Gift guides

 

If yours is a product business, you recognize that sure instances of the year are really critical on your sales.

For many product businesses, income possibilities increase during the Christmas vacation season, in addition to other present-giving instances -- Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Graduation, Back to School, Halloween, Thanksgiving and others, relying to your product.

gift guides

That's why many businesses depend upon a strategic Public Relations effort to reinforce sales at some stage in these top seasons. And one of the only ways to kick up your sales is to get your product indexed in a mag, newspaper, or TV Holiday Gift Guide. Why is that this so crucial? Because those vacations are while readers or visitors are READY TO BUY and keen to peer what a media outlet recommends.

Another excellent cause to get your product featured in Holiday Gift Guides is due to the fact media shops almost ALWAYS list the ways for readers to reserve the product (generally a Web website online, telephone wide variety and/or retail shop region), while in many trendy exposure articles, touch information is not protected.

As you may think, moving into a Holiday Gift Guide isn't always all that easy. There's masses of opposition from hundreds, sometimes lots, of other businesses that are additionally pitching their merchandise. Here are a dozen pointers to help you get your merchandise covered in Holiday Gift Guides:

1. Send your pitches at the right time. Timing is critical. Know the deadline for each Holiday Gift Guide. Magazines, as an instance, have long lead times, and newspaper and TV have shorter lead times (greater particular statistics about cut-off dates is blanketed later on this Special Report). And recall, whilst sending product samples out too overdue is manifestly a wasted effort, sending them out too early is also now not an awesome idea, because the products can get misplaced.

2. Determine the category of items that each media outlet covers. For instance, Southwest Airlines' in-flight magazine covered best era gifts in their Christmas Holiday Gift Guide this year, while Alaska Airlines' in-flight mag protected upscale objects.

Three. Pay attention to your packaging and shipping. I've been informed often via media humans that products often arrive broken, or with unappealing packaging, and the media people regularly might not even do not forget those products for insurance within the Holiday Gift Guide.

Four. Submit Gadgets/Technology if you have those products. Most commercial enterprise magazines, guys's magazines, and in-flight courses cowl devices (generation) in their Holiday Gift Guides, as do many customer magazines. Family Circle, for example, blanketed Family Technology in their 2005 Christmas Holiday Gift Guide. Family Circle will also cover tech gifts for Moms, Dads, and Grads in their Spring/Summer 2006 problems. U.S. News & World Report is any other guide seeking out tech items for Mother's Day and Father's Day.

Five. Offer less expensive merchandise. Many media stores cowl items underneath $50, $25 or maybe decrease cost stocking stuffers. Good Housekeeping's 2005 Christmas Holiday Gift Guide, for instance, turned into titled "Great buys under $50." Redbook's 2005 Christmas Holiday Gift Guide changed into titled "forty gifts below $forty."

6. Send to your most colorful products. Most media shops are visual, and shade looks better inside the pages of a mag or on TV than drab colorings do. If you turn through magazines with Holiday Gift Guides, you may word that maximum of the objects are bright colorations. So, ensure that both your product or your packaging has fascinating shade to seize their attention.

7. Donate a portion of your product's sales or income to charity. Some media retailers ONLY cover merchandise that donate to charity. Not simplest is it the proper thing to do, however it additionally will increase your possibilities of having publicity. Be certain to mention this in all of your pitches.

Eight. Offer some thing that is brand new to the marketplace. Remember, Gift Guide Editors are similar to different media human beings -- they want something new. If you create a brand new product, you will get the media's interest.

Nine. Don't overlook products for pets. While Prevention Magazine's December, 2005 trouble didn't have a Gift Guide for human beings -- it did have a "Pet Gift Guide". Many different Gift Guides, particularly in girls's magazines, encompass presents for pets. Remember, there are tens of millions of puppy fanatics accessible who bear in mind pets their "circle of relatives" and need to shop for vacation offers for them. If you have got a unique present for a pet, you could very well get coverage.

10. Mention any celebrity tie-ins. Some enjoyment media shops will best cover your products if celebrities use them. Other media outlets want to realize that celebrities use the product, due to the fact readers and visitors are keen on celebrities, and need to apply the same merchandise. So, in case your brother-in-law's cousin knows a person famous who is willing to tout your product, cross for it.

11. Manufacture the product your self. It is lots less difficult to get coverage if you make the product (except, of route, you're an one of a kind vendor of a product). For instance, Real Simple Magazine's Beauty and Grooming Department will do a 3-page Gift Guide for Dads in June. They are looking for men's beauty and grooming products. If you're making whatever in this category (shaving creams, hair and skin care merchandise, and many others.), this will be a superb opportunity for you (Real Simple Holiday Gift Guide products regularly get masses, even heaps of income).

12. If you may get a prime retailer to promote your merchandise, include that data on your pitch. Gift Guide Editors sense more comfy recommending merchandise sold through most important stores.