Tis the season for gift-giving marketing campaigns. Online subscription marketers may have an advantage over their print competitors because consumers have been trained over the years that a new print magazine subscription can take up to 6 weeks to get going.By December, it’s too late to promote gifts that will get there in time. A virtual subscription may be tougher to wrap and put under a tree (although you could solve that by offering to send a printed card to recipients, or even a decorative PDF the buyer can print and stick in an envelope), but at least you can guarantee Christmas delivery!Should your site launch gift-giving offers? It’s a particularly great idea for niche hobby and enthusiast membership sites. You can position a membership as the gift for people who are tough to buy for. Email, search PPC, and PR should all help givers know you’re the perfect solution to their last-minute shopping problem. Here’s a great example from Consumer Reports:

Be sure to include guidelines about what will happen if the giftee already has an existing membership (it would be extended).