Let's Talk About: Gift Guide Inclusions
Wondering why your client wasn't included? Looking for feedback? There's a right and a wrong way to ask.
Happy September and happy (almost) LDW!
It’s been a busy week, having launched Top Tier Consulting with Nicole Pajer on Monday. If you haven’t already done so, please join our Substack and check out our services (we’ve had such a great response, that we’re already booking into October!). It’s just like the Agency Q&A and Pitch Perfecting sessions I’ve already done with so many of you this year, but on steroids! Now you get access to TWO top-tier journalists AND we offer sessions on even more topics that’ll help elevate your PR game.
I’m heading off to Alaska tomorrow (follow me on Instagram and Twitter), but wanted to leave you with some timely industry insights before I disappear for 12 days. When I get back in town, I fully expect to have a bunch of gift guide assignments waiting for me — so that’s today’s topic!
Now that gift guide season is officially upon us, it’s that time of year where journalists start getting even more pitches (so instead of 200-300 a hundred a day, we could be getting 400-500+) … and that means your pitch is fighting for attention like no other time of year. Yep, the competition is fierce for inclusion in holiday gift guides. Honestly, I wish I could include you all, but that’s simply not feasible.
Last holiday season, I started noticing a massive uptick in the following types of emails … and this type of email can be really off-putting to journalists if you don’t word it carefully (at the end of this post, I’m going to give you some language to use that’ll help get you what you need without alienating the writer you’re hoping to work with!). The message goes a little something like this: