Editorial doors open during Christmas that remain closed the rest of the year.

We’re heading into the holidays, and the warm shades of Autumn will soon be replaced by vivid evergreens, twinkling lights and jewel tones.

The holiday season is a unique period that offers heightened marketing opportunities for growth, customer engagement, and brand recognition not available most of the rest of the marketing year.

Here are 3 reasons media outreach during the holiday and Winter months delivers an improved return on investment:

1. A wider range of media niches are available

Holiday PR outreach is key for brands looking to extend their usual media footprint. TV shows, podcasts, magazines, blogs and influencers of all kinds who normally don’t feature items or services outside their niche are open to writing about a wide variety of products.

For example, if you are a brand that sells designs for decor - fitness media editors wouldn’t normally be interested in looking at your products. However, at Christmas, with gift guides to populate with interesting and unique products intended for all types of recipients, those beautiful decor items suddenly become relevant.

These gift guides vastly expand PR opportunities for all service and product-based companies:

Men’s media will write about jewelry and perfume; fitness media will write about linens and dishware; beauty media will cover gardening and cooking products. The usual niche confines of subject matter blow open for the next couple months!

2. Opportunities Within Your Niche Increase Exponentially

In addition to a wider range of media types, the writers and editors who usually cover your brand will vastly increase the number of stories they produce.

If you’re used to being in Domino, for example, normally just a few slots are available in each issue or monthly post count. During the holiday months those available slots multiply exponentially.

3. Readership Increases a Good Deal During the Holiday Months

The value of PR rests on getting eyes on your products and services in a non-biased way. Advertising is seen as less influential primarily for this reason. Anyone can run an ad, but a choice media outlet like Oprah or Vogue endorsing your product is unique and invaluable.

One demographic we use to measure the return on investment for PR is the number of pageviews or circulation rate that any given placement earns. During the holidays and throughout the Winter, those pageviews increase exponentially, making your product placement hits all the more valuable.

Not only do readers want ideas for gifts, recipes and decorations, but they have more time and interest in reading and consuming media during the Winter months than they do in the Spring and Summer. Days are shorter and colder in Winter, driving people indoors to warm up in front of the fire and bake cookies. Consumers read much more media in the colder months than at other times of the year.

There’s still plenty of time to get into gift guides and other holiday minded media. Editors publish and update their guides right up to Christmas and then piggyback into guides for New Year’s trends and Valentine’s Day.

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