holiday gift guides Archives - Attention Getting Marketing

Holiday Gift Guide Publicity

Now is the time to be pitching to print media for inclusion in their holiday gift guides, due to their lead times. While appearing in a print gift guide might not have the immediate results that appearing in an online gift guide would, it does have its benefits. Being mentioned in a major print publication gives your shop instant credibility and can help if you are trying to get wholesale orders, as retail is taking off again.

This Year’s Tips

If you are a black-owned, Asian-owned, Latino-owned, LGBTQIA-owned or female-owned business, it will not hurt to mention this at the end of your pitch.
There is also still a big effort this year to support both local and nationally-based businesses, so mention your city, state/province and country as well.
“Personalized Gifts” was the top search on Etsy in November last year, so try to pitch a product that can be personalized with an initial, name, date, quote, photo, etc.
Family-oriented gifts (especially matching) will be popular this year, since many people didn’t get to spend last Christmas with their families. “Matching family swimsuits” is a top Google search right now (which could be people thinking ahead for the holiday photo) so think outside the box.

Gift Ideas to Pitch

Editors and writers also like it if you can position the product you are pitching for a certain gift category or recipient, such as:

Secret Santa, Stocking Stuffers, White Elephant Gifts
Gifts for Knitters, Sewers, Crafters, Bakers, Woodworkers
Gifts for Wine Lovers, Whiskey Lovers, Coffee Lovers, Tea Lovers, Chocolate Lovers
Gifts for Plant Lovers, Music Lovers, Nature Lovers, Gamers
Gifts for Dog Lovers, Cat Lovers, Bird Lovers
Gifts That Give Back
Gifts For You

My Etsy 2021 Holiday Sales Planner has the names and contact information for 80+ writers who wrote gift guide editorial last year for major print publications and blogs.

Send out your pitches for print this week, and for blogs in mid-September.

About Me

As a long time marketing consultant who has been blogging about e-commerce since 2012, I advise, coach and mentor small businesses selling online. I first got involved in e-commerce back in 2002, wanting to sell online a book I had written. After years of selling on Amazon I decided to take the experience I had in e-commerce, merge it with my professional marketing background and start a blog with marketing advice for small businesses selling online. My advice has been featured in the NY Times, Success Magazine, American Express Open Forum, Big Commerce blog, Business2Community and SheKnows to name a few.

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

If you sell products online and want to take advantage of those huge holiday sales, then I highly recommend you re-read my post of two years ago, Why You Should Be Pitching Your Products for Holiday Gift Guides Now. However, today I want to give you a more current suggestion for getting holiday gift guide publicity.

how to get your products into holiday gift guides

Popular Pinners

You want to pitch to the lifestyle bloggers who are excelling at creating beautiful, comprehensive, and highly pinnable gift guides for Pinterest. One of my favorites is The Everygirl blog. Their gift guides are really well done, great at attracting attention on Pinterest and getting thousands of repins, not to mention turning up first in Pinterest search results. Other bloggers whose 2014 holiday gift guides also got huge circulation on Pinterest last year include:

All of these blogs create gift guides for every family member, every type of interest, so don’t be afraid to pitch your own category. Some of these blogs were also part of a mass marketing effort last year by a group of lifestyle bloggers, all promoting each other’s holiday gift guides, creating even wider exposure by tapping into each other’s social media following.

YouTube Vloggers

I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more holiday gift guides on YouTube this year. Many popular “vloggers” (people with popular YouTube channels) last year did holiday gift guides that were viewed by millions of people. Granted, most of these vloggers and their audience tend to be young, but they are recommending gifts for mom, dad, boyfriend, boss, your pet, etc., so it is a wider market than you think. Vloggers are known to get paid for endorsements, however, you should still pitch to them asking for consideration as an artisan/indie seller, and hopefully they haven’t completely sold out and would still recommend your product because they like it, not just because they got paid to say so. You would likely have to send them product to show. Here are a few vloggers who had popular gift guides last year: