May 24, 2012
Success has no purpose
Hugh MacLeod
I’m Hugh MacLeod. I’m a cartoonist. Occasionally I write books. gapingvoid is interested in start-up culture, because changing business for the better is what we’re about; that’s what Social Object Factory is about. We live and breathe it; we help everyone from lone entrepreneurs, to mid-sizers, to Fortune 500’s do the same. Check out our work here.
We create art that helps companies kick ass, end of story.
We also have a daily cartoon newsletter that makes a lot of people happy.
If you just want to say ‘Hello’, feel free to email me, anytime.
If you want to talk business, then it’s probably best to please contact my business partner, gapingvoid CEO Jason Korman, here. We look forward to working with you. Thanks!
Prints |
Opening | Current |
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NY NY |
$275 |
May 9, 2012
In praise of the email newsletter format
[Subscribe to the gapingvoid newsletter here.]
This made me very happy– Austin Ray from Mailchimp interviewed me about my “fantastic open rates”.
Mailchimp, as you know, is what powers my daily cartoon newsletter. With email newsletters, at least with Mailchimp, the average “open rate” is around 6%-8% i.e. for every hundred people you send out to, six to eight people actually open it and read it, as opposed to just sending it to the trash.
Our newsletter is 40%+. That’s amazing.
We were impressed to find out that Hugh MacLeod‘s MailChimp campaigns consistently maintain a fantastic 40%+ open rate. What does a cartoonist know about email marketing? Well, as it turns out, he doesn’t worry about all the typical “email expert” stuff like A/B testing, sending at different times of day, experimenting with subject lines, etc. Instead, much like Email Inspiration, he just sends a fun image, and the people love it.
“I think it’s because we keep it simple — a nice cartoon to brighten your day, delivered to your inbox every morning,” Hugh tells us. “People like getting that a whole lot more than, say, a daily, long-winded spiel about why y’all should give me your money, make me rich, yak, yak, yak…”
I highly, highly recommend doing the newsletter thing. More than the blog, more than Twitter, Facebook or Google+, these are the people who who REALLY WANT to support your business, who REALY CARE about your brand, who really want to interact with it. What Seth Godin calls a “Permission Asset”.
And best of all, with a good list, these people– the people who REALLY allow you to do what you do– are easy to identify, This makes your marketing A LOT easier, because the people who REALLY matter to your brand are RIGHT THERE in black & white, on your list. Nobody subscribes to a newsletter unless they really want to, unless they really think what you’re doing is important. Life is too short.
Exactly.
P.S. Yes, I highly, highly recommend Mailchimp as the service provider. They kick ass, they’ve been very good to gapingvoid. Thanks, Mailchimp!
May 9, 2012
Leaving the mainstream…
This is the latest cartoon to go out in the newsletter.
I’m not anti-mainstream; it has its place. That being said, it isn’t for for everyone.
And yes, sometimes you have to leave it, to find out who you REALLY are.
I can certainly relate…
May 6, 2012
Happy gapingvoid Birthday! My Blog Turns Eleven…
Over the weekend, gapingvoid.com turned eleven years old.
I won’t dwell on it too much, other than to say,
1. Yes, it has been an amazing trip,
2. Thank you very much for all the love over the years and,
3. Looking back, I consider “Personal Faves” (2001) to be the best thing on it that I ever wrote. Written as I was setting the blog up, it set the tone for what came after– “How To Creative”, “The Hughtrain”, “Evil Plans”, “Freedom Is Blogging”, then the actual gapingvoid business itself, the “cube grenades” and the great team of people I work with etc– it all came from that. And I honestly, honestly doubt that I would had come this far without it:
When I first lived in Manhattan in December, 1997 I got into the habit of doodling on the back of business cards, just to give me something to do while sitting at the bar. The format stuck.
All I had when I first got to Manhattan were 2 suitcases, a couple of cardboard boxes full of stuff, a reservation at the YMCA, and a 10-day freelance copywriting gig at a Midtown advertising agency.
My life for the next couple of weeks was going to work, walking around the city, and staggering back to the YMCA once the bars closed. Lots of alcohol and coffee shops. Lot of weird people. Being hit five times a day by this strange desire to laugh, sing and cry simultaneously. At times like these, there’s a lot to be said for an art form that fits easily inside your coat pocket.
[…]
An artist is quite a f*****-up thing to be, and to be honest I’m not sure if I would recommend it to anybody. Still, in my collection there are a couple of examples that, in some sick and twisted way, make the whole thing seem worthwhile. For the first five minutes, at least…
Anyway, for those who hadn’t seen it before, I thought it was worth sharing [Here’s the link again]. Again, thanks for all the love, and Godbless. Now I have some more cartoons to draw. Rock on.
