The Power of Holiday Gift Guides: Preparing for a Successful Q4
The last few years have seen a number of difficult and unprecedented challenges across a variety of industries,
and we’re now seeing a significant shift in consumer behaviours. In the UK, for example, 67% of the population
report spending less on non-essentials in 2023. Luckily, Q4 is just round the corner and it’s a good time to make
the most of the gift-buying season.
According to Yesmail Interactive, 38.1% of people start their Christmas shopping before November, increasing to 69.8% starting before 1st December. November shopping coincides with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which have now become major commercial calendar events, and are stretching into a full week of discounts and sales.
As October approaches, your target audience’s decision-making process is rapidly progressing. Increasingly, consumers are turning to gift guides online and in print as their first port of call.
Gift guides have become a huge feature amongst a vast range of publications, and they’re targeting anyone who’s looking for inspiration.
Gift guides tend to be written with a specific audience or recipient in mind; ‘Gifts for him under $50’, ‘Best value gifts for tech lovers’, ’The 37 best gifts for brothers that even he won’t be able to tease you about’.
Each list typically includes brief product descriptions, prices, links to the brand websites, and usually images of the products. These are sometimes arranged into categories of price brackets.
Gift guides are integral to encouraging sales because your customers are looking to reputable and trustworthy publications to influence their buying habits. While your brand may currently be unknown to the customer opening Forbes or GQ, they know that if their favourite publication trusts your brand, they can too. These publications are establishing attraction and loyalty in the corners of your target audience that your PR strategy has, so far, not been able to reach.
The first step to landing your product in the pages of the holiday gift guides is carefully considered planning. It’s important to remember that these publications start writing their guides months in advance, to guarantee they’re meeting their
deadlines and obtaining readership from the early shoppers. If your brand has managed to gain attention through communications; broadcasting press releases and securing coverage on a range of platforms, you may have enough renown to secure a place in these buying guides. However, this is dependent on how well- connected you are as a brand, and how stable your relationships are with the editors that are controlling the content. That’s where the public relations expertise comes in.
If you’re looking to boost your brand and need help getting your products in the most relevant buying guides, get in touch with us today.