The Guide to Gift Guides.
A gift guide is a document or website article that suggests gifts for specific type of people. An example is Amazons product lists “For Him”, “For Her”, “For Teens” & “For Kids”. These are mostly written by news outlets such as BlogTO, social media influencers or bloggers, who may take a percentage of any sales made through their unique links, but they can also be written by the companies that are selling the products. Examples of companies putting out their own gift guides are Lee Valley and ToysRUs. The Sears Wish Book was another example of a gift guide put out by a retailer seasonally.
Why Create Gift Guides
Gift guides are much more than a physical or digital catalogue. They provide potential customers with specific recommendations for specific people on their lists. Does your business provide the best products for the Handyman? The father-in-law who has everything? The pet parent? Gift guides can help you get the people who have to shop for gifts for unique people into your store. These guides also help people shop from home, order ahead and either pickup the items at your store or have them delivered.
Product Ranking Lists
Something simular to gift guides, creating a list can help you sell even more of your best sellers. Create a “Top Five Products of 2020” list for your best sellers of the year to promote your most popular products. You can even extend the promotion by having a special one day deal on one popular product a day for 5 days.
Designing Your Own Gift Guide
Designing a simple gift guide and marketing your own gift guide is an easy and inexpensive way to promote your products. Here are 3 tips to design gift guides that convert.
Think about who your audience is and design and promote accordingly. Gift guides are a unique piece of marketing collateral because they are not targeting the end user of the product they are selling. Your product may be tools for handy people around the house but your gift guide isn’t necessarily only going to be seen by them. It will also be used by those tasked with gift giving to this person. Think wife or child of a handy husband or father. The giver needs to understand what it is that they are purchasing and what the benefit would be to the receiver.
Keep it simple, but don’t be afraid to have some fun. It is the holidays after all! That being said, make sure that there is a logical flow to your gift guide. If it has multiple sections make sure they are clearly marked. Make sure you have clear focus on each page. Lastly make sure there is an easy way for customers to find the product online or an identifier unique to the item so that they can order it over the phone.
How can they order the products? Make sure to include a call to action (CTA) or multiple CTA’s throughout your gift guide. If your guide is digital, you can add clickable links to the product page, if your guide is printed make sure each of your products has a simple URL that someone could visit online to order.
Accessibility Considerations
It is not only a good business practice to make sure your promotional materials are accessible, in some cases it is required by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). Design your document with those with sensory conditions such as eye sight and hearing conditions as well as cognitive conditions.
Here are some basic tips to ensure your PDF’s are as accessible as possible.
Do not convert fonts to outlines
Ensure that the proper reading order is in place in the PDF document using Tag Order and Reading Order in your PDF reader.
Ensure items are properly tagged as Artifacts, Lists & Tables, Figures and Objects. Also ensure that Paragraph styles are properly listed as Paragraphs, Header 1, Header 2, Header 3 etc.
Provide alternate text information for images and figures explaining what is in the image or figure as well as text explaining where hyperlinks go.
Add a title and description to the metadata of the PDF.
Add additional in-document navigation using bookmarks, cross references and clickable tables of contents for larger documents
The Association of Registered Graphic Designers Access Ability 2: A Practical Handbook on Accessible Graphic Designprovides some great insights for further reading on accessible design. The book can be downloaded from their website.
The items above are not meant to be a replacement for legal advice around AODA compliance. For further details please speak with your legal professional.
Is this a lot of information to keep in mind? We can design gift guides for you that will reach your target audience and convert into sales. We can even take care of the accessibility of the digital and print versions. Email us today to see if we can help you create your gift guide!
About the Author - Jack C. Henry
A graduate of OCAD University’s Graphic Design program, Jack blends art with real-world business strategy. The result? Creative solutions that add value to your business. Jack has designed for a wide range of industries including restaurants, retail stores, health care, community organizations and charities. As well as helping companies develop their brand, he creates beautiful marketing materials and signage. More…
About OmniWorx Inc.
OmniWorx Inc. is a boutique design firm based in Scarborough in Toronto’s east end, with an office in Lakefield in the Kawarthas, providing graphic design, branding, marketing services to individuals, local small & mid-sized businesses and realtors. More...