Quick Tips: Getting into Holiday Gift Guides

Tis’ the season for Holiday Gift Guides. You may be wondering how products get into “Gifts for him” or “The best gifts under $50”, it isn’t easy and sometimes holiday gift guides are a product of a year’s worth of product launches and reviews. Although gift guides typically start ramping up in August (yes, that’s right Christmas in August), you definitely still have time to submit to Holiday Gift Guide opportunities that are in full swing.

Remember there are general gift guide opportunities all the way down to specific opportunities like Luxury Gift Guides or Gift Guides for Women. Be as specific as you can to ensure your product gets included in this coveted annual tradition.

Here are 5 tips on getting into the guides (or HGG’s) this season!

Subscribe to HARO – HARO (or helpareporterout.com is always a great resource for media opportunities, but when gift guides roll around its even better. For the last three weeks, I have seen at least 10 gift guide opportunities a day to submit for. Some of them are large publications like Inc., others are bloggers like Savvy Savings Blog. Either way, you’ll find some “low hanging fruit” (translation: easy opportunities) to get included.
Re-engage reporters that have reviewed your product – Have you sent your product(s) out for review this year? Perfect! Reach back out to the person that reviewed your product and request that they consider you for the upcoming holidays. If you have updates on the product, this time is the perfect time to update them, especially if the review was a positive one. This is one of the easiest ways to maintain a relationship with a media outlet that knows your product and gets included in an HGG.
Research last year’s guides – To find out who may be writing up a guide or even IF they are writing up a guide. Look up the 2017 guides or any year’s previous. That will give you a good idea of publications/media outlets that you can target and contact to determine who, how and when they are publishing a gift guide. The date for last year’s guide may also give you a clue into when they will publish and if you still have some time to submit.
Submit your product for review – Product reviews throughout the year are a great way to gain product awareness and consideration for inclusion in a Holiday Gift Guide. If you are sending your products for a review closer to the holidays, you’ll want to factor in a couple extra weeks as media are typically reviewing and scrambling through several submissions at this time of year, hitting up against deadlines and trying to make holiday deadlines.
Ask the editorial team – When you have questions, the editorial team is pretty responsive as long as you are specific. You can easily ask “who is managing the gift guide submissions” this year and “when do you plan to post” via an editorial email or even on the phone. Don’t be too lazy to check out the “contact us” page on your favorite website.