BuzzFeed has garnered a tremendous online following – 40 million subscribers and followers as well as over 200 million unique monthly views. Now, the online publisher is substantially beefing up its Gift Guide newsletter program in an effort to further monetize its wide reach and rich subscriber data.
The Gift Guide email newsletter is ramping up its frequency from twice a month to once a week and will include more products that are increasingly tailored to individual traits and personalities.
“The thing that makes our gift guide content different is we don’t do a [single] gift guide,” said Jessica Probus, the director of BuzzFeed’s markets section. “We’ll do hundreds of them: Gifts for people who are medical nerds; gifts for people who love grammar; gifts for people who love to curse.”
This could be an ideal opportunity for ecommerce companies looking to reach an audience that skews younger and can be segmented based on traits and personality. While BuzzFeed won’t disclose its total number of Gift Guide subscribers, it did gain more than 1 million new addresses last year alone overall. And so far, Gift Guide newsletters have seen great traction with a 45% open rate, well above the media industry average of 22%.
Read more on BuzzFeed’s ecommerce push here.