Friday Linkers!

This week's focus is on interesting artistic online projects. Because it's a vacation weekend, it'd be great to let your mind match up some of these ideas with your own web site. Brainstorm away!

Hope your weekend is fantastic,
helenjane@maplevine.com

Sketch Swap

http://www.sketchswap.com/

So easy, it's mesmerizing. Doodle, and get a doodle back.

Drawspace

http://dev.drawspace.com/

Need to learn to draw before you get to Sketch Swap? Here's your online resource. Just like I do with software, you can do a lesson or two every day and within a month, presto! You're an expert.

Worth 1000

http://www.worth1000.com/

Photoshop contests, challenges and tons of image-based creativity to spark that next great idea, worth1000 is worth checking out.

 

 

Wait, what's with all the art stuff?

Kleenex is doing it, even beer cups are doing it. More and more products are customizable, thanks to companies like Zazzle and GoodStorm and CafePress. Windsor does it with their custom wine labels, how will you take your newly acquired artistic skills and find something customizable about your product?

Read more about the Kleenex case study at Fast Company.

Email tips for your long weekend

http://lifehacker.com/software/it-all-comes-together/the-email-roundup-295074.php

If I were you, I'd bookmark Lifehacker and just continue to come back every day for new tips and treats.

Their continuing tips on productivity help me muchly.

Holiday email prep time

Are you thinking about prepping your email strategy for the holidays yet? Chad White Director of Retail Insights and Editor-at-Large at The Email Experience Council wrote a guide to holiday email execution. He keeps a blog at http://retailemail.blogspot.com/ which has been invaluable for finding nuggets of advice to convince your higher-ups that they need to invest in an email strategy this holiday season.

Here are more metrics and advice from his guide:
> Email volume should peak in the second week of December this year.

> Last year 29% of major retailers promoted e-gift cards in their emails during the week before Christmas and Christmas Day.

> Seven of the eight biggest retail email volume days of the year occurred in the weeks before Christmas last year. Those days included Cyber Monday (Nov. 27) and all three "Echo Mondays" (Dec. 4, 11 and 18) -- the Mondays that follow Cyber Monday. Interestingly, two of the three Echo Mondays were bigger email days than Cyber Monday, which is billed as the biggest online sales day of the year.

> Just as some online and multichannel retailers promote Thanksgiving Day sales to get a leg up on offline competitors whose stores are closed on that day, some will also begin their post-holiday sales on Christmas Day and promote them in their email campaigns.

Ready to start planning your holiday email drops?
I'd be thrilled to help.