5 Reasons Why Christmas Gift Guides Are The Holy Grail Of Jewelry PR And How You Can Take Advantage Of It

A guest post from my friend and PR professional Nora Wolf of Wolf Craft, an à la carte PR shop for creative companies. I asked Nora to write this post for jewelry business owners interested in including their work in Christmas gift guides.

1 CONSUMERS SPEND MORE ON HOLIDAYS

Holidays are the best time of year for consumption. On average, consumers spend around a thousand dollars during the holidays. Gift guides show shoppers all the new offers so they can choose the best gifts for family, friends, colleagues, and more.

Editors of our favorite publications choose gifts they think their readers will buy for their mom, their travel-loving friend, their troop leader or kindergarten teacher, their favorite wine lover, the person they like. entertain, your gardener … idea. A quick Google search will reveal tons and tons of gift guides from the last few years and you’ll find these “gift recipients” themes are endless. There are also gift guides for each zodiac sign. So, if you are making astrological jewelry, pay close attention!

These days there are a lot of Christmas shopping online. After two consecutive COVID shopping seasons in 2020 and 2021, there has been a huge shift in ecommerce sales, and this trend doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: USE THE LONG SUMMER SEASON TO PREPARE FOR A GIFT GUIDE

Holidays can seem a long way off if you’re reading this post in June, July, or even August. But editors of major national publications start gift guides in early summer, such as Cosmo, Outside, Wired, etc. Regional publications such as Time Out, Southern Living, and The Tennessee Magazine begin this work at the end of the summer.

If you are planning to include your jewelry in Christmas gift guides for the first time, the more time you have to prepare, the better. If you want to see your songs featured in Christmas gift guides, NOW is the time to research which releases are right for you. And to make sure you have the right photos to make your presentation a success.

2 THE GIFT GUIDE HAS MORE OPTIONS MORE PUBLICATIONS

Christmas gift guides are unlike any other PR product for product placement. Once a year, publications that typically don’t show products or include purchases, such as a fitness magazine, open their pages for product display.

You’ll find holiday gift guides with a niche title that you wouldn’t normally be able to work with. This greatly increases the number of PR opportunities. During the rest of the year, you may be able to submit a proposal to around 20 media outlets, while you can submit to over 100 during the holiday season, and the guides are for people who * want to shop. *

Men’s magazines cover everything from beauty products to jewelry

I always like to give an example: men’s magazines never really contain household products, beauty products, textiles, jewelry, etc, except on holidays. How come? Because during the holidays, men often give gifts to their wives, girlfriends, mothers and daughters. This means that to give its readers advice on what kind of gifts to buy for the “women in their life,” the men’s magazine features products typically associated with women.

Here’s the item you’re looking for: Men’s Health 64 gifts for teenage girls who really want to get, 64 product placement opportunities and this isn’t their only gift guide.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: THINK ABOUT YOUR PUBLIC STRATEGIC TARGET AND SERVICE CORNERS

Who is the target audience for your jewelry? Let’s take the example of Men’s Health. The item includes three jewelry placements, two earrings, and a necklace. These three pieces have a few things in common, they are all fun, colorful and have a youthful feel.

Are your jewelry fun and colorful? Is your target audience generally younger? If so, this is a good thing to keep in mind. There are MANY gift guides for teenage girls and college students.

3 THERE ARE MORE PRODUCTS THAN THE GIFT GUIDE ON EACH PRIVATE PAGE

Christmas gift guides have more products per page than other multimedia properties. Gift guides in print magazines often have ten or more articles on each page, and most guides span multiple pages. Publishers of digital publications do not have to group multiple products on one page.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: TAKE A WHITE PHOTO FROM A PROFESSIONAL SILO

What’s the most common way editors fit so many products on one page? They use the blank photo of the silo. When jewelry is photographed on a person, it is often found in a small part of the entire image, such as an earring, where the full profile of the model is visible. Reduce it to the page with ten more items and the earring disappears altogether.

Empty silo shots also allow editors to quickly place a product image on the page and remove the white background. The product range looks clean and fresh without disturbing mismatched backgrounds.

4 BUSINESS REPORTS WORKED IN HOLIDAY GIFTS, POSSIBLY ALSO AROUND PRODUCTS FOR A YEAR

Public relations is difficult and requires a lot of work. DIY PR is even harder! When you think about what story you want to tell and which channels would actually tell it, it can feel overwhelming and mysterious. That’s the beauty of Christmas gift guides. There is a set pattern and the editorial calendar is the same every year. It’s a very simple PR product, a great way to get started.

In addition, almost all publishers who write holiday gift guides work on product selection throughout the year. As you build your media list, write introductory emails, and submit your product description to showcase your Christmas gift guides, you’re simultaneously building all the resources you need to conduct donation conversations throughout the year.

Now that the Christmas gift guide season is over, you’re ready for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, wedding gift guides, graduation gift guides, back to school guides and more.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH SUPPLIERS WITH A STEP OF ABOUT A YEAR

Adding jewelry to your holiday gift guides is a great way to build relationships with the editors of your favorite publications. When you offer high-quality photo editors when you first introduce them, they know they can count on you to send them good material the next time you contact them. If you answer their follow-up questions quickly, they’ll know it’s easy to work with you, and they’ll likely be more open to showing your work in the future.

5 HOLIDAY GIFT INVESTMENTS INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS

Below are four examples of press rankings I’ve gotten for my clients and reader statistics for each publication. Sometimes we forget the large number of people who read newspapers, both through subscription and to pick them up in line at the supermarket or at the airport.

That’s why printing the Christmas gift guide is so effective for small businesses looking to boost their brand awareness. One or two placements can mean millions of new views of your products.

Gift guide placements also mean increased traffic, catalog growth, high-quality backlinks that improve your website’s SEO and increase sales during the holiday season.