gapingvoid

Success has no purpose

Hugh MacLeod — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:19:45 +0000

Alfred

Hugh MacLeod — Sat, 19 May 2012 23:40:09 +0000

In praise of the email newsletter format

Hugh MacLeod — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:40:53 +0000

[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!

Leaving the mainstream…

Hugh MacLeod — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:27:41 +0000

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…

The trouble with big companies…

Hugh MacLeod — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:03:12 +0000

All three possible answers

Hugh MacLeod — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:05:28 +0000

I hate my life

Hugh MacLeod — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:52:54 +0000

Happy gapingvoid Birthday! My Blog Turns Eleven…

Hugh MacLeod — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:58:08 +0000

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.

Suck at everything

Hugh MacLeod — Sat, 05 May 2012 20:46:09 +0000

Of course you hate your job.

Hugh MacLeod — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:13:42 +0000

Everybody pays

Hugh MacLeod — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:51:15 +0000

“I’m sorry my last book was so long, but I didn’t have time to write a short one”

Hugh MacLeod — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:38:29 +0000

[Click on image to activate animation etc.]

This is one of the cooler “Social Object Factory” mini-projects we’ve done lately– a little animated Gif for Seth Godin’s lovely little book, Poke The Box.

[Yes. I know. We didn’t use my drawing style this time. The Factory is really about Social Objects, not about Hugh etc.]

One thing Seth and I always had in common, is that we both believe in writing short books. My personal rule is: All my books have to be short enough to be read on a plane ride between Miami and New York. And they are.

A book that makes you feel hopefully really inspired and really excited, that you close and put away satisfied, just as they’re dropping the landing gear, coming into La Guardia. It’s simple enough goal to aim for; certainly a lot less deluded than “Write the next ‘Sun Also Rises’ or ‘Ulysses’”.

Seth talks about his “short format” philosophy some more in a brilliant post, “Tracts and Books”:

The Communist Manifesto is 80 pages long. Certainly long enough to make an impact.

It has never taken me beyond a hundred pages to be persuaded. Sure, there are times when the pages after page 100 help me pile on, give me more depth and understanding. But a hundred (and usually fifty) is enough to get under my skin.

Or to steal heavily from George Bernard Shaw, “I’m sorry my last book was so long, but I didn’t have time to write a short one”.

It’s dirty little secret that most of my business-book author friends (and I have more than a few) will freely admit off the record: Most business books are lucky if people read more than the first hundred pages.

So why write more than a hundred pages? You tell me…

It’s never quite that simple, of course. There are as many ways to write a book as there are authors. If you want to spend the next seven years teaching junior college in order to be able to write the next Great American Novel in your spare time, that works too, go for it.

But if you’re just trying to get ideas to spread– if it’s the ideas that actually matter, not the book itself– I’d pay attention to what Seth is up to, very carefully.

Like I’ve said many times before about Media, we’re now living in the era of #CheapEasyGlobal. And thanks to that, I do honestly believe, it’s never been a more exciting time to be a writer.

Make of that what you will.

“Big-city wages, small-town prices” is a damn fine business model

Hugh MacLeod — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:26:08 +0000

Here we go. The insanely-bright Harold Jarche (who I really enjoyed meeting in Toronto a few months ago) gives a few reasons why/how blogging transformed his life:

1. I live in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada; population 5,000. Even our timezone is unknown to many people. Without my blog, nobody would ever have heard of me. This Spring, I have four speaking engagements out of town (Montreal, Ottawa, Washington DC, Rome). Without my blog, I am sure that IEEE and many other organizations would not have invited me to speak.

Bingo. “Big-city wages, small-town prices” is a damn fine business model: I did it myself for many years when I was living in Far West Texas.

I live in Miami. I have no clients here. They’re all in places like Boston or New York or Texas or California or London. Yet most mornings I hang out on the beach.

Blogging allows me to stay creative and mobile… and like Harold here, far from the madding crowd, if that’s what I desire.

Anyway, feel free to join the conversation, just like Harold: Visit FreedomIsBloggingInYourUnderwear.com, steal some cartoons and maybe check out the book. Exactly. Thanks. Rock on.

[P.S. “Hyperlinks subvert hieracries” is me quoting Cluetrain, of course.”]

Any hardcore blogging mavens out there? Here are some cartoons for you to use as you see fit:

Hugh MacLeod — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:05:15 +0000

Yay!

As you probably already know, I wrote a wee book, “Freedom Is Blogging In Your Underwear”, which just launched. It is my little love letter to the blogosphere.

We’ve also set up a special webpage: FreedomIsBloggingInYourUnderwear.com

Please click on it — it’s more than just a page about the book. It’s a movement, or at least, I think it should be.

I know for a fact, that a lot of you reading this found a similar freedom that I found through the Internet and blogging. Like me, you found a voice, you found a platform, the rest is history.Your stories are beautiful stories, so I wanted to create some free social objects that help you tell your stories… cartoons, animated videos etc. Simple, fun, stuff.

This week, in honor of the sentiment behind the book, I’d love for you to share your story of how blogging or the Internet has given you freedom. Blog, tweet, post on Facebook or G+… share your story however you want, on whatever platform you prefer. All I ask is that you include the hashtag #FreedomIsBlogging and if you can, email me a link to your post at “Freedom@gapingvoid.com.” I am going to be creating a commemorative print for the book, and everyone who emails me a link to their “freedom” post this week will have their name drawn in the print. I hope you will use these tools to tell your story. There’s beauty in all this, there really is. Which is why I wrote the book, anyway.

I can’t wait to hear your stories! Rock on!

- Hugh

[P.S. I am holding a “virtual book tour” this Thursday, May 3, at 6pm EST. You can sign up and join me, for free, HERE]

Evolutions

Hugh MacLeod — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:13:50 +0000

[Buy the print]

Thought experiment: It’s easier to be successful when you think of your business as a dialogue, rather than property.

I’ve been saying this for years: That all evolutions in marketing are evolutions of language.
In Cluetrain parlance, “Markets Are Conversations”. People talking to each other, metaphorically or otherwise.

When markets change, the conversation changes. People who change the market, change the way the market speaks to people.

Ergo, language changes. Language evolves, and so does the market.

People who want to change the market they’re in (in their favor) should think about this… how does your product “talk” to the market, how is the “voice” different from your competition?

Exactly.

[Originally sent out in the newsletter etc.]