Prep for the Holidays EP7 Pitching Yourself for Holiday Gift Guides

We're up to Task #7 in our Prep for the Holidays checklist for creatives. If you want to broaden your reach and get new eyes on your work this holiday season, it might be time to pitch yourself for holiday gift guides! Like a lot of holiday season prep, this is an early bird task - in fact, you might be too late for print magazines! But there's still lots of time for on-line publications and blogs, local newspapers and online influencers - all of whom publish gift guides of must have holiday gifts!

Tune in to learn more about using this strategy to attract a broader audience during the busiest shopping season of the year!

Past episodes you may want to listen to:

EP24: Pitching Tips for Creative Businesses
EP33: Why You Need a Media Kit for Your Creative Small Business
EP26: How to Work with Influencers and Brand Ambassadors For Your Creative Small Business

This episode is brought to you by our Premium Subscriber Community on Patreon and Buzzsprout

You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.

You can connect with the podcast on:

• Instagram at @andshelookedup
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• Tik Tok at @AndSheLookedUp

For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast

Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.

Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the and she Looked Up podcast.
Each week we sit down withinspiring Canadian women who
create for a living.
We talk about their creativejourneys and their best business
tips, as well as the creativeand business mindset issues all
creative entrepreneurs strugglewith.
I'm your host, melissaHartfield, and after leaving a
20-year career in corporateretail, I've been happily

(00:32):
self-employed for 12 years.
I'm a graphic designer, anillustrator and a
multi-six-figure-a-yearentrepreneur in the digital
content space.
This podcast is for the artists, the makers and the creatives
who want to find a way to make aliving doing what they love.
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of the and she

(00:59):
Looked Up podcast.
As always, I am your host,melissa, and today we're back
for another episode in our Prepfor the Holidays mini-sode
series.
So, if you are new to thisseries, this is something that
we are doing through the summermonths and into the fall and
early winter to help all ourcreatives artists, makers,

(01:22):
creative service providers,content creators get themselves
ready for the busy holidayselling season.
So today I've kind of losttrack of what episode we're on,
but I'm pretty sure we're onepisode number seven, and today
we are going to be talking aboutpitching yourselves for gift

(01:42):
guides.
So a couple of weeks ago, wetalked about the importance of
creating mock-ups andphotographs for your products,
even though you might not beready to list them and sell them
yet, and one of the reasons wetalked about it so early is
because it is really critical,if you want to pitch yourself,

(02:04):
to be in gift guides.
So if you're not familiar withwhat gift guides are, let's
start right there.
So you have probably seen these.
You know you're flippingthrough your favorite magazine
or through a newspaper everytime, every year around the
holiday season, and they havegift guide ideas.
So they'll have gift guidesgifts for dad, gifts for mom,

(02:24):
gifts for kids, tech gifts, thehottest fashion gifts, the top
25 gifts for people on a budget.
Like there's just no end tothese kinds of gift guides.
However, they're not just inyour favorite magazines and
they're not just in newspapers.
They are also digital.
A lot of your favoritepublications are online and have

(02:48):
online websites where they willalso publish gift guides, and a
lot of content creators outthere publish gift guides.
So we have a lot of contentcreators in our audience, so
they may already be planningtheir gift guides for the
holiday season.
But when I'm talking aboutcontent creators I'm referring
to bloggers and YouTubers, soand even actually short form

(03:11):
video creators.
So, like TikTok and YouTubeshorts and Instagram reels, they
may also create gift guides,and so essentially what they're
doing is they are curating itemsthat they feel are a good fit
for their audience.
It's a form of influencermarketing.
So that's getting yourselveslisted in these gift guides.

(03:36):
It's not necessarily going toguarantee you sales, but it is a
great way to get yourself infront of people who might not
ordinarily see you.
So if you sell mainly on Etsy,this is a great way to get seen
outside of Etsy.
If you sell mainly at in-personmarkets again a great way to

(03:57):
broaden your reach outside ofyour immediate physical location
, and there's so many of theseout there that there's really no
shortage of publications topitch yourselves to.
I mentioned in the mock-upepisode that in some cases the

(04:24):
mock-up episode that in somecases, print publications, so
magazines and, to a lesserextent, newspapers, work very
far in advance.
So if you're looking to getyour product listed in something
like I don't know, like Elle orCosmo, or First of all, there's
a different set of rules forthose types of publications, but
they also work months inadvance, like, when I'm talking

(04:45):
months, I'm talking at least sixmonths, and so if that is
something that you are hoping totake part in, you are too late
at this point.
This is something, if you wantto get to the point where you
are selling your productswholesale, that you might want
to start considering, becauseit's a completely different

(05:07):
production system.
If you want to sell wholesaleagain, a lot of small shops
start purchasing for Christmassix to eight months ahead of
Christmas, and so that's aroundthe same time that a lot of
magazines start planning theirholiday issues.
So if you want to take part inthat system, you are probably

(05:28):
already operating on a differenttrack than those of us who
focus more on things like Etsyand in-person markets.
You have probably already gotyour Christmas product already
done, your seasonal productalready done.
You've probably already got itwell into production.
You have probably got yourphotos and your marketing.
You are already prepared,because you have had to present

(05:50):
that to buyers and editorsmonths ago.
So for the rest of us, who maynot be quite so prepared or
operating on that kind of scaleor that kind of production
timeline, we are looking atlooking into things like local
newspapers, smaller publications, online publications and, as I

(06:16):
mentioned earlier, bloggers andcontent creators.
Having said that, those peoplestill work in advance.
Very few of them are doingthese at the last minute.
They are already starting tocurate the items that they might
like to have in their giftguides.
So if you want to potentiallytake part in those, you are

(06:37):
going to need to pitch thesepeople.
They are not going to come toyou.
That's not entirely true.
On some occasions they may cometo you, but the vast majority
of the time they're not going to.
So it's important for you to getyour product out in front of
them, and there's a lot ofdifferent ways to do this, but

(06:57):
what it comes down to is thefact that you're going to have
to make a pitch.
You're going to have toapproach them.
You are going to have to givethem an idea of what your
product is.
You're going to need to givethem some visuals.
You're going to need to givethem all your pertinent details
about where the product will besold, how people can buy it, the
sizing of it, what colors itcomes in, what the cost of it is

(07:20):
, and send that off, along withphotographs or even short video
clips that the content creatorscan use in their gift guides.
So you need to start pullingall of that stuff together right
now.
If you're going to do that andyou might even want to start on
this earlier next year the firststep is going to be figuring

(07:43):
out who the right people are topitch your product to.
So if you make handmade dogbandanas, you're going to want
to look for content creators outthere who are really into pets.
There are loads and loads ofdog accounts on Instagram and

(08:06):
TikTok that you could approachand ask them if they're doing
any kind of gift guide or ifthey would be interested in
showcasing your product.
Please keep in mind that someof these people will charge a
fee, so it should be.
If that is something thatyou're really into and there's a
specific influencer or contentcreator that you want to work

(08:28):
with, be aware that you areprobably going to have to
provide free product at the bareminimum, and you may need to
pay a fee on top of that.
Um, content creators don't dothe work they do for for for
free.
It's a lot of work.
Um, having been one myself, itis.
It is just as much work aspainting a painting or creating

(08:51):
jewelry.
It is, um, yeah, it's a lot ofwork and they need to be
compensated for that time.
So there is definitely apossibility that you will be
asked to pay and you need tofactor that into your marketing
budget.
So we have done several episodeson the podcast about working
with influencers, about pitchingyour work.

(09:13):
If you are a creative servicesprovider, you're probably
already very familiar withpitching yourself.
You've probably done it manytimes.
It's the same principle, it'sjust for a different outcome.
Um, so you are probably, like Isaid, comfortable with pitching
.
But if you're a maker or anartist, um, you may not be

(09:34):
comfortable with pitching, andso we've got lots of resources
in our archives for pitching.
I will put links to those inthe show notes or in the video
description on YouTube that youcan check out.
And, as I said, same withinfluencer marketing.
The thing with all of this, andbasically with this entire
series that we've been doing, isthat once you start to break

(09:56):
all these tasks down, yourealize how far in advance you
really need to start working,and it's it's time always moves
much faster than we think itdoes, and we always have less
time than we think we have, sothe earlier that you can get on
top of these types of things.
If you want to participate insomething like a gift guide, the

(10:16):
better, and this is where Imentioned in a previous episode.
I do things like I have aGoogle drive where I store
photos that I can send a link toanybody who's interested so
they can take a look, they canchoose the photos they want to
use, things like that Anythingyou can do to make the life of
the person you're pitchingeasier.
You might want to create asmall lookbook of some of your

(10:39):
products.
You may even want to offer upproducts for a giveaway if
they're included in a gift guide.
That's something that a lot ofcontent creators will look for.
If you are going to do that, beprepared to be the one that is
shipping out to the winner.
A lot of content creators willnot do the actual shipping
That'll be on you, so that issomething out to the winner.
A lot of content creators willnot do the actual shipping

(10:59):
that'll be on you, so that issomething you will need to
factor in as well as part ofyour marketing budget when you
are doing these types of things.
When it comes to magazines andprint, some will charge, some
will not.
It really depends, butbasically this is not it really

(11:23):
depends, but basically this isit's a marketing, it's marketing
, it's paid marketing, it's notfree marketing.
My kind of rule of thumb is ifsomebody approaches me wanting
to use my product, I don'texpect to be charged, but if I'm
approaching them, I do expectto be charged.
So it doesn't always work thatway, but that's kind of the way
I look at it.
So that's something to keep inmind.

(11:44):
Anyway, if that is somethingthat you want to take part in
this year, now is the time tostart getting yourself prepared
and, as I said, we'll leave lotsof links to help you out in the
show notes so that you can divea little bit deeper into how to
go about pitching yourself.
So that is it for this week.
We'll be back next week withanother new tip, and we are also

(12:05):
getting very close to the startof season six of the.
I was going to call it the truepodcast, I don't know if that's
the right word, but we'regetting close to season six of
the full length episodes that wenormally do for the show.
So we'll be continuing to runthese in tandem when season six

(12:28):
launches.
But yeah, we're getting close,so it's not far away.
That's it for this week.
Talk to you all soon.
Thank you so much for joining usfor the and she Looked Up
Creative Hour.
If you're looking for links orresources mentioned in this

(12:50):
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andshelookedupcom.
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(13:12):
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