The holidays can be an excellent time to create fun, engaging, and caring content that shows your audience who you are. When you successfully capture the spirit of the season, you can really connect and create a fireplace-like warmth around your brand. It’s also a great opportunity to connect with influencers over shared Yuletide experiences.
But it’s also a sensitive time to pitch, with a unique timeline and some additional best practices. Make the best of this season with these ways to win (and fail) when promoting holiday content.
How to Win When Promoting Holiday Content
1. Solve a problem
The holidays can be an extra-stressful time, and many people turn to social media and the web to vent or ask for help. Writers and publishers are no exception.
When pitching content around the holidays, scour their social media accounts and recent articles for a holiday-related pain point. Offering advice or sending along a resource is not only a fantastic way to make a personal connection, it’s a nice thing to do this time of year. Bonus points if your content is what helps them solve their problem.
2. Tailor your social messages
When promoting your great content on social media, don’t put all of your efforts into one channel. It’s crucial to tailor your holiday messages and online promotions to each platform – don’t blast the same message out to all of them at once. Participate in trending hashtags on Twitter (and create your own), post photos and offer links to Facebook, and share infographics on Pinterest.
3. Get personal
The holidays are a great time to get close with your audience and the influencers you’re trying to reach. It’s good to send a message that isn’t a pitch every so often, so leverage social media to start a conversation with an influencer and ask questions about their traditions and plans. It’s an emotional time of year for many, so you can get a little personal if you remember to be tactful.
4. Sharing is caring
We all have a tendency to be “all about us,” but this time of year it’s important to keep that in check. You might have awesome content to promote, but other people do, too. Search for relevant content from your influencers. If you see something that would be great for your audience, by all means, share it or even write about it on your blog! There’s a good chance that the creator will appreciate the share and be willing to reciprocate.
5. Start building relationships early
You don’t want your holiday content marketing to add to your holiday stress. Start thinking about your content and get networking in early fall, so you’re ready to ask for a placement when the time comes. You’ll feel much more relaxed about your pitches when you’ve got several warm relationships lined up. Plus, you’ll have a much-needed advantage with your target, as he or she will likely see a huge influx of pitches this time of year.
How to Fail When Promoting Holiday Content
6. Get hung up on a specific holiday
This sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s easy to do. Be considerate about the fact that many holidays are celebrated at the end of the year. Keep your pitch general in order to avoid alienating or offending anyone; once your influencer mentions that they celebrate X holiday, then you can go ahead and mention it.
7. Forgetting that they’re busy, too
Believe it or not, even reporters and editors like to take time off. Many will be out of the office for long stretches of time before the holidays, which means they’ve moved their editorial time table up significantly. It’s best to pitch early in the season, otherwise all of your pitches will be met with an out of office reply or a “thanks, but our calendar has been full for weeks” decline.
8. Using what worked last year
When you’re busier than usual, it might be tempting to recycle what worked last year or the year before. But an overdone strategy is much more likely to be seen as just that, and writers and editors are looking for reasons to eliminate emails from overflowing inbox.
You’ll want to step up your game and get creative with your pitches to break through the din. Check out these tips on creating a subject line that gets noticed. Schedule brainstorms with your co-workers well in advance to get those creative juices flowing.
9. Insincere cheer
It’s crucial to make sure your pitch isn’t too focused on selling your content. Sales pitches are plenty this time of year, and publishers will get especially irritated by an impersonal or spammy attempt at PR. This is important to remember when writing every pitch, any time of year – but make an extra effort to be sincere and genuine when pitching holiday content.
10. Spreading cheer too soon
I went into a chain pharmacy (that shall not be named) a couple of weeks before Halloween. They were playing Christmas music, putting away the Halloween items, and filling the shelves with lights and candy canes. Don’t make that same mistake when promoting your holiday content on social media and on your blog. Wait until at least November before getting into the spirit, and you’ll avoid invoking irritation rather than goodwill and cheer.
