Gift guides come in all shapes and sizes. While it’s a bit late to get started on your own gift guide for this holiday season, you can always make another one for future eCommerce holidays. In this article, we break down how you can create a gift guide that ultimately converts potential leads into paying customers.
The reason why gift guides exist in the first place is that people have too much to do during the holiday season, and they experience decision fatigue so they are looking for something that’ll help them make the decision of which gifts to buy for their loved ones. One of the most important functions that a gift guide has is to break down the significance underlying each gift given, and you can do this by categorizing the products in your catalog into gift categories that make sense. For instance, you can classify your gifts according to price, personality, age, and other attributes that the gift receiver may have. This way, someone who’s looking for a gift for their 60-year-old dad can easily discover that handcrafted shaving kit in the men’s section, for individuals that are 60 years old and up.
Some people don’t want to do any work at all when they are buying gifts, but everyone wants to give tasteful gifts that their recipients will love. This is where your curated gift guide comes into play. Not only do curated gifts provide great combinations of products that are intended to wholly satisfy a picky gift receiver, they also give an air of exclusivity. Curated gift guides are usually delivered to subscribers that have been following a brand for a while. They also include social proofing in their content structure, this is done by attaching the curated gift guide with a public personality of some repute. For instance, you can invite influencers that your brand works with to create gift sets created with selections from your brand. You can also leverage this curated effort into a cross-marketing endeavor by including products from your subsidiary brands or brands that you have a working relationship with.
If your online store is bursting at the seams with store keeping units that you don’t know what to do with, you can put some of your customer support representatives into rotation as gift-giving experts. Publicize this seasonal function across your social media channels and wait for requests to help with gift picking to come pouring in. People love the extra bit of attention that customized support can provide and many take advantage of similar offers by leaving comments on your social media accounts. Not only do you get more interest in products by offering to help your customers select the gifts with great individual compatibility, you also get to increase engagement across various social media platforms.
If you find it difficult to come up with a theme for your gift guide, or if you simply find the process too difficult, then what you can do is compile the works of others. As long as you give credit where credit is due, other brands will greatly appreciate this opportunity since you’re giving them attention from your clientele. While you may not get as much traffic and conversions on your own website, you will be establishing yourself as a credible content creator and a source of useful, relevant information, which will have long-term impact on your bottom line as an online service provider.
Creating a gift guide is not as difficult you think, if you have questions, feel free to reach out to our team for assistance!