02/12/2022
How to Write & Promote a Christmas Gift Guide for eCommerce
A Christmas gift guide, however, is more than just a
catalogue to throw some products that aren’t selling into and hope for the
best. It needs heart, soul and personality and needs to be very carefully
curated to maximise value for your customers, and therefore capture some sales.
To make the process of writing your e-commerce Christmas
gift guide easier, we’ve included some of our top tips on how to get started
from start to finish…
1)
Use Data to Pick Products
Data is the most powerful tool in your arsenal when it comes
to determining the products you put in your Christmas gift guide and how to
categorise products.
Every e-commerce store owner should have Google Analytics
set up which will give you deeper insight into historical data but if you
don’t, your e-commerce CMS like Shopify or Magento will be tracking sales for
you to analyse.
Look at Market Trends from Previous Years
If you look at the analytics section on your e-commerce
platform, you will be able to rewind time to last November and December which
are the key months for people buying Christmas gifts.
Looking to see which types of products were selling best in
seasonal months of the year is usually a good indicator that people were buying
as gifts.
2)
Categorise your Popular Seasonal Products
Now that you’ve got a list of your most popular products
from Christmas in previous years, you need to start thinking about putting them
in categories so that they stand out and it’s not just a continuous list.
Think about whom this would be a gift for and segment that
way – is it for him, her, them, a couple or kids in general? Or if your online
shop already focuses on a core demographic you could split by age or type of
person like “Techy Gifts” and “Fitness Gifts”.
Having these categories allows the reader to skim read for
the exact type of person they’re looking to buy for, or you could even write
multiple gift guides.
3)
Write your Guide
Writing a Christmas gift guide doesn’t need to be too long
and fancy because you are showcasing your products after all.
Introducing the blog and writing some clever copy that’s not
just a product description is going to hook your reader and get them to click
through and hopefully buy!
4)
Get your Guide Online
Website Blog
If your website has a blog / news function, you will be able
to upload it along with relevant images of products that you’re promoting.
You’ll also be able to add a Christmas themed header image that you can get
from a free stock image site like Unsplash to make it look pretty.
Consider an Online Catalogue
If you don’t have a blog on your website, another option to
consider is an online catalogue on a platform like Issuu.
Issuu has lots of free templates where you can upload your
logo, change the colours to your brand and add products & text.
This can then be distributed in the same way as a blog
article and your customers can read on their phone on the go.
5)
Publish and Promote Everywhere!
Whilst a gift guide on your blog is great for SEO because it
will target keywords and be internally linked to products, it’s also important
to consider the channels you will use to promote it to the world.
Email Marketing
A simple marketing email to your customers with a short
preview and then a link to the main article which will showcase all of your
products is an effective way to push your blog to thousands of people.
With nearly every single person having emails on their phone
in their pocket, there’s huge potential for instant buyers.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a blog to link to, however, as
you can use email marketing as your Christmas gift guide. You can just add
products, prices and product descriptions to your email which with a good
e-commerce email marketing provider can be done automatically.
Social Media
Social media is something you should use to promote
Christmas gifts regardless of whether you have a blog.
In 2022, social media is very heavily focused on images, particularly
on Instagram where outside of a Story, you can’t actually post links to direct
people to your website.
Instagram
For Instagram, we’d recommend that you get a free Linktree account
so you can put a link with multiple website links to blog articles in your bio.
You can create some simple graphics of products with prices
using Canva which you’ll add to a post
with relevant hashtags and a description.
You can then share these to your story along with links to
direct buyers to your website.
Facebook
Facebook can act similarly to Instagram but with Facebook
you can actually include a clickable link to your blog or website in your post,
using the same images or videos you’ve created on Canva.
Twitter
Twitter isn’t used that much for e-commerce but it’s good to
have some presence as some user demographics exclusively use Twitter as their
social media platform of choice.
Twitter can also be an easier platform to have your blog
post shared far and wide – why not try a “follow, comment and retweet”
competition to expand your reach and following?
You can also tag brands that you sell on Twitter to try and
get a few more retweets from those with more followers than you.
Don’t have time to do it yourself?
We know Christmas is a high pressure time of year where
you’re banking on sales so you can relax going into sale season.
We have a team of marketing experts who specialise in
content, social media and email marketing who can help alleviate that pressure.
Get in
touch to find out more about how we can help you promote your e-commerce
store and sell more online.