Christmas gift guides are an annual occurrence across print and digital titles, blogs and social media profiles. Planning and writing them famously begins in summer, hence the phrase ‘Christmas in July’. The question is: how to get your product featured?
Top tips for getting featured in Christmas gift guides
Which Christmas gift guides do you want to appear in?
Starting at the top, think about which publications and sites you want to appear on, in print and online.
E.g. if you’ve got a natural beauty product, you could target ethically minded writers, sustainability titles, national and glossy beauty editors, wellbeing magazines, and more.
What theme guide best fits your products?
Christmas gift guides are rarely generic. Many are themed or broken down by theme. It may be that you have a broad enough product range that will appeal to multiple audiences, e.g. outdoorsy gifts and products for pets.
Who will be buying the gifts?
It’s worth considering that while women may be your everyday customer, come the festive season you may have to adjust your messaging and your media pitch to talk to about it being the perfect gift to buy for partners/husbands/wives.
What about price range?
Many Christmas gift guides are organised by price bracket, so consider this when pitching your products to writers.
Don’t forget stocking fillers and Secret Santa ideas.
it’s a slightly different approach to pitching by price, but a great example of the need to think laterally when pitching your products to various editors.
What’s your lead time on orders or delivery speed?
If your products are made to order or you offer personalised products, make your ‘last order date’ clear.
If you offer next day delivery, make a point of stating that too along with the last time orders can be placed the day before.
Do your research:
search online for which publications and blogs ran Christmas gift guides last year, what themes they ran and what price brackets they used
if you happen to hoard magazine back copies, do the same with print titles from September onwards
apply the same sleuthing to your preferred social media channels:
a keyword search on Twitter
a hashtag search on Insta
a keyword search in some of your favourite Facebook community pages
mooch around YouTube and Pinterest - both are forms of search engine in their own right.
More research: find out who’s writing what this year
where the author has a byline on a previous Christmas gift guide, check if they’re still writing for that publication (it’ll be fairly apparent online if they are)
drop a speculative line to the editor in charge of the supplement or section you’d most like to appear in and politely ask about this year’s plans, while weaving in some exciting details about your product (it may fall on deaf ears or get lost in their inbox, but… don’t ask, don’t get)
scour Twitter for #journorequest tweets related to festive gift guides or sign up to the free daily round-up or paid-for instantaneous alerts
Craft your pitch
What is your product and what are the benefits of using it
Why is it unique
How is it relevant to the title’s audience and to the theme or price point
Where can people buy it
When does it need to be ordered by
How much does it cost
Who’s behind the business (if that’s relevant to the product and its uniqueness)
Include a link to hi-res images - product pages will want cut-outs but a handful of lifestyle shots in the folder won’t hurt.
Ready to pitch your products to Christmas gift guide writers? Go get ‘em!
If you need more of a hand, we can help you write your pitch and/or provide you with a media list to contact, taking all the research effort out of it for you. We can also help shape your social media strategy with gift guides and Christmas shoppers in mind. Drop us a line
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