Product recommendations are an effective form of marketing that vary in impact depending on the recommendation source. Large reputable sources have the greatest impact; improving product trust, awareness, and driving the greatest amount of external traffic to retail sites. Large reputable sources focus on a few different recommendation types; retail site, publisher site, and gift guide recommendations.
At Seller Rocket, we work with 100+ large sources to offer two of these recommendation types – retail site and publisher site. Amazon Editorial Recommendations are an example of retail site recommendations; they’re posted by reputable publishers on Amazon product pages. Wirecutter is an example of a publisher-site recommendation; they post product recommendations to their site which backlink to retail or D2C sites.
Seller Rocket does not however, provide the third option of gift guide recommendations. To access gift guide recommendations, we recommend using the new gift guide recommendation and blogger outreach service offered by our friends at prREACH.
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Gift guide recommendations are similar to publisher-site recommendations in that they’re offered on publisher sites and typically charge only an upfront fee rather than commissions, however they differ in that they focus around a high-traffic shopping date and often offer a greater quantity and assortment of products. For example, the Urban Milan gift guide below contains over 80 products, including perfumes, flowers, facial products, cards and more.
Gifts for Her: A Valentine’s Day gift guide by Urban Milan
Gift guides receive high traffic volume around their given holidays because buyers want to ensure they’re buying quality products and publishers have the reputation of being a reliable source of information. When a product within a guide is clicked, the user is redirected to that product on Amazon. Amazon’s algorithm favors products that drive external traffic to their site, so in return for the increased traffic, the product’s organic rank improves.
Similar to publisher-site recommendations, gift guides are best used in collaboration with other marketing efforts, for example, other product recommendations or PPC advertising. When used together, a compounding effect occurs that yields the greatest improvement of brand awareness and profit.
A study by prREACH found that Sherpa Chai, a company using only gift guide outreach and earned media for their marketing, exhibited a 84% lift in sales for the Valentine’s Day period in 2020.
Sherpa Chai recommendation results: 84% improvement in sales
This case is unique in that no PPC advertising was being utilized. If Sherpa Chai utilized additional marketing efforts like PPC, their sales list would have been even greater.
Gift guide recommendations are offered by prREACH and come on a first come first serve basis. The first come first serve basis is to ensure that gift guides serve their purpose of being a reliable and easy source for buyers. An over-populated gift guide reduces the weight of each recommendation and can overwhelm buyers if there are, say 50 perfumes within the guide instead of just two. By minimizing repeat product types, prREACH reduces the competition between products within the guide, and in turn maximizes the attention and exposure of each product.
To increase your chance of being placed into a gift guide, prREACH allows clients to submit two products for consideration. They’ll then pitch your products to up to 50 media outlets a month via email and monitor daily.
prREACH offers two payment options; an upfront fee of $3500, or a monthly recurring fee of $797/month. Either way, you’re bound by a six month contract, meaning you’ll save $1282 by purchasing their service upfront. The six month contract is meant to ensure satisfaction with their service. Pitching recommendations – especially exclusive recommendations – takes time, and many publishers only post gift guides once or twice a year. Depending on the time of year that you apply for recommendations, you may go a few months without publication from a larger source. In the meantime, prREACH will help get your products into smaller gift guides to ensure you’re still getting coverage. Their aim is to get your products published as frequently as they can, stating that their goal is as often as they can each month.
If you’re eager to access gift guide recommendations, you can purchase now by following this link. If you’re seeking any additional information or prefer the monthly option, you can book a call here.
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