Can you believe we’re already in the middle of the fourth quarter of 2021? It’s that time of year again, the time to start planning for holiday content and 2022 campaigns. This is one of the busiest times as we start to wrap up our year, and preparation is in full swing for holiday articles.

To capitalize on the holidays and to stay relevant to your audiences, your brand can gain significant exposure by pursuing Guaranteed Media Placements and reaching the audience of some of the nation’s largest print and digital newspapers.

Why newspapers are still an effective medium

The stats show that when it comes to getting trusted information, people rely on newspapers. Print is the advertising medium that consumers trust most – almost fifty percent of people trust print ads.

8 in 10 Americans read newspaper digital media each month. As consumers are looking for gift ideas and inspiration during the holiday season, Guaranteed Media Placements will help you reach a large, engaged audience and build valuable brand reputation.

Tips for writing a successful holiday Guaranteed Media Placement in 2021

1. Play to your brand’s strengths

One of the biggest challenges with holiday articles is generating ideas that adhere to a holiday’s traditions, but also that haven’t been covered ad nauseam. To write the best article, play on your brand’s strengths. Where is your expertise? What do you know a lot about? What can your article say that others cannot?

2. Write helpful content

Use your brand’s expertise to write a helpful article with new ideas and meaningful information.

Focus on tips and how-to content. Your article should answer readers’ questions, address a common concern or ease the stress about a specific issue.

3. Stay away from technical jargon

Newspapers have a large enough audience that it’s hard to identify who does or does not understand the technical details of certain industries. Including technical jargon may exclude a large part of your audience and will detract people from reading your article in full.

4. Break up text

Create an easy reading experience by using bullet points, numbers, bold copy, and/or short paragraphs. Breaking up the copy in this way helps readers easily find the information they’re most interested in. They’ll also be able to quickly understand what your article is about.

5. Limit your word count

The most popular type of Guaranteed Media Placement, MAT release articles, are generally shorter than they used to be. We see most successful MAT release articles are now between 400-600 words. This shorter word count makes it easier for readers to scan and consume an article.

6. Do not include a specific holiday in the title

You don’t want to limit your audience by only writing for those who celebrate one specific holiday. Rather, use the word “holiday” in your content to encompass the general season. This gives you the ability to spread your message to a larger audience.

7. Include lifestyle photos

Include a high-quality photo in your article, most preferably a lifestyle photo that shows people interacting. A product photo is not as engaging and could make the Media Placement look like an ad. If you want to include a product photo, it should only be submitted as a secondary photo. Just know it won’t appear on Brandpoint’s digital network.

Bonus Tip: Use controlled media to stay relevant in 2021

Finding ways to distribute controlled media is a constant battle for many brands. In Guaranteed Media Placements, you have the opportunity to control your message and be extra mindful of your audience. In the post-pandemic world, using empathy and being aware of your audience is crucial. Here are a few things to keep in mind this year:

• Adjust your messaging: After the pandemic, for some life seems to be moving forward as usual while others are remaining cautious and socially distanced. Be aware of this discontinuity in celebration around the holidays and try to cater your messaging to both groups, and everyone in between. Your brand’s job is to help people keep certain traditions alive, as well as create new ones.
• Be extra mindful of the earlier season: The holiday season gets pushed out earlier and earlier each year, so it’s important to be early to the game. The pandemic encouraged people to be extra festive earlier since we were all at home, so it’s likely that practice will continue. If you’re in food and beverage or in entertaining, time your MAT campaigns early!
• Provide an escape from the news: Between political news and COVID-19, many people are experiencing major news fatigue. By supplying positive, helpful and constructive Media Placements, you’ll be offering your consumers a well-deserved respite.

Popular holiday topics editors are looking for

Guaranteed Media Placements are an excellent option for brands who don’t want to be limited in creativity and messaging. You also have control over the copy and storyline, which is a benefit you don’t get when pitching ideas to writers and editors. Here are a few topics editors tend to pick up and consumers tend to enjoy:

1. Food

Baking and big family dinners are a holiday staple, and people are always looking for new recipe ideas and ways to save time on cooking. Your article could list the top condiments for holiday dinners or list no-bake appetizers. Another popular food topic is how to eat healthy during the holidays. This could list helpful tips for the top foods to avoid, or how to turn a popular treat into something more nutritious.

2. Gifts

You’ve probably experienced the struggle of coming up with inexpensive gift ideas for friends and family members. It’s tough! Offer ideas for specific interests such as outdoors types or bookworms. Show how to make a homemade gift item out of products you already have in your house. Or suggest ideas for a gift basket and include your product as one of the items. As long as your ideas are original and not over-the-top (an $800 electric device will not be realistic for everyone), your article will be helpful to readers.

3. Saving money

The holidays are known as one of the most expensive times of the year. Articles with ideas for saving money – on gifts, parties, travel and more – are always a popular topic among editors, and readers tend to flock to articles that give advice on how to cut costs without sacrificing results.

4. Entertaining

The holidays are perhaps the biggest entertaining season of the year. Help ease the stress of planning a festive gathering by giving advice on holiday decorating, cooking for large groups, games and activities, quick house preparation, easy cleanup and other topics that will help hosts throw a memorable party.

5. Traveling

Train, plane or automobile – so many people travel during the holiday season. Whether it’s hitting the red-eye flight to Grandmother’s house or loading up the kids for a cross-country trek to spend the holidays on the beach, travel during this time of year is hectic. Articles that address common concerns and give simple solutions tend to see good performance.

How to get more out of your Guaranteed Media Placements

As you’ve seen above, including Guaranteed Media Placements in your campaigns is an effective way to significantly increase the number of eyes on your content. But, if you want to add some extra oomph to your product release during the holiday season, you have a few options. These ideas all relate to the digital portion of Media Placements.

1. Get social media in the picture

Many Guaranteed Media Placement packages include print and digital opportunities for distribution. With our Social Promotion service, we also provide social promotion. This is a perfect way to get one piece of content seen in as many channels as possible.

With Social Promotion, you can partner with the media publisher who’s posting your Guaranteed Media Placement and take advantage of all the fans and followers they have on Facebook and Instagram.

2. Think clickable

You want to make your print headlines attention-grabbing, and the same can be said for online ones. No, no clickbait, please, but you DO want to make your article titles enticing — what we call “thumb-stopping.” (As in, you’re absent-mindedly scrolling through a content feed online, but something interests you so much, your thumb stops on the screen.)

3. Look into all your promotion options

Content syndication, audience targeting, native advertising options: there are so many ways to upgrade your Guaranteed Media Placements. You can choose between two promotion styles to help your placements reach your target audience:

• Guaranteed Traffic & Guaranteed Engagement includes boosting your content on various special interest and news sites, driving traffic directly to your brand’s site or your article on the publisher site, guaranteeing traffic and engagement.
• Social Promotion has the same premise, but rather than boosting content on the publisher site, your content will get promoted on the publisher’s Facebook or Instagram pages. You can drive targeted readers to your brand’s site or to your article on the publisher site, guaranteeing traffic and engagement.

Both options include audience targeting, based on location, interest and device.

Now, with Brandpoint’s new reporting model, all of your metrics from your distribution campaign will live in one cohesive report. Your campaign results are easy to share with our new export options, saving you time in presenting your results to your team or client. We have a new interactive map that will allow you to see exactly where you picked up placements, and we are measuring more metrics than ever before.

Act now

Holiday content becomes irrelevant after January 1, unlike other content, which can run for four months. With a shorter timeline, it’s important to plan, write and distribute your content well before the holidays hit. As we get closer to the holidays, more and more brands submit content, so your competition for placement increases. The sooner you act, the more time your article will have to secure earned media coverage.

While there is a sense of urgency for holiday content, you still have time to get your Guaranteed Media Placements distributed. But with end of year planning and 2022 budgeting, you may not have the time to formulate an article. You can always try to repurpose the content you already have  – for instance, take an old blog post and freshen it up for 2021.

Brandpoint is always here to help you plan and write your articles. So reach out to us and we can help you no matter which step of the process you’re on.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September, 2013 and has been updated for relevancy and comprehensiveness.