She explains that they’ve been working closer with their in-house retail and wholesale teams to “understand what product was bought, how many units and where”, in order to place the items in front of the right audiences. “We’ve been very regional this year,” Executive Friend tells me, “so instead of trying to get into a ‘Best 25 Wallets for Men’ guide, we’re focusing on pitching items for more niche guides.”
This shift in strategy, she argues, has a lot to do with the rise of Substackers whose audiences subscribe to their specific tastes as opposed to more general round-ups. “We’ve noticed a higher conversion rate in the newsletter world because we found that’s what drives the most conversion — when something goes straight into a person’s inbox,” she says. “We’ve found that shoppers find Substack guides and some of these more editor-specific guides by publications to be more personal, which makes them more successful.”
The added layer here is that when it comes to gift guides signed by, say, a Vogue editor on the website or by a popular Substacker, there is context on who the reader may or may not be. “This allows us to understand who the audiences are and pitch with more intention,” says Executive Friend.
But here’s the caveat: “We’re now, for the most part, leaning towards the kind of item you can buy off the guide as opposed to a pricier item that will make the shopper do a double take and ultimately move on,” she says. “We have social media to push the awareness of our products, or we could even gift them to influencers or editors; though with Substack gifting is less popular, now that everyone’s watching, we need to use these guides to convert into actual sales.”
Petrarca, who also wrote a thorough explainer on the affiliate links of it all, did not really include any of the items she was pitched in her gift guide this year, opting instead for curating a personal list of desirables. “In my experience as a full-time writer for a magazine, gift guides are naturally where you insert advertisers,” she says. “A luxury label is going to get the shoutout in the ‘over $1000’ edit, not because they think anyone’s going to buy it — even though there are definitely those shoppers out there — but because it’s also an advertising play.”
To summarise, a well-balanced gift guide would have range. “They should provide a balance with the sort of stocking stuffers that are fun and less expensive, the middle-ground stuff that you would buy for yourself, a nice treat for someone, and then the objects that are wild and existing for the sake of existing,” explains Petrarca. “A gift guide traditionalist may scoff at spotting a Loro Piana pizza cutting board, but as someone who enjoys looking at objects, I really love it when I see these wild things.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
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