Episode 133: Create Gift Guides Your Audience Will Devour with Bethany Smith

Intro:

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Megan Porta:

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Bethany Smith:

Hi, I am here.

Megan:

So, Bethany and I are doing this Eat Blog Talk community platform together as most of you know, and each month we have a main focus. For example, this next month in September, we are focusing on how to get through Q4 in the best, most productive way possible. Finding you extra ways to diversify and get revenue into your business. And we thought that this topic, creating a gift guide would be a really relevant thing to kind of throw into that category. Because it’s something that some food bloggers do, but it’s not something that all of us have done. So we just wanted to talk out some things to give you ideas about how to get started with doing a gift guide and maybe like best practices. And hopefully this will help you to diversify your revenue streams coming into Q4. So, just to start, we were talking before the interview about, first of all, where you house something like this. I think typically it is housed on your blog, within a blog post. And we will talk a little bit later about the Amazon influencers program, which I don’t know a ton about, but Bethany is going to shed some light on that. And then as far as styles, if you’re doing a post within your blog, there are different styles you can do. So you could do like Roundup style, which I think we’ve all dabbled in, like having an image and then maybe a copy and a link and just a few sentences, you know, to describe it. Or, we could do more Pinterest style where we have little thumbnails and then people have to click over to the product that you have in your gift guide. So you kind of have to decide which style you’re doing and how you’re housing it. And then beyond that, we had a few little tips we wanted to talk through. So Bethany, maybe you could start out just by running through a few tips before you even start your guidance.

Bethany:

Yeah. So, I mean, just to kind of summarize what you were already saying too, we think gift guides are great, a great idea, um, to drive affiliate revenue, or we were actually talking, I just looked at one that you had done, Megan, that was linking to, um, just like DIY gifts that you can make, um, from your recipes, right? So like, you’re saying this cookie recipe would be great to give for the holidays, or you can make someone, I think you had a vanilla, something on there making vanilla or making it like potpourri or different things like that. Um, so if you have recipes like that, you could kind of do a gift guide of just all of your things and drive traffic to your own stuff that way. Um, but I think what we’re focusing on more with this, in this conversation is probably, um, with the affiliate, working with the affiliates to do something like that. Um, so you think if you’re thinking through a gift guide, um, it’s good to think of a target, often. I mean, if you have a very specific niche, it could be about that, but you can do gifts for moms gifts, for bakers, gifts for preschoolers. I know I’ve used guides like this a lot, especially with my young kids. I’m like, I don’t know what would be good for this age. Right. Um, and I’m sure a lot of people are not great at gift buying and look for things like this all the time. Um, and they don’t have to be just for Christmas. They can be for, if you have one for moms, like gifts for moms, you can then use it for mother’s day. You can use it for all sorts of different holidays. Um, so when you’re thinking of what items to put in there, think of ones that you actually love and ones that would be on brand for you. Um, I think it’s fine, actually, great to use some things that maybe, I mean, maybe your brand, you know, you’re, you’re a food blogger, so it probably revolves around cooking somewhat. But if you have things that you use with your kids that you really love, um, I think it’s great to include something like that too, that you use around your house. People would be like, Oh, I’m so glad, like, they told me about this thing, you know? Um, and then I think the key for making some revenue with this is to have a mixture of prices. Because if you focus just on the low end ones, you’re not gonna make very much money from it. Right. So be sure to include some high end options and have, um, a variety, I think. So I think a KitchenAid mixer is really good. Like just put that on there, you know.

Megan:

Everyone loves the KitchenAid mixer.

Bethany:

I mean somebody may click and, um, Oh my gosh, I don’t remember the specifics, but with Amazon associates, if someone has clicked over from your page, like anything they buy for a certain amount of time will still be credited to you. Um, and so it’s not always just about what you have listed on there cause they may purchase other things too.

Megan:

Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. They have something red and shiny like a KitchenAid mixer. So they do click over and then maybe they remember they have to buy a handful of other things and then you do get a percentage of that as well. So it’s good to have red shiny objects.

Bethany:

Yeah. Or like whatever color they’ve come out with lately.

Megan:

Yes. Right. The most recent color. Yeah. Okay. So just a couple of things on that. So thinking like your audience thinks, put yourself in their shoes and know their likes, know their wants, but also that, that has to align with things that you enjoy obviously. And I was going to mention, if you want ideas about what a gift guide kind of looks like and what they look like when they’re put together, go to a website like Parade that does this sort of thing all the time. And they have so many ideas that you can just kind of browse through. And that always inspires me. Um, also you can get ideas about what kinds of products are, you know, trendy or whatever. And people are actually wanting. And they have, um, gift guides and roundups for literally every kind of topic you can ever imagine. So it might just give you some ideas.

Bethany:

Yeah, that’s a good place. I’m looking at them right now and 10 gifts for good night’s sleep.

Megan:

There you go. Everyone wants a good night’s sleep. Yeah. So it doesn’t just have to be about Christmas. I mean, we all think of gift guides for Christmas, and yes, because everyone hates digging into Christmas present buying. I feel like, but think about other types or other times of the year too, like mother’s day, father’s day. I feel like fathers are always so hard to buy for everybody. I don’t know, like your dad’s birthday gifts or you could go really generic too. So it doesn’t just have to be about Christmas.

Bethany:

Yeah, I think birthdays, doing a gift guide for birthdays would work well. I mean, if some of this is going to be very like SEO friendly, very Pinterest friendly, um, you know, it’s kind of some evergreen content that you can get out there. I mean, update it once in a while to make sure the products are still there.

Megan:

Right? Sure. That’s a good point too. Make a point to go back and just make sure that the products are available, et cetera. Um, okay. So what else do you have for tips?

Bethany:

I mean, I think that covered it just, yeah, like you said, thinking through, um, your audience and what you love and what they love. Um, and then probably I’d say, be sure to make it a little bit specific. I wouldn’t just say, like, gift guide, it’s a like ha you know, whatever your niche is like, or, you know, I’d have the title be a little bit more specific. So people, um, kind of come in with that hook.

Megan:

Yeah. Because gifts for Christmas, that’s way too generic. So get really down to it. Who would these gifts be for, and exactly what are you buying for? And then I think people are much more likely to click over. So let’s talk about, we talked about this a little bit too Bethany, but product photos. Because if you’re compiling a gift guide, the photos are available online, but should you be doing that save as, and just taking the photos and putting them on your own site? Or should you be asking permission? I always, when I’m doing these things for myself, I always err on the side of caution with that because I just never want it to be that person who’s stealing photos and then gets caught in a juicy scandal. Like she’s a photo thief. I mean, typically if you’re, if somebody is selling a product, they want it to be sold. So probably they’re okay with it. But I think it’s probably always good to ask, but how do you know where to go if you find the product on Amazon and you, there’s not a clear way about how to contact somebody? Like what are your thoughts on that?

Bethany:

Yeah. I mean, it can get complicated. I feel like when you said save as, probably like most of our listeners just cringed a bit and was like, why is that even a feature? So, yeah, I think it’s sort of a complicated issue and I want to see sort of a gray area, but maybe not a gray area, which is only sort of helpful. Um, so I’ve done some, especially with Amazon, I’ve done some research on this because when I, my first actual project with a food blogger was creating an Amazon shop page. Um, so basically like a page on her website where, um, I then pulled in pictures from Amazon and, um, then linked to the product through Amazon, um, associates. Um, and so then several other people asked me to build these pages. And so I got more and more into it. And, um, one reason I don’t do it now and I don’t encourage people to do it that way anymore is because of this photo issue. Um, so Amazon says, I believe, although it’s very vague in their wording, is that you can’t just take an image and save it on like on your website, like on your server. Um, but the way they want you to do it is through an API. Which, I mean, I only sort of know what an API is. Basically an API is a way to connect one, like platform to another platform. Right. And so there’s these plugins you can get if you’re in Amazon, I always want to say Amazon affiliate, but it’s Amazon associates.

Megan:

I do the same thing

Bethany:

If you’re an Amazon associate technically to do it right. Like you should have this plugin that, um, pulls in your API, um, if you are displaying images,. But a lot of the ways people use Amazon associates is, um, just with links and you’re not necessarily using those pictures. Um, so if you’ve downloaded, um, pictures off of Amazon and linked to them that way, I, I think that’s probably not the best way, although I don’t think that Amazon is really policing that situation and I’ve not heard of anyone, like I’ve looked, I’ve not heard of anyone getting a copyright, like, um, issue with that. But, um, it’s probably not the best way. So yeah, I think, asking, so what if you’re doing Amazon associates and you have the, um, you have the correct plugin that will, uh, pull this over, which there are several, you can just Google it. Um, cause obviously I don’t remember right now. That’s why he told you to Google it. Um, but uh, you can, you can display it that way. Um, you can also then, so if you find, just go to the manufacturer’s website and you can often find a way to email them through there and say, can I do this? And different affiliate programs will tell you different things. And so I would go with whatever they’re saying, if you’re working with another one and you say, Hey, can I just save this image and use it? You know, these companies have agreed to be in your affiliate program. What are your policies with this? I would just go with what that company says to do. If it’s on Amazon, I would say you need to, email them, either just don’t do it and I’ll get to a way to do it on Amazon. Another way actually. Um, or Amazon that or Amazon email, the actual, um, company that provided the photo onto Amazon. Right? Cause I mean, Amazon’s all, well, not all, but mostly like third party stuff. So just find the original company that posted.

Megan:

Yeah. I mean, it’s like so daunting though. If you want to put an killer gift guide together that has like 50 images, the thought of reaching out to all of those different companies just sounds like I would rather not do that, honestly. So I mean putting text, yes. But people like to see images. I mean, obviously you could take the photos yourself if you have the product, but clearly you’re not going to go buy every single product on your gift guide.

Bethany:

Yeah. You could do a combo too, where you have like pictures, images of some of them and then some of them are links. So that’s a way to add more to your gift guide without emailing everybody with that. Or, yeah, like you said, if you do have the product, you can take your own, your own picture of it. But with Amazon, there is a way which is what I suggest now. So through the Amazon influencers program. So you need to be an Amazon associate and then on top of that, you can apply to be an Amazon influencer, um, which is their program more for social, they say it’s for social media influencers. But um, I think food bloggers fall really well into this category also. Um, so then what happens is then you can create a storefront on Amazon. So when it lives specifically on your website, but you can link to it from your website, you can even have it in your menu bar drop down, you know, you have a shop thing and that just takes you to Amazon. Um, and so on there you can organize, I mean, you can make gift guides through that and that’s linked directly to the products on Amazon and, um, your homepage, you can categorize into different categories. So you could have like cookbooks and then people click and then they’ll see all the cookbooks that you have in there. And it’s really nice because it’s already on the Amazon platform. People are really familiar with it. People might even have other things in their shopping cart that then you’re going to get revenue from that when they purchase everything together. Um, so I think it’s a good solution. Um, they do say you need to have some sort of social media presence and I don’t think it needs to be very large. Um, I don’t know a specific number. They haven’t said a specific number that I could find. But I think if you have 500 followers on Instagram and you’re active on there, you should apply wherever Facebook or YouTube that you have those followers. Um, I think that probably what they’re looking for is just that you’re there, you’re active. You’re engaging with your audience, um, to get, to get approved.

Megan:

Do you have an example? I was just looking at the application to get in and it looks fairly simple, but I’ve just like, I don’t know if I’ve seen this in real life.

Bethany:

Yeah. I don’t think it’s, um, something that people are using a ton of. So I said, um, it’s newer. I don’t know when it started. I don’t think it’s like six months ago. I set up one for Emma Duckworth Bakes, and I’m not sure where she has it linked to, linked from, but if you wanted to go to just amazon.com/shop/Emma Duckworthbakes, you can, you can see that one there. And actually let me double check my, I think this other, this other person I follow, who’s not a food blogger. I think they do it to. Let me see where it goes. If I click on here.

Megan Porta:

Okay. I found hers. Oh, that’s really nice. So it’s like a separate entity here that you can link to from your blog, correct?

Bethany:

Yeah. And we can link to that in the show notes too. So.

Megan:

It looks really clean and I’m guessing that you can just create different collections within here, right. And then direct people to those collections. So if you have a gift guide for moms for Christmas over the age of 40, you could put that in here and get really specific with the collections that you create. I mean, really this is the way to go because I am just, I would not follow through with asking permission for tons of photos that are already on Amazon. So if this is as easy as it looks, this is the route that I would personally go. Why aren’t people doing this more? Is it just that new?

Bethany:

I think people just don’t know about it. I don’t think it’s something that has been promoted a lot. I think that the term influencer makes people think it’s kind of something that it’s not. Especially in the food blogging world. Right. Like I don’t think many food bloggers, I mean, we kind of know like, Oh yeah, we’re an influencer, but like I’ve not really heard food bloggers identify themselves as that. Right. Like, so I think it’s just kind of this disconnect. And then I think people are afraid when it says, um, you have to have a social following. Like it makes it sound like you have to have 5 million people or whatever following you. Um, which is not the case.

Megan:

Yeah. But food bloggers all have followings on some level. So I mean even any number of followers I think would probably be sufficient for that. Don’t you think?

Bethany:

Yeah. I mean, I don’t think you have to have very many, I think, I mean, you probably have to show that you’re active, show that you have some people engaging with you. Um, you know, so I don’t, I would just apply. Like what’s the worst that can happen. They say, no, they say, even on there, I think they say, if we don’t approve you now try again in a month or whenever, you know. So, but I think this is their solution to the type of thing that, um, food bloggers want to deal with is have their own shop page. Right. And because of some of the issues we were talking about before, there’s a lot of issues also around, you’re not supposed to list price. Um, you’re not supposed to list all sorts of certain things unless you’re doing this API thing or you’re doing whatever. Um, this is the solution they came up with. Um, and I think it is nice because then if anything changes, if the price changes, if somebody, if the product gets deleted, it’s just deleted from here. Um, if somebody changes the, the image, like it’s just all automatically updated and it’s really a lot less work for you. I mean the only, the only drawback is that I know a lot of people want to keep everything kind of on their, on their webpage, right. Or on their blog. So then, you know, you’re still on there and they can click to other recipes and stuff. So, I mean, that is a drawback. But besides that, um, I think this is definitely the way to go.

Megan Porta:

Well, I’m intrigued by this. I am going to look into this myself because I definitely want to put some gift guides together this year, just as a way to kind of back up my revenue, revenue backups. So I think this is a really easy way to do that, especially through a handy little program like this. So Amazon influencers, if you are not on there, go check it out. Apply. Like Bethany said, it really can’t hurt to apply and see what happens and just promote it from your website. Could you link to it from emails? I know that like linking to Amazon affiliates, anything is kind of questionable for emails. Do you know anything about that, Bethany?

Bethany:

Yes. So that’s also why yes. You can link to it and yes, linking, I think it’s linking directly to a product from email is a problem with associates, right? Like you’re not supposed to link directly to product from email. But this like just your storefront, you probably still can’t do directly a product, but you can link to your store and you could link to any of the like categories in your store would be fine.

Megan:

Well, that’s really cool. So there is a solution for you guys to eliminate all of that hassle that you probably are thinking about, just like me. So this year go create a gift guide. Okay. So once you get it set, let’s talk about ways that we can promote it. We just talked about email. We can get that circulating through email and maybe do a series leading up. Oh, here’s another thing, like make sure to do gift guides before the holiday. Well, before the holiday and not like the week before, because people are thinking about holidays well in advance. Especially Christmas people do their Christmas shopping early. So what do you think about how far in advance we should be thinking about specifically Christmas gift guides?

Bethany:

I mean like over the summer. I mean, for Christmas, like you’re kind of just always behind, you know, um, cause people will search for that year round too. And I mean, in some ways, especially with Google and Pinterest, you know, your gift guide from a year ago may start doing well the next year. Um, but, I mean more practically speaking, I guess, two to three months before. So like once September hits, it really start, you know, thinking about putting together a gift guide and just getting it out there a little bit. Um, that’s one thing that’s nice about this Amazon influencers, um, shop page is that then you can create a gift guide there. You don’t have to worry about it coming up on your blog and being like, it feels too early to have this on my blog. Do I need to hide it? Do I need to do whatever. If you’re pulling in like your latest posts and it’s September 1st and there’s a gift guide, like this feels awkward, um, you know, having somewhere totally separate, you can create that. You can start putting pins up for it. Um, doing that sort of thing. And then maybe a little bit later, you start pushing on social and then you could even create a page on your website that does link. Hey, I have this gift guide or do a couple of gift guides, like link out to the Amazon influencer shop page.

Megan:

You could even SEO optimize that, right? Create a post and put some keywords in there so that Google can maybe pick up your post, which links to your Amazon influencer shop. Correct?

Bethany:

And I think that these Amazon shops do, um, come up, I’m trying to search for a couple. I’m sure. Well, I guess I’m not sure. I think they do come up on Google. Um, but you wouldn’t have. Yeah. Cause I just found this one. I did have to search for Amazon shop. Um, but they, I don’t like, I don’t know how you would necessarily increase like the ranking of your shop, but if the title of your, um, gift guide was something people were searching for, it is indexed in Google. And so then it could, it could be found that way.

Megan:

That’s really helpful. My wheels are turning for sure. So other ways to promote gift guides outside of blog posts and SEO optimization and emails. There’s Pinterest, it’s really visual as you all know, but if we don’t have permission to use specific photos, I mean, maybe we could get permission for just like a handful of the photos within the gift guide so that we could put them on a Pinterest graphic. I think that’s a good idea instead of like, I don’t know, getting a bunch of them, just pick out the two or three that are really visually appealing or like we were talking about before maybe a trendy new color of KitchenAid or whatever you’re getting. And put that on your pin to kind of draw people in that way. Or you could go without the photo and just create a graphic, like maybe a graphic, like implying gifts or a certain season, and then putting a font on it. I’ve seen those too on Pinterest. And some of those do really well.

Bethany Smith:

If you have, you know, a product, if you have one or two of the things on your gift guide, you can take a photo of it. Um, and you could also do like the results, like a, you know, I don’t know, depending on what your, what your, um, gift guide has on it, right? Like you could, if it’s an Instant Pot or something, you could just have a finished, you know, you could just put up a picture, you were kind of saying this, but just put up a picture of a finished dish and you know, nobody knows if, if you made that an Instant Pot or not, you know, but just something, um, that’s related to kind of what it was. You already said that, but, yeah, I think there’s a lot of ways around that.

Megan:

We are all experts in the realm of creating amazing Pinterest graphics because we do it all the time for our food. So we, most of us know about Canva and just the amazing, um, photos and graphics they have in there. So you can even go into Canva and explore the different categories. They recently came out with this new, um, like homepage where you can create based on what you need, like what your end product is. So if you go in there, you can find a Pinterest pin and then it gives you all of these amazing recommendations. I don’t know what comes up if you type in a gift guide, but I’m sure they have something that would be appealing to you. Outside of Pinterest SEO, email list, Instagram too, you could promote there.

Bethany:

On social. For sure. And social, I would do, closer to like when it is, you know, we kind of talked about creating them say in, in September, which is why we’re talking about it now. Um, but yeah, if you’re doing it, I mean, you can mention it on social and say, Hey, I just created this if you’re interested, but then, you know, um, save, I mean, if it’s for Christmas, right? After like once November hits, then I really start pushing it, you know? And you can think of ones that are really specific, like for black Friday or for, you know, whatever, like getting, getting kind of on that. Um, too. So you just kind of, I mean, promote it, food bloggers, like you guys know how to promote things, right? Like that’s what you do with your recipes. Just be sure to promote this in the same way and put it out there. Like, I don’t think that anything should be that different. Just think of it like a holiday recipe or something, and you know, you need to get out there early with some of that stuff.

Megan:

Yeah. Thinking through it ahead of time, which we are definitely used to. So I think we’ve talked through pretty much everything. Am I missing anything? Just kind of general tips, places to get started, ways to promote products, to use, think through the lens of your audience and also things that you like, things that you love also just take a peek around your house. And what things do you personally use all the time or what have you gotten for a birthday or Christmas gift recently, if you are a woman age 40, you know, then you know what maybe other women age 40 are going to like. Or if you have a husband and he loved the beard brush you got him, then maybe you put that on a men’s guide. So just thinking through like your own family and their loves and needs and asking families and family members and friends too, I think is a good route to go. Like, what is your favorite gift? What’s the favorite gift you got in the past year? Also kind of keeping an eye on trendy, uh, new products. And we had mentioned trendy colors every year. It seems like there’s a trendy new color for appliances. And just keeping an eye on all of that as you put your gift guide together. But this is all really good. I am super pumped. I want to go create one right now.

Bethany:

Yeah. I mean, I think that they’re really easy things that are actually sort of click baity, but have real content in it. I always click on stuff like this and I’m not really one who does that. I don’t know what to buy somebody, what’s on this list? Like, I don’t know. They’re just so inherently interesting for some reason. Um, so yeah, I think any of these options are great. And just, even if it’s just other recipes, um, on your site, uh, or think about, um, I’ve seen some posts before where it’s like, these are all the cookies you should, you should put together for like a cookie tin that you give to your friends and family. Or, you know, like there’s so many options of things you could do with this.

Megan:

I know, there are like DIY stuff or, I mean, yeah. I mean, there are so many routes you can go in. Again, go to a place like Parade and browse through there. And I promise you, you’re going to come away with a few ideas about new spins or I don’t know a holiday you should have on your radar or something.

Bethany:

Check out the Amazon influencer.

Megan:

Yes, I am already almost all through my application just as we’ve been talking. I’m through the verification. I have to verify on Instagram.

Bethany:

See how easy it is?

Megan:

Yes. It’s that easy. I’ve been interviewing and applying it to be on the Amazon influencers program. Okay. So I think we covered a lot, Bethany. We will put together some of these ideas in our show notes for this episode. And those will be at eatblogtalk.com/giftguides. And I think that’s all. You know where to find Bethany and me. So if you have any questions about this or anything else, please feel free to reach out. Thank you for listening today, food bloggers. I will see you next time.

Intro:

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