We’re taking a cue from the world around us. Spring, with its warming temperatures and longer days, usually signals a time of renewal, and we think that’s a good strategy to adopt for your gift registry too. All the more so this year, as customers are especially eager to reconnect and celebrate with friends and loved ones. Spirits are lifting, consumer confidence is steadily improving, and the economy is opening up, so it’s fitting that we share ideas for a registry refresh.

Think of it as a spring makeover—a chance to review your registry materials and make some visual and copy updates. Whether it’s bright and cheery imagery and/or talking up any new products or features you offer, these design and copy tweaks can go a long way toward infusing newness into your registry.

The timing is also perfect for another reason: This is an especially busy time of year for event planning and gifting. Whatever your specific business, there’s something to take advantage of:

• Wedding activity is rebounding. With estimates of more than three quarters of weddings last year postponed or downsized, weddings are driving more activity than ever now as “sequel” events are added to the calendar. All these couples are eager to mark the start of a fresh new life together, including surrounding themselves with products that reflect their unique values and styles. Share your latest products and encourage couples to add them to a registry.
• The peak season for graduations, new moves, and housewarmings is also kicking in. An estimated 3.7 million students are finishing high school, while an even higher number are completing college/grad school programs. Most are about to embark on a new and exciting life stage, one that will see many setting up new living spaces and lifestyles and needing all sorts of stuff to do it.
• Babies keep arriving, and along with their growing siblings, they need stuff as well. In addition to the “must haves” to outfit a nursery or child’s room, warm months ahead will tempt everyone to be out and active, so products that make it easy for families to travel and enjoy the outdoors are worth spotlighting now.

Refresh Ideas: Where to Start

We suggest you spring into action and focus on three areas. This keeps the task load manageable while still adding impact and positive energy.

1. Your website’s registry landing page (think of it as the “store front”) is a great place to start. Break this into two parts:

• How you present your gift registry. Last month we shared tips for updating the hero image on your registry landing page, along with other design and customization options, including freeform copy flexibility, so you can give your entire registry a fresh look and feel.
  • Select a new design for each season, or focus on an event-specific theme, whichever you like. You can save all your completed designs and swap them out over time.
  • Create a list of registry types that makes the most sense for your customers while also taking advantage of seasonal events—graduations are timely right now, while the holidays deserve a shout-out later in the year.
  • Update your copy and how you describe your registry.

Read more about how to make changes to your registry presentation here.

• Updates to the content below the main image. Even if you’ve never before included information on this page about your registry and all the features, services, and perks you offer to complement your products, why not add it now? This space is yours, and it’s ideal for reinforcing all your “Why you should register with us” benefits. Make it easy for a registry user to be aware of all you do to support their gift planning and shopping activities.
  • Gather all the advice, guides, tips, and valued customer perks you may already display on your site (or talk about in-store or in other marketing materials) and present them here. Quick mentions with links to other parts of your site makes this easy—and brings all that useful information together in one place.
    
    • This is a perfect time to talk up new products that make great gifts, or to update checklists and other pages to reflect spring merchandise.

P.S. Once complete, you can carry your registry look and information into your store and across other marketing materials, making your efforts all the more productive.

2. Tap into existing marketing and advertising plans. No doubt you’re running seasonal programs that feel fresh and timely, so look for ways to weave in a registry mention and reinforce that you’re a go-to for any gifting occasion.

• Heat things up with more social media activity: As consumers increasingly rely on digital channels for product and other news, go with that flow. Include gifting and registry messages as you feature new products, seasonal events, and more.
  • Invite customers to share their favorite gifts with your favored hashtag as a way to get them more engaged with your products. Even consider a contest or giveaway focused on “best gift ever” to spark activity.
• Add a tagline or blurb to emails or store signage. The goal is to make your gift registry always visible, timely, and relevant.
  
  • Align with product news that highlights must-have items.

3. Don’t forget to take advantage of the marketing programs we offer. To support our partners, we have a few programs that offer exposure to those customers we can reach for you. For example:

• Gift idea boards: We display dozens of idea boards on our site, with great suggestions for weddings, new babies, or more general Wish List use. Customers often check them out, both to find products to add to a gift list or to impulsively shop for themselves. Interested customers are directed back to you to browse, add to registry, or shop, so you control the brand experience. On a quarterly basis, we’re happy to add a handful of your products to our boards.
• Social sharing: As you do your own social media marketing, know that we’ll be happy to extend your efforts.
  • Reposting: Share your links and preferred hashtags with us, and we’ll repost some social activity for you.
  • Creating shoutouts: Periodically, we’ll even create the social post for you. Based on your theme, our team will develop a shoutout that you’ll approve and we’ll post, then you can reshare it on your own channels as well.
• Notifications: We offer partners a chance to share news about a special event, major sale, or new product launch with MyRegistry.com members. It’s a great way to entice them to take action—whether they shop in the moment or add items to a registry, it’s an opportunity to introduce your brand to new customers.
• Other opportunities: We regularly publish blogs full of useful advice for registry users as they build their gift lists. As appropriate, we may be able to feature your products. And if any sweepstakes or contests align with your business, we’ll invite you to participate.

We may be calling these ideas spring energizers, but they’re worth revisiting seasonally. Each is deliberately designed to leverage what you already have going on, so they’ll keep your workload manageable and still make a big impact.

Your business is constantly evolving, and your gift registry should too. Whether you want to shout out products that make great gifts and/or features that offer extra value, there’s always something to talk about that’s timely and new. Keep your registry users coming back to see more of what you have to offer, and that will motivate them to update their registry—or even consider creating a new gift list for another occasion.

We Love Connecting with You

It’s wonderful to connect with many of you each week to talk about the specific needs of your business and how MyRegistry can support you. Feel free to contact us at marketingguru@myregistry.com to discuss marketing ideas for your unique registry business.

You can read all our partner and marketing blogs here.