I know it’s nearly EOD Friday (and some of us will be off on Monday), but I promised I had oodles of lovely news to share, affiliate insights, jobs and more.
So here I am, making sure we’re almost back on the regular newsletter schedule!
First, the good news
Earlier this week I shared that my role as Executive Editor at Today’s Parent expanded to Director of Commerce Content at SJC, the publisher that owns Today’s Parent and a collection of other great titles including FASHION Magazine, Hello!, Chatelaine, Toronto Life and others top-tier reads.
The takeaways:
I’ll be leading shoppable and bookable (yes, travel too!) content across all the titles you see above
Some titles have American audiences (like my baby, Today’s Parent), some are Canadian (lookin’ at you, Toronto Life)—and all will be expanding reach dramatically in the coming months. You know me… more is more when it comes to traffic.
I’ll be writing, assigning, editing and restructuring commerce-focused stories across these titles with a wonderful team and I’m ALWAYS eager to hear/see great pitches
Fun things to note:
I just made my first new hire (a wonderful gal from Elle some of you may already know) who will be working with me starting early next month
If you’re already pitching the teams at my newly expanded collection of titles, keep pitching ‘em! They’re great! But if it’s distinctly shoppable or bookable, hit me up.
What I’m working on now/need pitches:
For Today’s Parent: Toddler and kids’ winter boots, toddler and kid snow bibs, winter coats and puffers. Must be affiliate-friendly + we LOVE Amazon.
FASHION Magazine: Leather leggings (and faux-leather), plus-size winter coats (high-end preferred), long down coats + bestselling luxe beauty staples participating in October’s Prime Big Deal Days (ideally on sale at both Amazon US + Amazon CA).
For several of the titles across US & Canadian markets: New all-inclusive resorts in Mexico + the Caribbean.
bryce.gruber@stjoseph.com for all!
Recently published:
Honestly, too many to point to so I’ll just put a few recent/top-performing goodies in here for y’all to see.
Some unique advent calendars, double strollers and a vitamin c skincare
Lamellar water, toddler winter boots and Hiya vitamins for kids
Ceramides, family-friendly resorts in Jamaica and pregnancy-safe face wash picks
Jobs:
Forbes needs a news content SEO strategist. Good benefits/work remote.
Vineyard Vines needs a PR manager in Connecticut.
Hinge needs a senior communications specialist. Hybrid/New York, salary 200k.
For the Affiliate Tribe:
Wow, took me a minute to come up for air—but there’s a lot to say and learn this week so let’s hop right into it <3
And before that, as a public service, I want to tell you that ALDI is selling a near-perfect Barefoot Dreams blanket dupe right now for $20. And it’s machine washable.
Okay moving on.
I had a call with a popular fashion brand last week. You might find the info we discussed helpful.
I won’t name names to preserve the brand’s privacy, but I love this publicist and was extra happy to chat with her for a few minutes about what was going wrong, what was right and some easy fixes.
So the brand offers both subscriptions and a la carte purchases. They had also moved from SAS to another popular affiliate platform recently and sales/press started to drop off. They couldn’t figure out why, so I did some research.
Old/existing content with SAS links would no longer be valid. They may have to contact editors to make the swaps, and ya know, everyone is slammed right now.
They had GREAT commissions on subscription boxes but literally 0% on regular sales. They have since upgraded regular sales to 15%, so I’m betting things pick up.