One thing that almost every Mommy Blogger and Parenting site does around the holidays is create a gift guide. Because everyone has them, they aren’t as special anymore, they aren’t unique for a site to feature and they may start to become a bit less profitable. That is why you have to start getting creative with your gift guides. Think about niche marketing and how you can offer something more relevant to your readers. You could basically create unique and niche gift guides that will make your readers lives easier, and help you to stand out from the thousands of other Mommy Blogger gift guides out there. Here are 5 examples of unique gift guides and why they could be what makes people pay attention to your gift guides instead of a different Mommy Bloggers’ Gift Guide. This should actually be part of my making money online in Q4 blog posts.
1. Autism or Special Needs Gift Guide
For the most part this doesn’t exist. I think the current statistic is one out of 99 kids or people in the US has Autism. Parents, family and friends don’t know what to do when the holidays come and don’t know what makes a gift safe, appropriate or Autism and Sensory Disorder friendly. By creating a gift guide about products that are selected for a special needs person like a kid with Autism, you have now created something that can be link bait, more likely to be shared and also something that is extremely useful. You could also use other disorders and issues where people need to be cautious of what they buy. (Time for a shameless plug for a client). A perfect place to start is with sites like my client NationalAutismResources.com where the founder has hand selected over 1,400+ products that can be given as gifts and are able to be helpful to kids and people with Autism, sensory disorders, etc… They have an Affiliate Program on Share a Sale with a full datafeed, widgets and everything else ready to go.
You could break your Autism Gift Guide out by:
School
Toys
Educational products
Toddlers
Kids
Teenagers
Grown Ups
Other
Gift Guides for Parents With Gay Kids
This is one that I also don’t see often. With National Coming Out day in October and National Pride Month, the amount of kids and teenagers starting to come out is growing every year. Parents, family members, friends of gay people and everyone else are all looking for different things. Gay people that are out currently make up 10% of the US population and when you think about their family and friends, this is a huge opportunity to help kids, help their families and help your readers show their support for their gay friends.
You can organize the gay gift guide like this:
Parents
Coping with gay children – Include books, videos, etc…
Support materials – Organizations, tshirts, etc…
Teenagers coming out
Support materials – books, brochures, memberships to events and groups, etc…
Gifts – Pride jewelry, pride clothing, gift certificates to gay stores, memberships to gay organizations
Kids With Gay Parents
Educational materials – books about two same sex parents, group gifts to events like Rosie’s family cruise or Gay Days at Disney, etc…
Gifts – My two moms or dads tshirts, etc…
A Gag Gift Guide
I don’t see many gift guides out there for these. They are fun for everyone and when people are ready to shop in Q4, impulse buys like Gag Gifts are the perfect ones. Everything from fake puke for under the tree, toilet monster’s for house guests and even fake lottery tickets as gifts are always classic impulse buys that sell like crazy.
Here’s how to set up a Gag Gift Guide
Family members
Dad
Mom
Teenagers
Girls
Boys
Kids
Girls
Boys
Friends
Best friends
Frenemies
Acquaintences
Other
Grab bag gifts
Office party gifts
Offbeat – bacon ties or bacon flavored popcorn or other random things.
Stocking stuffers
Gift Guides for Helping With Self Esteem
This one can be great for Parents that read your blog with bullying and other things as taboo subjects right now. You could include self esteem for kids, people going through break ups or divorce, weight loss and self image, etc… Here is an example of a self esteem gift guide.
Parents
For their kids – Posters, spa days, a professional photo shoot, etc….
Kids to buy for their parents – Over the hill and active lifestyle sites, Best parent gifts, Date night coupons with a restaurant gift card with their kids, etc…
Kids and Teenagers
Inspirational & Self Confidence – It gets better videos, private lessons in a new sport or course they like, A mentoring program, An extreme sport vacation, etc…
Single People
Fitness – Personal trainers (they help with your mind as well as figure and build confidence), Singles vacations, etc…
Stereotypical – Dating site memberships, Speed dating memberships, Local mixer memberships, etc…
Just for fun – Date night coupons (Girls or Guys nights out, Weekend getaways, spa days, etc…), Funny gifts like mugs, tshirts or other products, etc…
Gift Guides for Kids With Interracial Parents
This is one that not many people think of. There are a ton of interracial couples out there and their kids don’t always have it easy. They can get teased for having mixed couple parents, not being able to use the same shampoos or products and anything else kids can think of. This could be a huge opportunity for you to make money this holiday season.
Confidence – Books about parents from different backgrounds, resources and playdates or memberships to groups for kids with mixed backgrounds, etc…
Gift baskets – These are awesome when kids are embarrassed because they have to use different products. Talk about creating a gift basket and call it designer to help the kids realize that their products are special.
Helping them make friends – If your kids are being teased, buy them memberships to groups with other mixed kids and try to plan mini vacations with the other families.
Gift guides are a great way to sell ad space, generate extra sales and help to keep your readership active. Unfortunately everyone creates gift guides now so you really have to get creative to make yours stand out. What I haven’t seen people do yet are create niche gift guides which are more relevant to specific groups of readers and then list them out in a post where people can download them, click to view them, etc… This could be one thing that helps your gift guides to stand out and get more people to share and shop through them.
