Gift guides carry plenty of benefits.
And with the number of holidays out there, their value lasts beyond November and December.
Gift guides are relevant for:
— or any other holiday, depending on the country where you sell your products.
So if you haven't created a gift guide for your store yet, perhaps you should try it this year.
To help you get started, we've put together 9 steps to plan, create, and promote a gift guide for any holiday.
Tune in if you need ideas!
Prefer reading the text version of this episode? Then head over to our blog.
🎁 33 website banners for every major holiday (you can add to your website without coding)
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Gift guides carry plenty of benefits.
And with the number of holidays out there, their value lasts beyond November and December.
Gift guides are relevant for:
— or any other holiday, depending on the country where you sell your products.
So if you haven't created a gift guide for your store yet, perhaps you should try it this year.
To help you get started, we've put together 9 steps to plan, create, and promote a gift guide for any holiday.
Tune in if you need ideas!
Prefer reading the text version of this episode? Then head over to our blog.
🎁 33 website banners for every major holiday (you can add to your website without coding)
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Hi,
You’re listening to Getsitecontrol Insider, a monthly marketing podcast for ecommerce brand owners. In this episode, we’re talking about holiday gift guides.
Tune in to find out how to plan, create, and launch your gift guide for any holiday this year.
Over the last 10 years, holiday sales in the retail industry have increased by almost 5%, according to the National Retail Federation.
And holiday gifts guides are an important part of the customer experience.
So how exactly do you create a gift guide that works?
Before we jump to the best practices, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about the definition of a gift guide.
A holiday gift guide is a curated list of products to guide customers through their purchasing decisions for a specific holiday. Many people instantly think of the November and December holiday season, but gift guides can be useful for many other holidays, such as:
● Valentine’s day
● Mothers’s day
● Father’s day
● St. Patrick’s day
● Easter
● Earth day
● Halloween
-- or any other holiday that is specific for the country where you sell your products!
A holiday gift guide can be a simple landing page on your website. But you can also create a PDF available as a lead magnet. Some brands use this strategy to grow their email lists (we’ll talk more about it in a moment)
Now, if you’re wondering whether creating a gift guide is worth the effort, the answer is yes. Holiday gift guides come with plenty of benefits, both for you and your customers.
First, gift guides help your customers avoid the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Second, a gift guide can help you promote products that deserve attention.
Third, you can use a gift guide to re-engage inactive customers. For instance, if some customers haven’t opened your emails or purchased from you in a while, a gift guide can incentivize them and remind them of why they fell in love with your products in the first place. On the other hand, it can also encourage repeat customers make additional purchases and increase you LCV – lifetime customer value.
Finally, a holiday gift guide is a great way to grow your email list. For instance, during the holiday season, you can replace your usual lead magnet with a thoroughly curated gift guide and offer it in exchange for an email subscription.
Now, that we’ve established the benefits of creating your own gift guide, let’s talk about the process.
Get ready to take notes!
Step #1. Analyze data from sales and email marketing software
The first step to making sure your holiday gift guide converts well is to start with the right data.
What are people buying during this holiday? And what are people clicking on most from your email newsletters around that time?
Resist the urge to guess what people want to see in your gift guide. Your data will be the most reliable way to tell which products are the best candidates.
Step #2. Pick an audience
Who will your gift guide be for?
You can create a gift guide that’s designed for everyone in your audience. Or, you can target a specific segment of your audience that’s more likely to be interested in one category of your products.
For instance, if you’ve been segmenting your email list, you probably already know what audience segments you have, and what their preferences are. Use this information to source ideas.
Step #3. Research product trends
Analyzing your store’s data is crucial. But you should also look at outside trends within your niche.
If you source your products from other suppliers, don’t hesitate to reach out to those brands directly with your questions.
Also, you can use research tools such as Google Trends. For example, they have a report for 2022 Shopping Trends and will likely have a similar report for 2023.
You can also look at Pinterest to see what keywords about your niche and your specific holiday have a high search volume.
The next step is to come up with your product list
Since you’ve got the data, it’s time to decide what goes into your gift guide.
Keep a good balance between variety and curation. Too few products will make your holiday gift guide little more than a regular sales newsletter. But too many products will overwhelm customers just as much as shopping on your website.
And remember, there’s no perfect number of products to feature — it all depends on how you plan to organize them.
Speaking of organization… this is your next step.
Step #6. Choose a name and an organization strategy
There are endless ways to set up and organize a gift guide! But how you organize it will define its name and the way people experience it, too.
For example, you can organize gifts by:
· Interests or personality of your customers
· Product category
· Age
· Price
· Gender
· Specific problems the products solve
· Recipient type (such as kids, parents, partner, friends, coworker, and so on)
Instead of creating a section for every possible gift category, focus on the ones that make sense for your brand and audience.
For example, don’t add an Age category if your products are designed for everyone. And it wouldn’t make sense to add a Budget or Price category if you target high-end shoppers.
Step #7 Bundle your products into gift sets
Your holiday gift guide can contain single products in each category. But you can also bundle products together. For one, bundles make it easy for your customers to find perfectly curated sets at a discount. Plus, bundles can increase your average order value – so it’s a win-win approach.
Step #8. Build and format your gift guide
Once you know every product you want to include, it’s time to finally build your holiday gift guide.
First, you’ll need to choose a featured image for each clickable category and decide where to host the guide. For example, you can create:
● A dedicated landing page
● A carefully designed PDF
● A blog post
● Or an email newsletter
Second, you’ll have to decide whether your gift guide is freely available or if you want to offer it as a lead magnet.
No matter which decision you make, you want your guide to be pleasant to consume, so make sure to follow the best design practices:
● Optimize your gift guide for mobile devices
● Add some white space to reduce the overwhelm
● Make your call-to-action buttons stand out
● And use high-quality images
And if you plan to create your gift guide as a PDF, you can do it using free design tools like Canva.
The last, most important step is to promote your gift guide
There are several methods you can use to generate traffic to your holiday gift guide.
First and foremost, create a promo banner for your website
This method is straightforward. If your gift guide is available freely, add a banner or a popup that links to it directly. If you’re using your gift guide as a lead magnet, create an opt-in form instead.
Next, prepare promo content for your social media
Don’t just create a post saying that you have a gift guide – try to adapt your guide to each platform. For example, on platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, the best practice if to ensure that the gifts from your guide are featured in the photo. This way, people can consume your guide without leaving the platform and share it with their friends.
And while you’re at it, you can create Shoppable posts to allow users to buy directly from the app.
You can also promote the gift guide by sending your followers to a link in your bio. This is a better option if your guide is a lead magnet (or if you want to maximize the traffic on your website).
And finally, depending on your budget, you can use social media ads to increase your reach as well.
Another important promo method is an email campaign
Whether your holiday gift guide is a lead magnet or not, you should promote it to your existing email subscribers — especially previous buyers.
But don’t just send a single email and call it a day. The average open rate for retail brands is around 18%, so not everyone will open your first email.
Instead, you can create an entire campaign dedicated to your gift guide by giving each email a different focus.
Here are four examples of emails to add to your campaign:
If you have subscriber segments that would enjoy a particular category in your bundle, consider sending them personalized emails to make the guide more relevant.
And finally, consider partnering with other brands whose products complement yours
When more than one brand comes together for a single gift guide, you’ll tap into the audience of each brand to promote it. For example, if you sell bathing suits, you could partner with an accessory brand to add sandals, sunglasses, and other beach accessories to a single gift guide.
Now you have everything you need to plan, create, and launch your gift guide for any holiday this year. And if you’re looking for a simple way to promote it on your website (and use it to grow your list), look no further than Getsitecontrol.
Getsitecontrol makes it easy for anyone to create stunning website popups that boost conversions. Follow the links in the description to learn more and start your free trial!
That’s all for today,
Thank you for listening,
Until next time!