Maximise Your Christmas Sales with Strategic PR Tips – with Louise Cox

Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started. Hi.

Today on the podcast, I'm speaking with Louise Cox. Louise helps product based businesses get featured in the press so they can get seen and sell more.

So invited Louise onto the podcast to talk specifically about PR at Christmas. So I know this episode is going out in August, if you're listening in real time.

But according to Louise, this is the perfect time to start thinking about your Christmas publicity.

So we're going to talk about what you can do, the different ideas she has, and her best tips to get you as much publicity as possible over the festive season. And I should say, if you're listening to this episode slightly later, do not panic.

As Louise mentions in the episode, you can be getting Christmas publicity opportunities right up until the beginning of December. So it is never too late or indeed too early. So I would love now to introduce you to Louise. So. Hi, Louise. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me, Vicki.

You're so welcome. Can we please start by you giving an introduction to yourself, your business and what you do?

Yep. So my name is Louise and I am a small business publicity expert.

So I help businesses, primarily product based businesses, get featured in the press so they can grow their audience and sell more.

Amazing. Thank you. So I invited you on Today to talk specifically about Christmas. We're recording this in June. Episode will go out in August.

So and for some people, they might think, gosh, this is really early. You know, we're talking now, we're almost six months away to the day, I think.

Why is August the right time for product businesses to think about Christmas?

Yeah, so it's absolutely crazy. I always think, you know, it's the warmest month and I am so sat here talking about Christmas.

But the reason that we have to start so early when it comes to PR for Christmas is because magazines have lead times. And lead times is how long it takes a magazine to be planned, prepped, all the articles written, printed and put on the shelves.

And usually that's around three months for, like, your monthly magazines such as Country Living, Prima Red.

But when it comes to Christmas, you also have your standalone magazines, so things like the Christmas magazine, Simply Christmas, Country Living, Christmas special magazines which will come out in September. So that is why we start now because it's such a massive topic for the press to cover.

They need that extra time as well to get together all of the information because it's not just, you know, the gift guides that they'll be putting together a bit, it's everything around mental well being, diet, fashion, everything. So it's such a massive topic. So they start everything so early when it comes to Christmas.

Brilliant. Thank you so much for explaining that.

So actually I'm just thinking, so that we're really, really clear for everyone when we talk about Christmas pr, what exactly are we talking about and how is it different from the PR you might be doing the rest of the year?

Yeah. So I mean, I think what I want to say is let's talk about what PR is because I think this is a thing. So PR in its general form is patient management.

So it's everything you do within your business.

But I think what a lot of small businesses think of when they think about PR is publicity, which is using the media to promote our businesses, whether that's our story, our products, our services, whatever it might be. And Christmas PR really is just using the season to get featured in the press.

So it's not a hugely different to any time of the year when you're doing your pr. It really is just using the season to do it. Like I say, it's doing it a lot, lot earlier than you would any other sort of pr.

Perfect. Thank you. And are there different opportunities at Christmas? Because I'm thinking so gift guides might be one thing. You mentioned that earlier.

Is it more that there are more opportunities to sell? Because we talk about products to sell products at that time of year.

Yeah. For product based businesses it is absolutely the biggest opportunity of the year to get featured in the media.

Like I said, there are the gift guides and that's the main one, really, your product gift guides. And they feature in nearly every magazine out there.

And it's the biggest opportunity because if you're maybe a soap business and you know your main target audience is, you know, female magazines, this is an opportunity for you to get featured in the men's magazines. Because they're doing gift guides for her. And that's why it's a bigger opportunity for you because there's so many more doors that open.

But there are other sort of public, sorry, articles that you might want to get featured in. It could be something, you know about how you started your business. It could be, you know, giving expert comment on your business.

It could be top tips on how to survive Christmas with the mother in law, all that sort of thing. But for me, product gift guides. If you're a product based business, gift guides are the place to try and get your business featured.

Amazing. Thank you.

And I would love to talk a little bit more about gift guides because I'm sure there will be plenty of people who hadn't even considered them as an option option. So what kind of products first of all are a good fit for gift guides?

So the first thing is when people come to me to do their Christmas piano goes, I don't have my Christmas products ready. And I'm like, that's absolutely fine. Because the gift guys don't really feature Christmas themed products. They feature products that are giftable.

So that is the one thing to bear in mind. They like giftable products, things that are colorful, that are really going to pop on their pages.

So when you're thinking about your products to pitch, think of the ones that are giftable. And I think that is the main tips I can give with the gift guys.

So they are really looking for say giftable products, but also ones that are value for money. Especially in this economic climate. You will see a lot of gift guys asking for things like under 30 pounds, under 10 pounds.

So it's just really thinking about what products you have within your range and which ones would fit within different publications. But I think if you're just getting started with the Christmas gift guides, the the key is to choose one product.

You might be thinking, oh my gosh, but there's so many gift guides out there and I've got lots of different products which will fit into them. If you're doing your PR for your first time, getting featured in the gift guide, focusing on one product completely gets rid of the overwhelm.

And I think that is absolutely key.

That's a really great tip. Thank you. So let's say you've identified your product, the one you really want to push for this Christmas season. What do we do next?

How would someone go about finding opportunities for gift guides and deciding whether their products are good fit?

So the thing you want to do is do your research. What magazines does your product fit?

So think about the readership of the magazines and then you can contact the magazine, whether that's going through the editorial assistant and just asking who's putting the gift guide together this year and hopefully they will give you the email address. That's what I do. I go around and I call them all up, I email my contact to see who I can get and then Give me the leads that way.

And that's exactly what you, you can do too. It's not rocket science, it's just having the confidence to say, hey, can you help me here and point me in the right direction.

So, but I think doing that research initially, is your product going to be a fit for the magazine?

Because if it's a natural magazine, for example, something like Top Santa, you know, they focus on natural products, but you've got like a synthetic product, you know, synthetic candle or whatever it is, then that's not going to be a fit.

So making sure that your product is, is going to look great in the magazine and appeal to the readers is key because otherwise you're just wasting your time and the journalist pitching otherwise.

That makes sense. I guess you also. So I guess you're thinking about who's going to be buying the product and what type of magazine would they read.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Well, that's brilliant. And in terms of pitching to a journalist or an editor, what are they looking for when they're selecting products?

Because I assume that from August onwards they are going to be inundated. And obviously some of these gift guides are bigger than others, but sometimes it might just be half a page. How can we stand out?

I think it's giving them all the information they want.

So when you're contacting somebody for a Christmas gift guide and if you know that they're looking for gifts for her under 30 pounds, that's what you pitch.

And I think this is the biggest mistake because product based businesses sometimes think, oh well, I want to get my product featured in the press, but I don't have anything that fits in that category and I'm just going to send my gift for him that's over 50 pounds and instantly that's a delete. So making sure that you are sending exactly what the journalist asks for is absolutely key.

And don't worry if you don't fit the first gift guide that you come across, there will be lots of other opportunities. But yeah, give them right information.

So they are going to want things like the price, they are going to want the stockist details and they are going to want an image. And the image is key.

It's really make or break when it comes to whether you get featured because like, you know, you look through the magazines, they have got those clear images, they're on a background like the. They're not on a grass. Sorry. Exactly like the images you would use on Amazon, white backgrounds and like I say, colorful and giftable.

If you have a Look through any gift guides from last year. You can use something like Readly to do that. You will see that all of the products are usually really colorful and not Christmas themed.

I know I said that once, but it's, you know, people get in a twist about that. They do not have to be Christmas themed.

That's brilliant. Thank you. And should we just be sending like one product photo or more than that? Yeah. What's on going, what's good and what's just Overkill.

Yeah. So when I do it, I would send one product. If you feel like I say you only if you're doing your PR for the first time, send one product.

If you want to send a maximum of three, fine, send three. But it's that overwhelmed thing for you and the journalist sometimes.

Because I will say, you know, I think when you go into a restaurant and the menu is massive and you sit there for ages thinking, oh, God, I don't know what to have. And in the end you just plug for anything. That's what the journalist is going to be like. You don't overwhelm them.

So, you know, one to three products maximum. And I would just send the best product image you have of each product. So make sure that is where everything's sort of straight on.

You know, you're not photographing it from the top. The bottom is. No funny angles, it's really clear. And that I think is really going to help you stand out. And like I say, images make or break.

When it comes to your pr, you can have the best product. But if your image is like, you know, blurry, doesn't, you know, on a background, little props next to it, it's not going to work.

It has to be just like Amazon one's absolutely spawn perfect.

And actually thank you for saying just like the Amazon ones. I think that'll be really helpful because I know lots of people are on Amazon, they'll know exactly what you mean by that. So thank you, that's.

I think that's made it really clear. And do we need to be sending like a blurb or text about our products or again, is that too much?

Yeah, you can send a text blurb about your products and I would just send the description you have of your products on your website or on Amazon. Don't overthink this. Generally, when the Christmas gift guides come out, all it is is the image of your product, the price and the stockist.

That is really all that's going to feature.

So when the genus opens up your email, that's why your Image has to be, well, I want on my page because when it goes in the gift card, really that's all it is. The picture, the price and the stockist. And just a few tips on the stockist details. Make sure you send it, obviously, so be your website address.

But a lot of people say to me, well, I only sell on Amazon or I only sell on Etsy. Is that a problem? And the answer is absolute, absolutely not.

So for print media, what I suggest is if you only sell on those platforms, is to buy the domain name for your business and then point that to your Etsy shop or your Amazon shop.

Just because if you get featured in a print magazine and they put Amazon as the stock list, the likelihood is the reader will never find you on Amazon. So if you put your domain name, you know, point that to Etsy Shop or Amazon Shop, they'll go straight there. More, more likely to find it.

But when it comes to digital pr, so that's getting featured on the likes maybe of Glamour magazine or Closer or hello Magazine online, they will prefer your Etsy link or your Amazon link because they do affiliate marketing. So it's going to give you more of a chance to get featured in the press online.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, the way the PR is definitely changing, especially online, over, you know, over the years it used to be that, yeah, we'll just feature the website, but now they obviously try to make money from their online press and one of the ways is being an affiliate for Amazon or Etsy or not on the high street or whatever it might be.

That's really good. Oh, that's a really great tip. I've never heard that one before. Thank you, that's brilliant. Okay, so as I say, this episode is out in August.

How soon should business owners be sending their pitches? Do we need to be doing it right now? Is it different whether you're targeting print and online?

Yeah. So really, you want to start now?

I've already got some Christmas gift guide lead and they, they close on Friday, so that's the end of June, which is crazy. But generally, as a timeline for your Christmas pr, now is the time to choose those products you want to pitch to the press.

And like I said, make it really simple for yourself. One to three maximum, make sure you have everything that you need. That image is absolutely key. Write your little bit of blurb.

Like I say, take the description off Amazon, Etsy, your website shop, whatever. Don't. They don't need your backst or anything like that. You know, this is a gift guide. They are literally going to be featuring your product.

I know how much your business means to you and you know all the blood, sweat and tears that went into creating it. But the journalists don't care when it comes to gift guides, that's completely different feature. So that's what you want to do in June.

Now get everything sort of done. The next step is then like I say, start contacting those long lead magazines, those ones that come out monthly.

So whether that is Prima, country, living, living, etc. Cosmopolitan, the magazines that you think your products are going to be a fit for. Ask who is putting together the Christmas gift guides.

Once you get that information, send it to that person and include everything, the blurb about your product, the image, send that straight away, high res image, send it straight away, the price and your stockist details. And then when it comes to August, September, you want to do exactly same for the weekly press again.

So that's your best, your Bella, that's your newspaper supplement, sort of the Notebook S magazine again. Get in contact with them, ask who's doing the Christmas gift guide and once you get the details, you send them the information.

And then when it rolls around to October, November, we do exactly the same for online press. So it's a real six month process.

Perfect. Thank you for setting that out.

So I guess that means if someone is listening to this, you know, a bit later than the date it comes out, perhaps it's September or even October, it's not too late.

So that's really not too late. Yeah, not too late. It's just you are looking at maybe the weekly magazines or the newspapers or the online press. There's still opportunities.

Actually last year the last press request I got was in December. I think it was the week before Christmas for the Metro online. So there were opportunities right until Christmas Day.

Really that's really, that's really, really assuring because I was thinking, gosh, we're recording this in June, I hope by first week of September we're not too late. So that's really good.

And if you are selling on, you know, Amazon and you're part of the prime scheme, you know, that gives you opportunities because you can go for all the last minute gift guys as well. So yeah, lots of opportunities.

Brilliant. Thank you. So let's move away from gift guides for a moment if, if that's okay, Louise, and talk about other types of, other types of pr.

So it might be, we might be doing it around. Let's talk, you know, keep talking about Christmas because I think that's. Keep Us keep us on theme.

But what other types of PR might we consider at this time of year?

So there can be something around your business, sort of why you started your business, especially if you're a Christmassy sort of business.

And maybe you run, I don't know, you do reefs or something for the door or you do ball balls or something, something that's Christmassy that you can say to the journalist, I started my business and there's a really nice tie in with. Christmas will always be really nice. So magazines like Country Living often do things like this and Women and Home Magazine.

There's also, like I say, the top tips. So if you are a candle brand, maybe you can talk about how to bring the Christmas fragrances into your home.

There's also things like the expert comment as well, so you can talk about how your products can help at Christmas. There are so many different opportunities and I think it is just thinking outside of the box.

It can even be about you as a person when it comes to these sort of things if you want to share that.

Because a lot of the time, if you've got a Christmas story, I think one of the magazines put out a request this week asking for what was your best Christmas ever.

And often they'll just give your business a little, you know, mention in there and it doesn't necessarily have to be super related to your business and Christmas. It can be, you know, you're away on holiday or something, but they'll give you your business as tag.

So it's worth looking out for different opportunities and those sort of opportunities you can actually find on Twitter or x now just by searching the hashtag Jonah request.

Amazing. Thank you. So let's say we've got an idea for a story we'd like to pitch. Do you have any advice for how we go about this?

Especially if we approach in a publication completely cold? So this isn't something we've seen. Let's just say, coming back to your example, we are a brand and we sell. Yeah, we sell reefs.

And so it's completely tied in with Christmas. I think this is a great story. What do we do then?

So what you first need is you hook. So why are you contacting them and why will their readers be interested? That's the key thing.

So making sure again, our research does our business fit in with the readership of the magazine? So we want to write just a really short email.

This is not where we are telling our everything about the story and we don't need to write the story for them. We Are just putting together a couple of paragraphs about our business and why we think it would be a great feature for the magazine.

So it could be that you're a reef business. This is the perfect time to feature our business because it's obviously seasonal and this is how it all started.

You know, what the challenges were, how it's all going, that sort of thing. And it's really just a couple of paragraphs explaining that.

And if you're going for that sort of feature, you're probably looking at somebody like the features editor who you will want to send your pitch to. But if it is something around the business and you starting it, the images that you need are slightly different.

You are going to need pictures of you in your business. So you making the reefs sort of thing and pictures of the reefs on the doors and all that sort of thing.

So not so much a cutouts for that but more lifestyle shots.

Brilliant. Thank you. Actually following on for that, I wanted to ask about photos. So are we expected to provide photographs for any story that we pitch at the.

At the initial stage I would always.

Say high res images are available and I would usually put a couple either in the email window, you know, body of the email or attach them especially if it's more of a lifestyle feature because they want to see that you've got images. Recently had a client featured in Platinum magazine. They loved her story but the thing they came back with was has she got images?

Because if she hasn't we can't run with it and luckily we did. But it's not like the old days where they would send out a photographer and you know, you get a photo shoot and all that sort of stuff.

You are expected now to send images and have a nice bank for them to choose from. So some tips for the photographs if you're gonna. But you can absolutely do them yourself. Just make sure they're high res.

I would use a tripod if you know, so it's not going to be, you know, blurry or anything, that sort of thing. But to have different, you know, landscape portrait so it can take up different space on the page, different poses.

Whether it's you just you then you with your products, then you then just your products. So just have a really good array of images because you don't want to lose a feature just because you couldn't provide the photography.

That's really useful. Thank you. So that's good to know that we need to have photos before pitching anything.

Absolutely, yeah. Always have your pictures ready. That's probably the first thing to get done.

And it sounds like you also need, if you're going to have a shot of yourself, it need, you know, it can't just be a snap from your phone. It needs to be like a proper high quality image. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean you can absolutely use your phone to take the picture but don't do like you don't selfie or anything. You know, set it up so you've, you've got a nice picture of you.

So whether you're going to use that, if you're using the expert comment route, you know you've got a nice picture to send. Whether they use it or not doesn't really matter, but at least you've got something to send.

But like I say, the product images are going to be your, especially for the gift guides are the most, the ones you're definitely going to need. So don't pitch without having those.

Perfect. Thank you.

And I'm hoping that for anyone who's selling their products already, they're already going to have like really great products images already website, Amazon, so hopefully that's absolutely fine. So it just might be the, the founder shots that are that perhaps needed.

So I know Louise, that you can help people with getting Christmas PR and getting them into gift guides and things like that. But for anyone on a budget who says actually I just need to do it myself this year, I'm quite early on in my business.

I can't, you know, I can't afford to do that. What are some of the things that they can do to increase their chances of getting featured?

So I would definitely recommend checking out Twitter X got it the wrong thing hashtag journal request. Because you will find journalists on there looking for different things.

For magazines it is primarily, you know, expert comment and about your story but they will be the odd product one in there as well. So that's a really good way. It's free. Check out that hashtag journo request.

Otherwise I would just choose some magazines that you think your, your product is going to be relevant for all the ones you want to get featured in. Otherwise you're going to think oh my God, there's so many magazines out here, I don't know which ones to contact.

Just choose, you know, five, 10 magazines, do the research on them, contact them and try to get featured in those. But I know it's like you want to get featured in the press so and then that's what people do, they just go for any magazine out there.

But it's much better if you can Do a targeted approach to your PR and you can absolutely do it yourself. It is just finding the time to put some time aside and I think treat your PR as you would your social media.

I'm sure most of us spend way too long putting together a post on socials, you know, when that time could be spent also doing some pr.

So you know, if you can allocate just an hour a week just to pitching or making sure your products, images are perfect, then that's all going to help. But it's just about not overwhelming yourself. Choose a few magazines, one product and just go with that.

That's so helpful. Thank you and thank you for everything you've shared. Louise.

I think this has been some really practical advice I think will really help people get their products featured this year. So my final question is what is your number one piece of advice for someone trying to get media coverage for this festive season?

I think it's have the belief in yourself and just press send. There's nothing gonna happen, is it? Nothing bad will happen. I think a lot of people think, oh, the journalist is going to ignore me.

To me, I've been doing this many shoes and I still don't get replies from some of my emails. The worst thing that will happen if the journalist just presses delete on your email. So just have the confidence in yourself.

Your products are amazing and if you don't think they are, go back and look at all those reviews you have. You know, you just need the confidence.

I think that is the one tip because I think a lot of people want to do their PR but they are just scared because they don't know what to say. And the key is to keep it simple. Hi, I have this product. If you're doing a gift guide, I hope it would be of interest to you.

Here's the information and I've got an image. That's all it is. It's so, so simple. So just have that confidence to write that email and send it to the journalist.

That's such good advice. Thank you.

And if you hope you don't, if you don't mind me adding that I've done a few years ago when I launched my book, I did a bit of PR and I did it myself and I was really scared about approaching people and getting rejected. But actually what I found was you don't get no's and no one's horrible to you. You just don't hear anything if it's a no. So actually nothing happens.

Literally nothing happens.

Y that can be a little Bit disheartening, but you just have to remember journalists are getting so many emails every single day and yours might just got lost in the spam. They could have accidentally deleted it, you know, they just didn't have time to read it.

There's no harm in like you know, resending it if they didn't.

And another tip I use is if you use Gmail, enable what's it called, Mail Track on it so you can see if a journalist opened your email and if they didn't just change the subject and if they didn't, you can resend it it, you know, and you're not bothering the journalists. I think that's another thing that people are worried about. Oh, if I keep sending, will I bother the journalists? Not at all.

They need stories and products to fill their pages. So don't be scared, just, just send it.

Rob, that's a, that's a really good tip about MailTrack. I didn't know that was possible. That's really useful. Thank you.

But yeah, so just to reassure everyone because actually for me not getting a reply wasn't necessarily a bad thing because I was more worried and I don't know if you think heard this before, I'm sure you have. I was more worried about getting a reply saying, well, why would we feature this, this isn't a story or something along those lines.

But actually they're busy, aren't they? They don't have time to, to do that. Normal. I'm sure most, I'm sure most people wouldn't do that. Anyway.

I think that was the thing that scared me the most was getting negative feedback.

Yeah, definitely. Like I said, and like you said that nothing happens, they just do not reply. And that is absolutely normal.

And especially with gift guys, if you've seen an app, have you know, a request out there and they've said we're looking for gifts for her under £20 and you have sent everything that that journalist needs, including the high res image. They have no reason to contact you because you have done the perfect job, sent them a gift for under 20 quid.

You've sent the image, price, the stockist details, they don't need anything from you. So if it's good to go, it's good to go. You might just open the magazine, you know, three months later and there is your product. That happens so much.

So even though you don't get a reply, it doesn't mean it's a no. Maybe you've been featured. Journalists don't always tell you either. It'd be just a nice surprise at.

Christmas that actually did. That's something that actually happened to me as well. I did get featured somewhere that I had absolutely no idea about.

So yeah, I think that's, that's, that's really good advice.

I just want to put anyone's mind at rest who's feeling really scared because I know that when I had a product to sell, I was absolutely terrified about, about pitching it to journalists. So hopefully, hopefully my story and all of your useful advice is really going to help people feel a lot more confident about doing it this year.

Yeah, I hope so, because I say it is the biggest opportunity and there's nothing better than seeing your product in the press.

I mean it is a massive ego boost and you know, and it also the benefits that it brings to your business, like traffic is obviously the number one thing it brings.

So if you have got like email list on your website or you're capturing data, you know, you can nurture that person that comes to your website because unfortunately not everybody that sees you in a magazine is going to purchase your product.

Some people might, but it's the biggest thing I think with your PR is the opportunity to build your email list and nurture them people into customers that purchase from you regularly.

And I also think it's really nice on your website to be able to say you've been featured in Grazia or Red magazine or Poem, wherever it is.

I also think that's brilliant to be able to say, okay, my products have been featured here because that gives you a little bit more in social proof, particularly if you haven't had as many reviews as you might like because they're so hard to get at the moment. Just be a nice little boost as well.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it always, always gives you something to talk about.

But then we had the same candle in a different magazine. We got nothing from it but through our email list. So whatever happens is going to happen.

But if you don't put your product forward in the first place, nothing will happen. But yeah, it's such a massive opportunity Christmas. So.

And like you say you've got the time, you know, you're listening to this podcast, you've got the time to get that one product ready and out there.

And it sounds like there's always something to be gained as well. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode.

Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources on my website, vickyweinberg.com Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it, and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.