How to Get Featured in a Holiday Gift Guide

This post was written by: Larissa Williams & Samantha Gower

If you’re in the Ecommerce space, chances are you’ve been planning for the holidays since the summer; this is an online retailer’s Superbowl after all. And while Santa has been busy making his list, online publications and businesses have been hard at work compiling holiday gift-giving guides.

With Deloitte anticipating an increase of 25% to 35% in online holiday sales, tis the season to get your product featured. People are already showing heavy search interest early on this year:

Follow the tips in this post to help get your pitch opened and your product featured in this season’s best holiday gift guides.

Getting Featured in Holiday Gift Guides

Top "Do's"

Like any outreach, there are a few considerations to ensure you get your products featured:

Do conduct research (we recommend tools like SparkToro, Reddit, etc.) to understand what your audience is wishing for this season
Do test your subject lines
Do review editorial calendars using PR tools etc.
Do get a list of every gift guide in your vertical for the past 4 years (to see if they plan to refresh it this year)
Do follow HARO for gift guide submission opportunities
Do personalize your outreach (no blanket sends). If you send a product, include a handwritten note.
Do reach out to the editor to streamline your pitch
Do pitch suggestive list ideas that your product would be the best suited for (i.e. "good gift for mom/dad", "under $25", "luxury", etc.) to give an idea of how to feature your product
Do check your referral data to identify which sites are already sending you quality referral traffic and driving revenue
Do be prepared to provide original imagery or content to accompany your product
Do cross-promote on social if your product gets featured
Do use free monitoring tools to track your brand for mentions across the web

Top "Don’ts"

While there are more Do’s than Don’ts -- be sure to avoid these common blunders when pitching sites to be included in a Holiday Gift Guide:

Don't pitch the same product that was featured a previous year to the SAME list
Don't reject an opportunity just because they will only link to your Amazon listing
Don't assume you won't get featured when they don't respond (sometimes, you'll be featured and they were too busy to tell you)
Don’t send the manufactures description (even if you are the manufacture)

OK, so it's possible that some guides are not yet finalized -- note that most require a physical product in their hands before they're featured.

At this point of the year, you're up against shipping and review times -- making it all the more important that you start outreach in the summer for major publications, while targeting September-October for others.

Have a question about holiday gift guide outreach? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter (@SeerInteractive)!