5 Quick PR Tips for the Holiday Season

Before you know it the holiday season will be upon us! In fact, as the savvy marketers that we all are, marketing initiatives and planning for the 2017 season are most likely well underway. Well, PR is no exception and the time has come to kick-off your holiday gift guide outreach. Let the following 5 tips for flawless holiday pitching serve as your guide.

Identify Your Most Giftable Items

Take a look at all the products your company offers and hone in on three or four of your most gift-worthy items that will break through the noise. Outside of considering your company’s sales objectives, initiatives for the holiday season and the products that will set you up for success, also put your journalist hat on.

Related: Is Your Company A Good Fit for PR?

Think like the people at the publications you’re hoping to work with when determining these featured products. Meaning, choose ones with various price points that will appeal to a varied and diverse audience, keeping in mind that new or recently launched items are a bit more compelling. Having this range will increase your likelihood of landing those coveted gift guide placements exponentially!

Create Unique Gifting Angles

Now that you’ve determined your most giftable items the fun really begins. It’s time to get creative and think of all the unique ways you can spin your products to fit to a wide variety of holiday gift guides. To get the wheels in your head turning, here’s a few sample gift guide headlines from the 2016 holiday season:

• 23 Cutting Edge Gifts & Gadgets For Your Favorite Techie
• 12 Expensive Looking Holiday Gifts for Under $40
• The Perfect Holiday Gift for Every Family Member
• 10 Holiday Gifts Your Adult Children Desperately Need
• 25 Spot On Gifts That Any Introvert Will Love
• 22 Thoughtful Holiday Gift for Guys That Aren’t Alcohol
• 25 Gifts For Your Girlfriend That Aren’t Heart-Shaped Necklaces

As you can see, the more abstract and niche, the better! While these are on the wackier end of the spectrum, don’t overlook the tried and true “25 Holiday Gifts for Mom” or “10 Must Have Holiday Gifts for Him” opportunities as well. Keep your pitches short and sweet, including item name with a link to the corresponding product page, price point, and one to two sentences detailing the product.

Use PR Tools To Find The Perfect Targets

So, you have your items to pitch and your unique pitch angles ready to go – now what’s next in the gift guide recipe? It’s time to pull together a solid media list with your ideal targets; after all, what good are your creative pitches if they’re never read?

Related: The #1 Question You Need to Ask Your PR Team Right Now

At Power Digital we use the SERP (search engines results page) to kick-start this process. Go to Google and search “Holiday Gift Guides” or “2016 Holiday Gifts for Her,” then with the information your search delivers, you’ll see who created holiday gift guides last year and are like to again this year. Export this information and then turn to tools that speed up the media list building process like Cision.

Most people are surprised to learn that deadlines for consideration for print magazine gift guides close around end of summer with a few lingering into early fall. Fear not, however, if you’ve missed this summer window, because there are still countless digital gift guide opportunities on the table that will be worked on well into the month of December. The bonus of these digital placements outside of the incredible brand awareness is the added SEO value to your PR efforts too, which we love here at Power Digital!

So, it’s time to put all your preparation work into action and begin your media outreach.

Share All Needed Info… And More!

With outreach underway, make sure not to forget about your follow-ups! These editors are bombarded with hundreds upon hundreds of emails per day, especially around the holidays, so be sure to send them a gentle reminder and pull your email to the top of their inbox.

Related: Not Getting PR Hits? Why the Media Doesn’t Care About Your Brand

Once you start to hear back from various editors, (which I’m sure you will with your incredible products and thoughtful pitches!) be prepared with all the collateral information that they’ll request. This includes high resolution images, full product copy messaging, pricing, and all information related to any holiday sales or promotions (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.).

After you send all the needed information their way, continue to track, monitor for coverage, and politely follow up until the gift guide is live in print and/or online. Finally, give yourself a pat on the back – you’ve done it!

Final Thoughts

With the five steps highlighted above, you’ll undoubtedly have massive success with holiday gift guide pitching this year. If you or your business need help, the PR pros at Power Digital would love to take this project on for you. Don’t miss out on the huge PR opportunity that the holiday season and gift guides present!