Please note this transcript was generated by AI - apologies for any mistakes!

Pippa Goulden (00:43)
Hello, welcome back to PR Made Simple. Right, let's do this. Brace yourself, I'm doing it. I'm dropping the C word. Christmas, I've said it, okay? We've got it out. We are accepting that it is coming at us, that it is not too far away in the distant future and that we need to do something about it now in order for your Q4 self to be incredibly grateful

I know it's only summer, the sun is shining and I'm sorry to do this but in PR, like so many other elements of your business, Christmas starts in July. So if you want to see your products featured in gift guides, in magazines, popping up in seasonal features, if you want to be getting that editorial content, if you want to be thinking about collaborations and the right podcasts, all that kind of stuff, you really do need to get the ball rolling now.

So this episode is dedicated to all things Christmas PR. It's going to give you your Q4 game plan that is going to help you to stand out. It's going to help you to sell more. It's going to help you to avoid a last minute panic and it's going to get your business seen and talked about in the right places by the right people. So let's get this Christmas show going. So I just want to give you a little bit of context about why

am talking about Christmas now and why I will actually be talking about Christmas for the next seven months because in PR land Christmas is all about timing so Glossy magazines, your monthly magazines, they start working on their Christmas issues as early as July and to be honest we've started seeing a few Christmas opportunities popping up here and there and it's only the beginning of June when I'm recording this.

So if you want your business to be featured, you need to be on their radar way before Christmas, way before anyone else in the real world is actually thinking about Christmas. But I want you to remember as well that PR is not just about press coverage, right? It's so much more than that. And actually starting early, starting now, starting to think about your PR approach.

Q4, it's going to help you to cut through the noise when everyone's shouting, when it gets incredibly noisy out there in Q4, it's going to help you to build real trust with your target audience, it's going to give you that powerful third-party endorsement that make people take notice of your business, it's also going to help you step out from your insta bubble, I know a lot of small businesses at the moment are battling

an algorithm that is not working on their side. And PR really helps you to step out of your Insta Echo Chamber, to find new audiences, to reach new people. And that for many of you will be so important for Q4. And most importantly, it's gonna get you in front of those customers when they're actually ready to buy. When you are there, present and visible and accessible to them on that buyer's journey.

PR isn't just about visibility, remember, it gives you that credibility, it gives you that trust, and that's what drives those all-important Q4 sales. So whether you are a product business or a service business, there are opportunities for you from a PR perspective in the buildup to Christmas, and I want you to make sure that you are as prepped as possible. So I'm gonna talk you through some steps now on how to get Christmas PR ready. I want you to be really,

ready to hit the ground running and I really want you to not stress the number one rule in the PR set when it comes to Christmas is to not panic because this is very doable. I have worked with hundreds of small business owners just like you who have nailed their Christmas PR. We've had Priya whose Christmas PR got her then stocked in John Lewis and the National Trust

We've had a business that featured in the Daily Telegraph that was read about by the producers of BBC Morning Live about their Christmas rental service and they were then featured on the TV. We've had more press cuttings than I can even think about, all generated by small business owners just like you, product and service alike. So my steps when it comes to your Christmas PR, I want you to get really clear on your goals. I want you to know

why you are doing Christmas PR in the first place. Remember, you'll have heard me say this before, the most effective PR is strategic PR and that is no different for your own Christmas PR. What do you want to achieve from your Christmas PR? I imagine it's probably sales are gonna be top of that list, but there might also be some other strategic things that you're doing, visibility, more authority.

If you're looking at raising investment, it can be a good time to start thinking strategically about the type of press coverage and PR opportunities that you want to get. Your goals, your business objectives are going to shape your strategy. So start getting specific on these. Don't let the word strategy freak you out. I've done other podcast episodes specifically on that, but just look at it as a plan. Break it down into small, doable actions that feel manageable.

clarity over chaos is key for this because I think it's really easy to get so overwhelmed that you can't see the wood for the trees and actually taking a step back, having a plan, knowing what you want to focus on when, knowing what the priorities are for your business is going to help you then take the action to get the results. The next thing I want you to think about is the timing. So like I've said, your monthly magazines start Christmas prepping in July.

you're sure to lead press like your online sites, your weekly magazines, they will be running opportunities for you up until say mid December. So you really do have time. Don't panic. If you're listening to this in October and you're thinking, oh, I've missed it all, haven't, there are still opportunities for you. I'm going to be talking about Christmas now until basically just before Christmas day. But you do have to have a plan. So if I were you, I'd start...

building your PR opportunities list now. Look at the media opportunities, do some research, have a look at the publications that you think are going to be really right for you. Don't forget your target audience. Now your target audience might actually shift a little bit in Q4 if you think about it. So if you're a female-focused business, you are actually wanting to potentially appeal to husbands, boyfriends, partners. If

are aimed

at a slightly older audience, grannies, that kind of thing, you actually want to be getting on the radar of people who are buying gifts for them. So the world of opportunity actually opens up massively for you in Q4. Publications that don't normally write about say women's products will include gift guides for women, for kids, et cetera. So there are load more opportunities for you, but understanding your timings, having a bit of a plan around who you want to reach out to and when you're gonna reach out to them.

is going to really help you to take the action at the right time. The third thing to think about now is your imagery. Images and Christmas PR are so important. It's a biggie. Your journalists need high res, generally cut out product shots, especially for those gift guides. You want to make sure that they are a minimum of 300 DPI and that I would recommend clearly labeling them with the product name, price and website.

You don't want to be sending big attachments to journalists with lots of images on them. So my recommendation is to screen grab your images so that they can still see them in the body of the email, but include a link to a shareable folder online like Dropbox or Google Drive, not

WeTransfer link that expires. Something that they can go in and they can download the images that they want.

It's going to make their lives a lot easier. Trust me, as somebody who has editorially put a gift guide together, and it makes them way more likely to use your stuff if they know that it's labeled, if it's not gonna get confused with all the other JPEG 36210 numbers that they have been sent. So I would really recommend labeling your images. Have a look how previous gift guides have used imagery.

If you are needing to take new photography and that kind of thing, will help guide you. Lifestyle imagery can be important. It can be really effective for the interiors pages, for example, but for gift guide coverage, they're generally focusing on cutout imagery. So that's what you're going to need to prioritize if you're a product business. The fourth point I would urge you to think about is choosing your hero products. If you only have one or two products, then this doesn't really apply to you. But

I want you to be really honest here. I want you to be objective, as objective as you possibly can be. You need to be picking out the things that are genuinely giftable. What do people actually want to give each other as gifts? And if your products aren't giftable, then I would question whether doing the gift guides, doing that kind of stuff is right for you. It might actually be that you could generate PR opportunities for you in other ways.

But think about the season, what's different about your product collection? Look at previous gift guides for clues, like I've said, look at the trends, look at price points, look at themes and use that research to guide your pitch. You'll see most gift guides are quite formulaic. They'll either follow gifts for him, gifts for her, gifts for teens, gifts for kind of younger ones, gifts for grannies. But we also see other themes like pets have been really big in recent years.

gifts for gardeners we see so they can also be themed. We often get stocking fillers as well and budget buys I think are you know going to be probably quite relevant for this year but they do also pick luxe guides and really high-end products as well so you want to be pitching your products to the right type of title and have a look at previous things that they've done will really help you. Get your assets ready is the next step.

So you might want to create a short press release. If you have lots of products, I'd recommend creating a lookbook with hero products. You don't need to turn this into a novel. It needs to be really clean, clear info with visuals to match. Tools like Canva are really great for helping you to create lookbooks. If you just type lookbook into Canva, some examples will come up. It's just about giving them the basic information. They don't need to know every detail about your business or why you started.

or any of that stuff, it's really about showing them the key pictures, the key imagery. And the last point is getting your pitch on. Now, this is the bit that everyone over thinks. It really doesn't have to be scary. I want you to reframe how you think about journalists and how you pitch to them. Journalists are just normal people like you and me trying to get their job done. And when you think of it like that, it actually...

becomes a bit easier to pitch to them because actually you're helping them to do their job. So I recommend sending a bespoke email to the journalist, show them a little bit about why you think the publication is right for your audience, be clear, tailor that pitch, be relevant, keep your pitches really short and sweet, especially if you're pitching product placement, gift guide opportunities. Use your subject line to tell them what you're offering and where it fits. So it might be

eco-friendly stocking fillers or gifts for kids or you know something very specific pet favorites for Christmas that kind of thing so they can see when it lands in their inbox where it will fit with what they're working on and don't forget

all the information that they might need and give them your website, the prices, everything that they need, try and get it over to them in one

Pippa Goulden (12:26)
And just want to say, if this is feeling a bit overwhelming at the moment, do not panic, I have got you. We cover all of this in my DIY PR membership ongoing. So if you're listening thinking, I can't do this by myself, don't worry. That is exactly what my DIY PR membership and my one-to-one accelerator is for. So you can find out way more about those at the end of this episode. I just wanted to say, again, don't panic because I have got your back.

with all of this Christmas PR stuff.

Pippa Goulden (12:55)
I've mentioned a lot about product businesses there, but I also want you to think about it from a service business perspective. There are lots and lots of opportunities for you to get press coverage around your area of expertise when it comes to Christmas. If you have a look through one Christmas issue, for example, you'll see there's opportunities there for

finance experts who might talk about money and Christmas spending, for relationship experts to talk about the pressure that we feel when it comes to Christmas, for wellbeing experts, for fitness experts, for beauty experts, for all sorts of different types of businesses. So have a look through previous issues, like I've said before, get a feel for how the press cover it. But also we'll be talking in a bit as well about how you can also find

other PR opportunities for you. One of my key mantras in the PR set is about not putting all your eggs in the gift guide basket for product businesses. Gift guides are brilliant but they are not the only PR route. They don't always do what you're hoping they might do as well. I've had a client who we got into the Sunday Times style gift guide and they hardly saw any sales from it.

They obviously got the kudos and the trust and the credibility pieces from it and it did a really good piece for them from that perspective, but they didn't get a huge amount of sales from it. I've had other people who've been featured on this morning, for example, and absolutely sold out of ranges products. I've had other people who've had some amazing things happen to them from a sales perspective by being featured in magazine gift guides, but equally I've had other.

other people who haven't seen a sales uplift as a result of it. I mean think about how you use gift guides yourself as a consumer, you might have a flick through a magazine, you might have a look for some ideas but it doesn't necessarily lead you to do all your Christmas shopping from them. I very rarely buy Christmas presents for people from gift guides, I've normally actually thought about the Christmas presents I'm going to buy for people before it gets to the gift guides being published.

So I want you to be thinking about this consumer journey, the buyer's journey, and when people are going to discover you. It's not all going to happen from say like the 1st of December, is it? So you actually want to be doing your PR now. It's why starting early, getting your business out there and getting on people's radars is a really important thing to do. I remember last year I'd actually decided what I was going to buy my best friend for Christmas by the summer because I'd spotted it somewhere and...

I knew that that was what she needed. It's not like I'm waiting to December, you know, the 20th to think about my Christmas shopping. I might be buying most of it in that time, but a lot of people have done their Christmas shopping kind of September, October time anyway. So I don't want you to put all your eggs in the Christmas gift guide basket. I want you to be thinking about a layered PR approach. So also it means if you don't get into those gift guides, you never know what they're going to...

feature what they're going to include, what they're going to be looking for, how much lip service they're using them to pay attention to their paying advertisers. Absolutely there are opportunities for you within the gift guides, we get small businesses in them year after year but I want to make sure that you've layered your PR approach for Q4 so you're not just relying on one thing. So there are lots of other PR opportunities for you to explore for product and service businesses alike.

from founder stories and real life interviews. Obviously make sure that those interviews, if you have a relevant story is inextricably linked to your business. I wouldn't recommend just going off, starting to talk about things that aren't relevant for your business because you ultimately are doing this to link back to those business objectives. We've got podcasts, interviews, opportunities. You've got opportunities to give expert commentary in your area, in your industry.

Trade press coverage can work really well. Influencer activity, more and more influencers are doing their own gift guides. Looking at collaborations. Now, if you've been around me for a while, you'll know how much of a fan I am of collaborations for small business owners. We are so good at lifting each other up. We're so good at supporting each other. We're so good at being flexible and nimble and quick with ideas.

It doesn't have to be a huge thing that you do. You can start off small. It might be some Instagram lives, for example. It might be some content for each other. It might be some more, you know, there might be something that you could do which involves a range or a curated gift selection, all that kind of thing. But looking at other small businesses that correspond with you, where you can cross pollinate to each other's audiences can work really well.

Speaking opportunities on panels or events can be brilliant for you. Lots of opportunities for you in building up to Q4, looking at trends, insights, seasonal tips and that kind of thing. So remember, we're not just focusing on gift guides and we're not just focusing on press, we're thinking about all the other different PR routes that might work for you in your business. And I really want you to remember that PR, Christmas PR is not just

for big brands with big budgets. There are so many opportunities for you out there. You don't need a PR agency to do this for you. I promise you, you can do it yourself. You don't need that little black book of contacts. You can do it yourself. I have worked with hundreds of small business owners who've got coverage in national magazines, in newspapers, in podcasts, and TV and radio.

all because they have spent the time, they've learned how to do it and they've ultimately, the key, they've taken action to drive those results, to deliver those results for their business and I know it can feel really overwhelming to start but trust me your Q4 future self is going to be really grateful and thank you that you have got started.

So hopefully that has inspired you to get going with your PR, to know that you can do it and to know that to give yourself the best run up to success in Q4, the key is to get in going now. If you found this helpful, then absolutely come into my world. I have an offer that's running until the 5th of July, which is a six month subscription to my DIY PR membership. So if you know that from now till the end of the year,

you want to knuckle down on your PR, to have the support, to take advantage of the media opportunities and the media lists and all the amazing knowledge sessions. We've got a journalist coming in to do a meet the media session specifically on Christmas PR. We've got regular Christmas PR surgeries from now until December. We've got Q and A's, we've got get it done accountability sessions. I've got a six month subscription that I don't normally offer and that is available until the 5th of July.

and it's just 247 to get your PR nailed from now until Christmas. So if you know that maybe you've had PR as an objective for 2025 and you've not quite got around to starting it yet, then come on into the PR set, come on in and meet the other members. We've got an amazing community of small business owners who get incredible results. So that option is there for you if you want the structure of the membership to help you and get you taking the action.

If one-to-one is more your style, then I have my accelerator program and you can drop me a DM or an email or message me about that and we can have a chat. It works as a six week or a three month program and we will get you taking the action and getting those results. And then I do have a couple of spots left for done for you services. So that is where I take it all off your hands and do it for you.

you don't need that, you can absolutely use the membership, use my one-to-one, listen to the podcast, follow me on Instagram, I'm Pippa the PR Set and we will get you nailing this Q4 and until next time I cannot wait to see what you do. Come back for more PR Made Simple.