10 Types of Holiday Content That Holiday Shoppers Will Love

Fact: Your visitors will be holiday shopping this year. And whether they’re the best of the best when it comes to Black Friday, or they don’t know the difference between free shipping and in-store pickup, they’ll need your help finding the best deals and offers on gifts they want. Use this article to get inspiration for 10 different types of holiday content you can create to make your visitors happy customers this holiday season. And who knows – you may even have some content already written from last year you can reuse!

Holiday shopping is as expansive as it is stressful. There are so many deals and offers out there for customers they may not even know where to start. And that’s assuming they even know what they’re looking for!

Luckily, you have an opportunity to help your visitors with both of these things: you can show them the products they’ll want to shop for this holiday season and tell them who’s offering a sale/deal on that product. You can help them shop for themselves and loved ones, and navigate the sea of offers that keeps getting deeper as Cyber Week looms on the horizon.

In this blog post you’ll learn all the different types of content you can create this holiday season, as well as learn about some content you can reuse for years to come (with a bit of updating of course!).

Evergreen vs. Timed – A Quick Refresher
As a content publisher, you’ve no doubt looked through your previously published content and thought “man, I could reuse that.” And, as long as you update the content and give a “new coat of paint” that’s totally fine! In fact, the holidays are one of the best times to freshen up content from the year before, because no matter how many times you’ve published the “20 Best Ways to Find Deals on Used Video Games for Your Grandkids” article, grandma will always want to make sure the rules carry over to this year.

But, if you’re new to content publishing, you may not be aware of what this reusable content – evergreen content – means. Or, maybe you just want to brush up on the difference between evergreen content and timed content. So, before we get started, here’s a quick refresher for you:

Evergreen Content: As the name implies, evergreen content doesn’t lose value over time. Your blog post from five years ago titled “Survival Strategies: Managing the Black Friday Crowds” is still applicable as long there’s still crowds. When you have evergreen content you republish the content on social media pages to bring awareness back (#ThrowbackThursday is great for something like this) or you can provide an updated version as a new post with some of the old content still intact.

Timed Content: Timed content, on the other hand, has an expiration date. Sorry, but your video on “10 Best Items on Sale in 2003!” won’t be very useful to the 2016 holiday season. The concept can be reused, however, and that’s important to note with timed content – if the content itself is no longer relevant, but the format was well received, you may want to consider revisiting that style.

Got it? Good. Now, onto the list of content!

10 Types of Content That People Love During the Holidays

1. Navigating Sales & Offers
There are a dizzying amount of sales that take place during the holiday season. It’s overwhelming, and many shoppers may not even know where to start looking. That’s where some content that guides them through the process comes in handy. Sure, these customers may know to look at a store flyer, but have they even considered what a cash back site or coupon app might have available to them? These helpful tricks can be updated year over year, but largely remain repetitive – and equally relevant.

Type: Evergreen

2. Ways to get Gifts
In the old days there used to be mobs of people swarming stores as soon as the doors opened as some way-too-early hour in order to get the best sales…and make sure they got their hands on the hot new toy that year. The need to go out and fight for a product is over – you can just have it shipped to your house. But is shipping the best option? What other options are available? Are there shipping deals available? If I order 3 weeks shipping will my package arrive on time? Having content that helps shoppers understand what their options are for actually getting their gifts – from free shipping deals and Free Shipping Day, to in-store pickup – is immensely helpful for those that know what they’re looking and just need to get their hands on it.

Type: Evergreen

3. Flash Sale/Timed Sale Notifications
If your followers/readers/watchers are the type that love finding deals on the fly, this is the type of content you’ll want to publish. Is there a huge flash sale going on that an affiliate partner did spontaneously? Get that content up ASAP, and tell everyone why this sale is so good! Did your affiliate partner give you some advance notice on when a timed sale will take place, and what will be offered? Make sure you raise awareness and add some links to those bargains so your visitors will know who helped them find that deal and how they can take advantage of it!

Type: Timed

4. Product Reviews
A classic content style that can always be reused (even if the content itself can’t), product reviews are a great way of telling your visitors about something your advertiser sells that you like, what you like about it, how that product is relevant to them (the visitor), and where they can go to get that product. There’s a lot of avenues you can take with these types of posts (such as comparison reviews, changes on new models, pros/cons, and more) so be sure to try different review methods to see what your visitors embrace the most!

Type: Timed (format is Evergreen).

5. Last Minute Shopping Deals
Let’s be honest – as much as everyone loves the excitement of Singles’ Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday deals, many people put off holiday shopping until Santa’s getting ready to leave the North Pole. But their laziness is your opportunity for more content later in the holiday season. Help these last-minute shoppers by identifying deals, offers, and sales that are taking place late in the game. Free Shipping Day is a great opportunity for something like this. Create content that highlights where these deals are, how to find them, and other ways late shoppers can take their last-ditch effort for gifts and turn it into a great bargain hunt.

Type: Timed

6. Holiday Travel Deals and Advice
The holidays are notoriously hard for travelers to deal with. Not only are they fighting crowds of people, they’re also combatting high prices that put a serious dent in their wallet to see their loved ones. While surviving the security checkpoints at airports could be a fun, novel piece of content, you can help your visitors a lot more by providing tips for finding hidden travel sales during the holiday months, or highlight sales that agencies may be putting on for the holidays to help ease the cost that these travelers will no doubt face. Content publishers that focus on specific audiences, such as family travel or couple’s getaways, will want to pay special attention to this type of content!

Type: Timed

7. Shopping Lists
Guides that offer helpful insights on what to buy for who are always useful for a number of people. Posts that outline who the list is for, what they’d be interested in, why they would like it, and where these products can be found are a beacon for relatives looking for inspiration, teens looking to shop for their parents, or significant others looking to shop for each other. You can approach these lists either by a specific person (as mentioned), or you can take a different route and talk about categories of products, such as “top 10 beauty products to buy your girlfriend this holiday season.”

Type: Timed (format and some types of content can be evergreen)

8. Holiday Budget Tips
This is a great one for affiliate content publishers. People love shopping holidays like Black Friday because of the massive discounts, but also because it can help people work in a budget. Content that helps people identify what products will get them the most bang for their buck, as well as stay within a specific shopping budget, is a great way to get visitors more active in shopping. And if you want to talk about deals specific to this year you can even post affiliate links to the products you recommend!

Type: Evergreen (with timed content)

9. Early Bird Special Deals
Sure, there are late shoppers and shoppers who hit the traditional shopping days, but many are either starting right now (November 2) or have already started their holiday shopping. Earlier days for sales (such as Singles’ Day on the 11th) helps sway some of these shoppers, but many are just looking to get a jump on deals going on now so they don’t have to deal with the rush later. Help them out by pointing them in directions of sales that are already going on. If you need some offers to place on your site, check out Deal Dispatcher and Seasonal Offers for the latest offers from our affiliate advertisers.

Type: Timed

10. The Display Case of Products You Recommend
This is a great type of post that content publishers can leverage, and is easy to put together thanks to the release of Curate. You’ve spent a lot of time talking about what deals are out there, what different products you recommend, how to manage travel, and more – now it’s time to show off products you love in a gorgeous display. Highlighting your own personal product list is a fantastic way to get people thinking about different gifts for different people, while having your personalized touch every step of the way. Be sure to check out how you can use Curate this holiday season if you’re a publisher in the Rakuten Affiliate Network!

Type: Timed

What Comes Next?
Don’t wait any longer – use the resources and content in this blog post and get started on your holiday content efforts! Start writing your blogs, filming your videos, and recording your podcasts because the holidays are here and your visitors are looking to get some shopping done! And be sure to click below to get the latest Holiday Offers from our in-network affiliate advertisers!