1

Holiday Gift Guides:Festive Product Discovery Inspiration

2

In 2018, online holiday sales are projected to

reach $123.4 billion

IntroductionThere’s a reason the holidays are the biggest time of year for ecommerce brands. In 2017, over $106.1 billion was generated in online holiday sales – an incredible 14 percent increase from 2016. Naturally, this trend is expected to contin-ue, with $123.4 billion projected for 2018 online holiday sales(1). The holiday shopping season will always be the most profitable and important time of year for brands, and therefore it’s highly likely your marketing team has invested a signifi-cant amount of time and money into priming your website for these holiday shoppers.

If you haven’t included content in your holiday plans, you should – 61 percent of consumers have reported they are more likely to purchase from a brand that provides custom content(2), and this will be doubly true during the holidays. Shoppers have come to expect an elevated shopping experience that provides inspiration as well as products, and during the stress of the hol-idays, they’ll appreciate content that makes the product discovery process easy. When designing content for the holiday shopper, your digital con-tent should make guided selling a priority.

In this ebook, we’ll explore why holiday gift guides are the most high-impact content format for the holiday shopping season, and why they gener-ate the most return on investment. We’ll feature live examples by leading ecommerce brands: Godiva, Harvey Nichols, and Kipling.

3

Gift guides take the stress out of holiday

shopping by providing guidance and inspiration

Why Gift Guides?

Holiday shopping for most consumers (perhaps yourself included) is often an overwhelming pro-cess. Shoppers usually have a seemingly endless list of loved ones that they are buying for, each with their own unique tastes and preferences. Finding the perfect gift for everyone – children, spouses, parents, in-laws, siblings, co-workers, friends, etc – can seem impossible. Therefore, your goal as a digital marketer should be to make this process easier for your customers.

When you begin planning your holiday content strategy, always keep two themes in mind: guid-ance and inspiration. The holiday shopper rare-ly begins the process with a specific gift in mind and will likely be relying on their favorite brands for product recommendations. The easiest and most engaging way to do this is through holiday gift guides.

Gift guides can come in many forms – a long form interactive experience, a digital quiz, even a video gallery – but what unifies them is how they inspire shoppers to buy based on the gift recipient. Cus-tomers will appreciate how your content takes the guesswork out of holiday shopping, making the typically stressful process easy (and even enjoyable). Gift guides make your brand a one-stop holiday shopping destination, increasing your onsite conversions while decreasing cus-tomer frustration.

4

Godiva

to “Far Off Family,” finding the prefect present is fast and easy. And with rich on-brand visuals, the collection is truly brought to life in all its holiday glory.

What truly makes this gift guide experience a home run is how easy and effortless it is to shop. All gifts are denoted with a clickable plus sign or a “SHOP NOW” text option. Through integrated quickviews, customers can click these to activate an ecommerce-enabled lightbox, allowing them to instantly add an item to their cart. Incorporating this instant shoppability is especially important during the holiday season. When holiday shopping, consumers are usually strapped for time and want to make the process as fast as possible. One-click shopping removes several steps from the path to purchase, getting shoppers to checkout faster than ever. Your custom-ers will appreciate how you streamline the holiday shopping process.

Godiva’s “Top 10 Gift Guide” is a perfect example of holiday con-tent done right. This long-form experience organizes Godiva’s seasonal chocolate collection by gift recipient, making it easy for shoppers to quickly find thechocolate gift that will be sure to delight. From “Chocolate Purist”

TIP: Integrated quickviews make the shopping process fast and easy

5

From office holiday party outfits to some much-needed self-care, there are endless opportu-nities for consumers to make personal purchases during the holiday season – meaning there are additional opportunities for guided selling. Harvey Nichols’ “Christmas Party Survival Guide” experience takes the reader through a day of holiday party prep, with wry commentary and product recommendations for every step.

It’s a fun, fresh, and unique buying guide that will instantly speak to the Harvey Nichols shopper. It is so perfectly on brand, telling a distinct story that is just as genuinely helpful and practical as any gift guide. Consider offering two gift guides to your customers; one for when they’re feeling generous, and one for some much-needed selfish purchases.

Harvey Nichols

During the holiday shopping season, it’s easy for retailers to get tunnel vision when it comes to content creation. Most brands focus entirely on creating gift guides for the shopper looking to cross every name off their list, but that strategy entirely neglects another type of customer: the customer that’s shopping for themselves.

TIP: Create holiday gift guides for every type of shopper, including those shopping for themselves

6

collection of products chosen specifically for their unique personality. Integrated quickviews allow shoppers to instantly add the final product selection to their cart.

Digital quizzes are a no-brainer for holiday gift guides; it mimics the personalized experience of working with a sales rep in a brick-and-mortar store, but in an onsite experience. And instead of being forced to search through category pages and scroll through endless grids, the quiz narrows down the entire storewide selection into the items best suited for their loved one. The process is easy, and most importantly, it’s even fun - something everyone needs during the stressful holiday shopping season. And as an added bonus, quizzes are known engagement metrics boosters, improving time-on-page and session duration.

Kipling

To guide shoppers to the per-fect gift, Kipling delivers effort-less product discovery through their holiday gift finder quiz. Customers are asked a series of thoughtful questions regarding their present recipient’s tastes and plans, ending with a curated

TIP: Digital quizzes create a personalized shopping experience

7

Conclusion

About ZmagsZmags helps ecommerce marketers create and publish rich digital experiences through a user-friendly interface that requires no IT involvement. Using Creator by Zmags, brands can create fresh, shoppable content that drives product discovery and inspires consumers to purchase. Creator integrates with all leading ecommerce and content management platforms enabling marketers to optimize their website content. Leading brands like Ethan Allen, Harvey Nichols, New York & Company, Vivienne Westwood, All Things BBQ, and Godiva use Creator by Zmags to deliver interactive and entertaining shopping experiences with rich content like buying guides, quizzes, lookbooks, video, and more. To learn more, visit www.zmags.com.

To learn more, visit www.zmags.com.

When planning your holiday content, do your customers a favor and make gift guides a prior-ity. They can come in all shapes and sizes; from quizzes, to lookbooks, to longform experienc-es, to videos, and everything in between. But to make them true holiday conversion boosters, be sure they:

1. Make shopping fun – incorporate on-brand graphics and storytelling to create a unique and entertaining customer experience

2. Make shopping easy – keep navigation simple, and curate product collections to facilitate effortless product discovery

3. Make shopping fast – implement quick-views to provide instant shoppability

The holiday season is stressful for online shop-pers. The brands that recognize this and strive to alleviate some of this seasonally-induced stress are the ones that gain consumers’ loyalty and dollars.

(1)https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/holi-day-shopping-online

(2)https://www.dragon360.com/blog/digi-tal-content-marketing-strategy/