $19 per month

Sends unlimited. Emails unlimited. Signups unlimited.

Most email platforms penalize success.

Pay for performance?

• $87 for 10k contacts

• $605 for 100K contacts

• $1,300+ for 200K contacts

In the 1990s, this made sense, but not now. It reminds me of when ISPs capped internet usage at 5 GB per month.

Flodesk made unlimited email for a low price a reality. Affordable, attractive email marketing isn't just for big companies.

Flodesk doesn't penalize you for growing your list. Price stays the same as lists grow.

Flodesk plans cost $38 per month, but I'll give you a 30-day trial for $19.

Amazingly strong flows

Foster different people's flows.

Email marketing isn't one-size-fits-all.

Different times require different emails.

People don't open emails because they're irrelevant, in my experience. A colder audience needs a nurturing sequence.

Flodesk automates your email funnels so top-funnel prospects fall in love with your brand and values before mid- and bottom-funnel email flows nudge them to take action.

I wish I could save more custom audience fields to further customize the experience.

Dynamic editor

Easy. Effortless.

Flodesk's editor is Apple-like.

You understand how it works almost instantly.

Like many Apple products, it's intentionally limited. No distractions. You can focus on emotional email writing.

Flodesk's inability to add inline HTML to emails is my biggest issue with larger projects. I wish I could upload HTML emails.

Simple sign-up procedures

Dream up joining.

I like how easy it is to create conversion-focused landing pages. Linkly lets you easily create 5 landing pages and A/B test messaging.

I like that you can use signup forms to ask people what they're interested in so they get relevant emails instead of mindless mass emails nobody opens.

I love how easy it is to embed in-line on a website.

Wonderful designer templates

Beautiful, connecting emails.

Flodesk has calm email templates. My designer's eye felt at rest when I received plain text emails with big impacts.

As a typography nerd, I love Flodesk's handpicked designer fonts. It gives emails a designer feel that is hard to replicate on other platforms without coding and custom font licenses.

Small adjustments can have a big impact

Details matter.

Flodesk remembers your brand colors. Flodesk automatically adds your logo and social handles to emails after signup.

Flodesk uses Zapier. This lets you send emails based on a user's action.

A bad live chat can trigger a series of emails to win back a customer.

Flodesk isn't for everyone.

Flodesk is great for Apple users like me.

Most productive people are habitual.

Early in the day, do important tasks.

In his best-selling book Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy advised starting the day with your hardest, most important activity.

Most individuals work best in the morning. Energy and willpower peak then.

Mornings are also ideal for memory, focus, and problem-solving.

Thus, the morning is ideal for your hardest chores.

It makes sense to do these things during your peak performance hours.

Additionally, your morning sets the tone for the day. According to Brian Tracy, the first hour of the workday steers the remainder.

After doing your most critical chores, you may feel accomplished, confident, and motivated for the remainder of the day, which boosts productivity.

Develop Your Essentialism

In Essentialism, Greg McKeown claims that trying to be everything to everyone leads to mediocrity and tiredness.

You'll either burn out, be spread too thin, or compromise your ideals.

Greg McKeown advises Essentialism:

Clarify what’s truly important in your life and eliminate the rest.

Eliminating non-essential duties, activities, and commitments frees up time and energy for what matters most.

According to Greg McKeown, Essentialists live by design, not default.

You'll be happier and more productive if you follow your essentials.

Follow these three steps to live more essentialist.

Prioritize Your Tasks First

What matters most clarifies what matters less. List your most significant aims and values.

The clearer your priorities, the more you can focus on them.

On Essentialism, McKeown wrote, The ultimate form of effectiveness is the ability to deliberately invest our time and energy in the few things that matter most.

#2: Set Your Priorities in Order

Prioritize your priorities, not simply know them.

“If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.” — Greg McKeown

Planning each day and allocating enough time for your priorities is the best method to become more purposeful.

#3: Practice saying "no"

If a request or demand conflicts with your aims or principles, you must learn to say no.

Saying no frees up space for our priorities.

Place Sleep Above All Else

Many believe they must forego sleep to be more productive. This is false.

A productive day starts with a good night's sleep.

Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep) says:

“Getting a good night’s sleep can improve cognitive performance, creativity, and overall productivity.”

Sleep helps us learn, remember, and repair.

Unfortunately, 35% of people don't receive the recommended 79 hours of sleep per night.

Sleep deprivation can cause:

• increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and obesity

• Depression, stress, and anxiety risk are all on the rise.

• decrease in general contentment

• decline in cognitive function

To live an ideal, productive, and healthy life, you must prioritize sleep.

Follow these six sleep optimization strategies to obtain enough sleep:

• Establish a nightly ritual to relax and prepare for sleep.

• Avoid using screens an hour before bed because the blue light they emit disrupts the generation of melatonin, a necessary hormone for sleep.

• Maintain a regular sleep schedule to control your body's biological clock (and optimizes melatonin production)

• Create a peaceful, dark, and cool sleeping environment.

• Limit your intake of sweets and caffeine (especially in the hours leading up to bedtime)

• Regular exercise (but not right before you go to bed, because your body temperature will be too high)

Sleep is one of the best ways to boost productivity.

Sleep is crucial, says Matthew Walker. It's the key to good health and longevity.

Note-taking is a vital skill. But it's mostly learned.

Recently, innovative note-taking apps have flooded the market.

In the next few years, Evernote and Craft will be important digital note-taking companies.

Evernote is a 2008 note-taking program. It can capture ideas, track tasks, and organize information on numerous platforms.

It's one of the only note-taking app that lets users input text, audio, photos, and videos. It's great for collecting research notes, brainstorming, and remaining organized.

Craft is a popular note-taking app.

Craft is a more concentrated note-taking application than Evernote. It organizes notes into subjects, tags, and relationships, making it ideal for technical or research notes.

Craft's search engine makes it easy to find what you need.

Both Evernote and Craft are likely to be the major players in digital note-taking in the years to come.

Their concentration on gathering and organizing information lets users generate notes quickly and simply. Multimedia elements and a strong search engine make them the note-taking apps of the future.

Evernote and Craft are great note-taking tools for staying organized and tracking ideas and projects.

With their focus on acquiring and organizing information, they'll dominate digital note-taking in 2023.

Pros

• Concentrate on gathering and compiling information

• special features including a strong search engine and multimedia components

• Possibility of subject, tag, and relationship structuring

• enables users to incorporate multimedia elements

• Excellent tool for maintaining organization, arranging research notes, and brainstorming

Cons

• Software may be difficult for folks who are not tech-savvy to utilize.

• Limited assistance for hardware running an outdated operating system

• Subscriptions could be pricey.

• Data loss risk because of security issues

Evernote and Craft both have downsides.

1. The risk of data loss as a result of security flaws and software defects comes first.

2. Additionally, their subscription fees could be high, and they might restrict support for hardware that isn't running the newest operating systems.

3. Finally, folks who need to be tech-savvy may find the software difficult.

Evernote versus. Productivity Titans Evernote will make Notion more useful. medium.com

Move people with tiny words.

Apple fanboy here.

• Macs are awesome.

• Their iPhones rock.

• $19 cloths are great.

• $999 stands are amazing.

I love Apple's microcopy even more.

It's like the marketing goddess bit into the Apple logo and blessed the world with microcopy.

I took on a 30-day micro-stalking mission.

Every time I caught myself wasting time on YouTube, I had to visit Apple’s website to learn the secrets of the marketing goddess herself.

We've learned. Golden apples are calling.

Cut the friction

Benefit-first, not commitment-first.

Brands lose customers through friction.

Most brands don't think like customers.

• Brands want sales.

• Brands want newsletter signups.

Here's their microcopy:

• “Buy it now.”

• “Sign up for our newsletter.”

Both are difficult. They ask for big commitments.

People are simple creatures. Want pleasure without commitment.

Apple nails this.

So, instead of highlighting the commitment, they highlight the benefit of the commitment.

Saving on the latest iPhone sounds easier than buying it. Everyone saves, but not everyone buys.

A subtle change in framing reduces friction.

Apple eliminates customer objections to reduce friction.

Less customer friction means simpler processes.

Apple's copy expertly reassures customers about shipping fees and not being home. Apple assures customers that returning faulty products is easy.

Apple knows that talking to a real person is the best way to reduce friction and improve their copy.

Always rhyme

Learn about fine rhyme.

Poets make things beautiful with rhyme.

Copywriters use rhyme to stand out.

Apple’s copywriters have mastered the art of corporate rhyme.

Two techniques are used.

1. Perfect rhyme

Here, rhymes are identical.

2. Imperfect rhyme

Here, rhyming sounds vary.

Apple prioritizes meaning over rhyme.

Apple never forces rhymes that don't fit.

It fits so well that the copy seems accidental.

Add alliteration

Alliteration always entertains.

Alliteration repeats initial sounds in nearby words.

Apple's copy uses alliteration like no other brand I've seen to create a rhyming effect or make the text more fun to read.

For example, in the sentence "Sam saw seven swans swimming," the initial "s" sound is repeated five times. This creates a pleasing rhythm.

Microcopy overuse is like pouring ketchup on a Michelin-star meal.

Alliteration creates a memorable phrase in copywriting. It's subtler than rhyme, and most people wouldn't notice; it simply resonates.

I love how Apple uses alliteration and contrast between "wonders" and "ease".

Assonance, or repeating vowels, isn't Apple's thing.

You ≠ Hero, Customer = Hero

Your brand shouldn't be the hero.

Because they'll be using your product or service, your customer should be the hero of your copywriting. With your help, they should feel like they can achieve their goals.

I love how Apple emphasizes what you can do with the machine in this microcopy.

It's divine how they position their tools as sidekicks to help below.

This one takes the cake:

Dialogue-style writing

Conversational copy engages.

Excellent copy Like sharing gum with a friend.

This helps build audience trust.

Apple does this by using natural connecting words like "so" and phrases like "But that's not all."

Snowclone-proof

The mother of all microcopy techniques.

A snowclone uses an existing phrase or sentence to create a new one. The new phrase or sentence uses the same structure but different words.

It’s usually a well know saying like:

To be or not to be.

This becomes a formula:

To _ or not to _.

Copywriters fill in the blanks with cause-related words. Example:

To click or not to click.

Apple turns "survival of the fittest" into "arrival of the fittest."

It's unexpected and surprises the reader.

So this was fun.

But my fun has just begun.

Microcopy is 21st-century poetry.

I came as an Apple fanboy.

I leave as an Apple fanatic.

Now I’m off to find an apple tree.

Cause you know how it goes.

(Apples, trees, etc.)

This post is a summary. Original post available here.

He explained everything.

A drinking buddy confessed. Alexander. He says he works at a startup based on a scam, which appears too clever to be a lie.

Alexander (assuming he developed the story) or the startup's creator must have been a genius.

This is the story of an Internet scam that targets older individuals and generates tens of millions of dollars annually.

The business sells authentic things at 10% of their market value. This firm cannot be lucrative, but the entrepreneur has a plan: monthly subscriptions to a worthless service.

The firm can then charge the customer's credit card to settle the gap. The buyer must subscribe without knowing it. What's their strategy?

How does the con operate?

Imagine a website with a split homepage. On one page, the site offers an attractive goods at a ridiculous price (from 1 euro to 10% of the product's market worth).

Same product, but with a stupid monthly subscription. Business is unsustainable. They buy overpriced products and resell them too cheaply, hoping customers will subscribe to a useless service.

No customer will want this service. So they create another illegal homepage that hides the monthly subscription offer. After an endless scroll, a box says Yes, I want to subscribe to a service that costs x dollars per month.

Unchecking the checkbox bugs. When a customer buys a product on this page, he's enrolled in a monthly subscription. Not everyone should see it because it's illegal. So what does the startup do?

A page that varies based on the sort of website visitor, a possible consumer or someone who might be watching the startup's business

Startup technicians make sure the legal page is displayed when the site is accessed normally. Typing the web address in the browser, using Google, etc. The page crashes when buying a goods, preventing the purchase.

This avoids the startup from selling a product at a loss because the buyer won't subscribe to the worthless service and charge their credit card each month.

The illegal page only appears if a customer clicks on a Google ad, indicating interest in the offer.

Alexander says that a banker, police officer, or anyone else who visits the site (maybe for control) will only see a valid and buggy site as purchases won't be possible.

The latter will go to the site in the regular method (by typing the address in the browser, using Google, etc.) and not via an online ad.

Those who visit from ads are likely already lured by the site's price. They'll be sent to an illegal page that requires a subscription.

Laziness is humanity's secret weapon. The ordinary person ignores tiny monthly credit card charges. The subscription lasts around a year before the customer sees an unexpected deduction.

After-sales service (ASS) is useful in this situation.

After-sales assistance begins when a customer notices slight changes on his credit card, usually a year later.

The customer will search Google for the direct debit reference. How he'll complain to after-sales service.

It's crucial that ASS appears in the top 4/5 Google search results. This site must be clear, and offer chat, phone, etc., he argues.

The pigeon must be comforted after waking up. The customer learns via after-sales service that he subscribed to a service while buying the product, which justifies the debits on his card.

The customer will then clarify that he didn't intend to make the direct debits. The after-sales care professional will pretend to listen to the customer's arguments and complaints, then offer to unsubscribe him for free because his predicament has affected him.

In 99% of cases, the consumer is satisfied since the after-sales support unsubscribed him for free, and he forgets the debited amounts.

The remaining 1% is split between 0.99% who are delighted to be reimbursed and 0.01%. We'll pay until they're done. The customer should be delighted, not object or complain, and keep us beneath the radar (their situation is resolved, the rest, they don’t care).

It works, so we expand our thinking.

Startup has considered industrialization. Since this fraud is working, try another. Automate! So they used a site generator (only for product modifications), underpaid phone operators for after-sales service, and interns for fresh product ideas.

The company employed a data scientist. This has allowed the startup to recognize that specific customer profiles can be re-registered in the database and that it will take X months before they realize they're subscribing to a worthless service. Customers are re-subscribed to another service, then unsubscribed before realizing it.

Alexander took months to realize the deception and leave. Lawyers and others apparently threatened him and former colleagues who tried to talk about it.

The startup would have earned prizes and competed in contests. He adds they can provide evidence to any consumer group, media, police/gendarmerie, or relevant body. When I submitted my information to the FBI, I was told, "We know, we can't do much.", he says.

What does Ukraine's murderous craziness mean?

Vladimir Putin expressed his patience to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet. Thousands, even hundreds of thousands of young and middle-aged males in his country have no meaning to him.

During a meeting in March with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel, Mr. Putin admitted that the Ukrainians were tougher “than I was told,” according to two people familiar with the exchange. “This will probably be much more difficult than we thought. But the war is on their territory, not ours. We are a big country and we have patience (The Inside Story of a Catastrophe).”

Putin should explain to Russian mothers how patient he is with his invasion of Ukraine.

Putin is rich. Even while sanctions have certainly limited Putin's access to his fortune, he has access to everything in Russia. Unlimited wealth.

The Russian leader's infrastructure was designed with his whims in mind. Vladimir Putin is one of the wealthiest and most catered-to people alive. He's also all-powerful, as his lack of opposition shows. His incredible wealth and power have isolated him from average people so much that he doesn't mind turning lives upside down to prove a point.

For many, losing a Russian spouse or son is painful. Whether the soldier was a big breadwinner or unemployed, the loss of a male figure leaves many families bewildered and anxious. Putin, Russia's revered president, seems unfazed.

People who know Mr. Putin say he is ready to sacrifice untold lives and treasure for as long as it takes, and in a rare face-to-face meeting with the Americans last month the Russians wanted to deliver a stark message to President Biden: No matter how many Russian soldiers are killed or wounded on the battlefield, Russia will not give up (The Inside Story of a Catastrophe).

Imagine a country's leader publicly admitting a mistake he's made. Imagine getting Putin's undivided attention.

So, I underestimated Ukrainians. I can't allow them make me appear terrible, so I'll utilize as many drunken dopes as possible to cover up my error. They'll die fulfilled and heroic.

Russia's human resources are limited, but its willingness to cause suffering is not. How many Russian families must die before the curse is broken? If mass protests started tomorrow, Russia's authorities couldn't stop them.

When Moscovites faced down tanks in August 1991, the Gorbachev coup ended in three days. Even though few city residents showed up, everything collapsed. This wicked disaster won't require many Russians.

One NATO member is warning allies that Mr. Putin is ready to accept the deaths or injuries of as many as 300,000 Russian troops — roughly three times his estimated losses so far.

If 100,000 Russians have died in Ukraine and Putin doesn't mind another 200,000 dying, why don't these 200,000 ghosts stand up and save themselves? Putin plays the role of concerned and benevolent leader effectively, but things aren't going well for Russia.

What would 300,000 or more missing men signify for Russia's future? How many kids will have broken homes? How many families won't form, and what will the economy do?

Putin reportedly cared about his legacy. His place in Russian history Putin's invasion of Ukraine settled his legacy. He has single-handedly weakened and despaired Russia since the 1980s.

Putin will be viewed by sensible people as one of Russia's worst adversaries, but Russians will think he was fantastic despite Ukraine.

The more setbacks Mr. Putin endures on the battlefield, the more fears grow over how far he is willing to go. He has killed tens of thousands in Ukraine, leveled cities, and targeted civilians for maximum pain — obliterating hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings while cutting off power and water to millions before winter. Each time Ukrainian forces score a major blow against Russia, the bombing of their country intensifies. And Mr. Putin has repeatedly reminded the world that he can use anything at his disposal, including nuclear arms, to pursue his notion of victory.

How much death and damage will there be in Ukraine if Putin sends 200,000 more Russians to the front? It's scary, sad, and sick.

Monster.