Gina @ The Shabby Creek Cottage says:

What great advice! I love Lisa – her jewelry is GORGEOUS!!! I never expect samples to be returned, although I’ve had magazines offer to do so – but my items are not as pricey as the lovlies at Studio Jewel.

Happy New Year, Sarah!

Becky Boyd says:

Dear Sarah and Lisa,
I have found that there are tons of magazines, ezines, and bloggers out there who will review your products. Many of them keep the products for themselves or give them away to charity. You need to research the circulation of the magazine and make sure they address your target audience. Also find out how many unique site visitors they have each month. I often get requests from “Mommy Bloggers” for one of my clients who offers kid’s furniture, bedding, gifts, clothes, etc. These bloggers will review specific items that they can use for their kids. This only helps you as the vendor if the blogger has a big following, high search engine ranking, thousands of visitors/month, etc. So, bottom line, research who you are sending your products to. Also make sure that they aren’t reviewing a competitive product the same day or week. You don’t want your jewelry to show up on the same page as another jewelry manufacturer.
Becky

Nikki Babie says:

Brilliant… Brilliant … Brilliant !! I WISH I knew you in 2008 & 2009. The KEY info/insights would have totally helped me with my USA based company.

Love your blogs.

Nikki

Victoria Hill says:

I have worked in PR for a number of years representing small businesses. As Sarah mentioned, for the “right” magazine it would be to your benefit to allow the editor to keep the sample. You want the editor to know and love your brand and products. If they do, they will often try to use your brand in future articles.

Allowing the editor to keep the sample also means they have the sample easily available to pass along to other editors or publications within the company (for example Martha Stewart Living, Everyday Food and Whole Living all work in the same building and interact with each other).

Most professionally published publications do have a policy on accepting samples or gifts and would never simply keep the sample for themselves without the intent of using it for the magazine and often though they may ask to keep the products for an extended period of time, they will return the items to you when the story has gone to print (at your cost). A different discretion my need to be used with bloggers, though most well-established blogs will operate similarly.

Typically my feeling is any blog with 10,000 unique visitors or more per month or publications with a circulation of 50,000 or more per month will warrant a little special attention that will surely pay off in the long run!