📣 Borrow everything we know about getting into Christmas Gift Guides 🌞

And why you need to start in July

Hiya 🌊! I’m Lucy from Hype Yourself. I help founders get famous. I share prompts, templates, expert articles and personal essays on my own journey from agency owner in London to solopreneur in rural France. Today’s article is a seasonal bonus 🎁, as several of my audience requested the topic.

Rosie and Lucy speaking at Enterprise Nation Start Up Show

Hiya 🌊,

This article is co-written with

Rosie’s Substack

from PR Dispatch: my biggest competitor and loudest champion in the PR for small business space. What I am to profiles, Rosie is to product. 

I invited Rosie to drop in her knowledge with me ahead of launching her Christmas Gift Guide access which launches on 4th July and costs £770+vat / one-off 

If you are a product-based business, you couldn’t be in safer hands than with Rosie.

From our combined decades in PR land and having both run boutique agencies here is everything we know. 

Let’s call it your Christmas Hype Dispatch. 

Lucy and Rosie x

General pitching tips

• Bespoke pitch: I am willing to die on the hill of sending a bespoke pitch. Don’t cut and paste the same Christmas pitch to your list. Tailor product suggestions—ensure they are audience-appropriate.

• Story v’s advertising: This is not an opportunity for an advertisement for your business it is an opportunity to show that journalist why their readers should know about your product as the perfect Christmas gift

Yes, you do need to be thinking about Christmas in July

• Timing is everything. If you leave it to December, you are going to be too late, this is a case of the early bird catching the press coverage

  

What do you mean by lead times?

• Different publications have different lead times, which means the time they spend putting the editorial together before it appears. 

• Long-lead: A monthly magazine typically works in the content six months out, hence Christmas in July starts with long-lead magazines

• Short-lead: a weekly magazine might work six weeks out - which means Christmas gift guides for weekly magazines, which often appear at the end of November / early December, are being worked in on September/October 

• Online: Lastly, there is online - a very quick turnaround. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security, though. Just because these are quicker, online gift guides are still often written and prepared far in advance. 

• 70% of total Christmas Gift Guides opportunities live online. For example, last year, Sheerluxe produced  24 different gift guides, which in total included over 1000 products.

• Don’t be disappointed if you don’t get print: Don’t take your foot off the gas if you don’t get responses to your print pitches remember online have more opportunities, and the benefits (backlinks, evergreen article) are undeniable.

Images

• High res cut-out imagery: is crucial for gift guides. Ensure they are 300dpi saved as a Jpeg or PNG

• You don’t have to organise a lifestyle shoot: Christmas-styled lifestyle imagery might be used by more independent publications or online but is not a prerequisite for Gift Guide pitching.

• Embed a few: select product images into your pitches to show the press what  the products you are pitching look like

• DON’T attach high-resolution imagery: in initial pitches, they will email back and request this should they be considering your products for inclusion. 

• Easily downloadable: If they want high-res images, I’d recommend attaching them to your email if they don’t specify another method (like Dropbox, G-drive or WeTransfer. If they are too large, send via a link that doesn’t time out.

Product selection

• The line sheet: For brands with large gifting ranges, I recommend compiling a one-page PDF line sheet of the best items for Christmas gifting. 

• What to include: Include Cut-out shots with product names, retail pricing and contact information.

• A line sheet is not a prerequisite to pitching. It’s a useful added extra.

• Don’t pitch all your products: Know that you are not pitching your whole inventory

• Choose press-worthy products: those that are your best ‘gifting items’

• Bestseller v’s PR friendly: Press-worthy products are not always your bestsellers. They might be press-worthy because of how they look, the price or how they are packaged

• Overwhelm station: If you give too much information and too many products it is overwhelming for the journalist on the other side

• Wider opportunities: Christmas gift Guides open up opportunities to publications that you wouldn’t be able to pitch to at any other time of the year (Eg - Stylist magazine (traditionally women’s) will feature products for kids, men’s, pet etc

• Be realistic: if you are a luxury expensive candle, then there is no point going for a publication that writes about budget buys

  

Example Christmas pitch template

“Hi Sarah,

I wanted to put forward our Miss Pom Pom Abstract Mittens

(£32) for inclusion in your Gifts for the ski lover, Christmas gift guide.

They are designed by British brand, Miss Pom Pom, made from 100% recycled acrylic in a sustainable small, family run factory and make a great gift for women, teens, art lovers and fashionistas. 

Please also find our line sheet attached below with other press & customer favorites gifts (priced from £10) in case anything else catches your eye.

Let me know if I can send you the Abstract Mittens high res image or anything else .

All the best, 

Rosie”

How do you find journalists looking for Christmas gifts?

• Don’t go to the usual beat: There are over 200 press compiling Christmas Gift Guides between July and December. And it’s normally not the contact you may think (Example: The food editor may compile the whole Christmas Gift Guide covering fashion, home, kids, pets etc.)

• Freelancers: Sometimes publications outsource the task of compiling the Christmas Gift Guide to a freelancer

• Don’t pitch after the deadline: Once it is closed for pitches don’t keep bombarding the journalist

• Use a resource: like PR Dispatch that contacts all the media to pull together a database of hundreds of outlets looking for the press with all the information you need (email, deadline, categories/themes, pitch guidelines)

• DIY approach: Check #journorequest #haro daily 

Should I send out product?

• Check first:I think it is always a courtesy to check with a journalist before sending them a gift

• People move: They might not be based at the office, they might have moved on, the product might expire before they get to it 

• ♻️ Save on postage costs, eco-friendly 

• Follow-up tip: Use asking if they would like to receive the product as a great excuse to follow up 

Understand what listicles (categories / themes ) you fit it into:

• A listicle :is a curated list of products e.g. Top presents for parents, children under 5, teenagers, pets, outdoor lovers etc

• Know your category: Draft a list of all the listicles you could fit into and  suggest in your pitches if they don’t have any confirmed categories / themes 

• Example: Lucy’s book Hype Yourself is perfect for small businesses this could fit for Freelance magazine, Courier Media, Creative Boom or maybe even a career gift guide for Stylist 

New to Rosie and PR Dispatch?

Hello everyone,

If you want to pitch to the Christmas Gift Guide press efficiently and effectively this year, we’re here to support you with pitching templates, expert guidance and the press database - all for just 3% of what it would cost you with a PR agency.

Join a preview here to see how

Do you have extra questions or want to learn more? I’m hosting a FREE workshop on June 27th. I’ll be sitting down with Rachel Edwards ( Country Living & House Beautiful editor) to ask those burning Christmas PR questions and find out what people want this Gift Guide season.

Register your free place here.

New to Lucy and Hype Yourself?

• You can buy my books Hype Yourself or Brand Yourself.

• You can book me for a one-to-one mentoring session.

• You can book me to speak or host a workshop for your university, accelerator membership or in-house team.

• I’m also an Adobe Express global ambassador and teach this beginners course for Domestika

Any more for any more? As a seasonal treat, questions and comments are open to all. 🎄

Keep on hyping.

Lucy x