Last week we talked about holiday gift guides and the huge PR and sales opportunity they present for handmade businesses. If you missed it you will definitely want to watch it after this one – because it covers some really important parts of the planning process that need to happen before you start pitching your products.
One very important fact about pitching your products for holiday gift guides is the timing. It’s much much earlier than you might imagine, and if you miss your window of opportunity you will have to wait an entire year before trying to get into holiday gift guides . . .
. . . which we don’t want to happen!
So today I’m going to talk about just how early you need to start preparing and pitching your products, and explain why it’s so important that you get started so early so you don’t miss out!
So, ready? Let’s dive in.
Before I start, I have a very very exciting opportunity to tell you about!
I have asked my friend and PR expert, Nora Wolf from Wolf Craft PR, to share some of her tips and tricks for securing holiday gift guide placements . . .
. . . and she has graciously offered to do a free workshop for Tizzit.co to show you exactly how you can get your handmade products into holiday gift guides!
A little bit about Nora:
Nora has worked in PR her entire professional life and regularly gets her clients placements in national and local publications – in front of the eyes of millions of readers – she’s absolutely no fluff and will teach you exactly how she does it.
You’ll learn:
As she says herself, Nora hates, hates fluffy advice like surface level “how to grow your biz” workshops that leave you with no actionable information. She’s not in the business of wasting other people’s time and I love that about her!
OK, now on to today’s topic!
When you are creating a timeline to pitch your products to holiday gift guides, you need to get started early.
And when I say early, I’m not kidding – like you want to start working on this sometime between May and July.
I know the holidays can feel really far away at that time of year. But, from a media perspective, they’re actually much closer than you might imagine.
And if you want the benefits of this great media opportunity you’ll want to get organized and get started early.
Nora is going to give you even more specific details of why you need to start early, and what your timeline will look like, but let’s talk about a few of her most important reasons.
Grab this XMAS Sales Success checklist!
This free Checklist will help you create an actionable plan to Sell your handmade products successfully online this holiday season.
Before you start sending out pitches, you need to set aside time to do some research to find out things like:
For example, if you make puzzle activities for children, what children’s publications have holiday gift guides might you want to pursue?
Nora takes this a step further and teaches her clients to also consider:
For example, men’s magazines would not be a place you would typically advertise home goods or beauty products. But their holiday gift guide will be a GREAT opportunity for handmade sellers who make products that these men will want to buy for their partners!
To take advantage of all these media opportunities you’ll want to start researching publications sooner rather than later.
Product photography for gift guides can require different types of photos.
When you are doing your publication research, you will want to note how products are displayed in past gift guides for any publication you are considering. Are individual products featured, or are there sets and collections?
To successfully secure placements in holiday gift guides you have to have the right photos for the publications you’ve selected. Often they won’t be interested in the shots you already might have in your handmade or Etsy shop – even if they’re really good! – they need a specific style of photo so they can easily integrate them in their magazine design. This means you may need to set aside extra time to strategically plan and re-photograph some of your products.
And if you’re working on holiday gift guide pitching for the first time, you will need even more time to prepare your photos.
Nora’s workshop will also cover important topics such as
While it’s quite easy to see the benefit of getting your products featured in holiday gift guides, it can also be a bit overwhelming.
Because there are THOUSANDS of gift guides out there—how do you go about finding the right one, and once you find them how in the world do you pitch your products?
If you are feeling a bit of this overwhelm and thinking “I just have no idea how to pitch my products and who I would pitch it to!” don’t sweat it, this workshop will walk you through exactly what you need to do, step by step.
Let PR expert Nora Wolf teach you how to successfully pitch your handmade products for holiday gift guides— her no fluff style means this workshop will be packed full of actionable advice from an actual PR pro who knows what it takes to successfully pitch products for holiday gift guides.
The time she will save you is amazing, because she’ll take all of the “unknown” out of the process for you so you can focus on acting and getting your handmade products seen.
So be sure to click the link below to sign up for this free workshop, . . . and if you haven’t read my article from last week about holiday gift guides and the HUGE opportunity they present for handmade businesses be sure to click and read it now!
Thanks for reading, looking forward to seeing you during the workshop with Nora – and until next time, au revoir!
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