Dear Pennies & Pens,
As you all know, I have been traveling like CRAZY. I have been to over 10 different cities in the past year. And I did it all on a Barista/Server budget. So how was I able to ball on a budget?! Simple, I moved this B-L-O-G like an Ol’ G. http://bit.ly/MakeUrPenLoudEbook
No seriously, I used my blog and business to pitch to and work with local brands in each city I traveled to. Working with sponsors helped me save money in addition to giving me original content to feature via de la Pen + ISLP. That said, each collaboration was truly mutually beneficial. Each sponsor received positive press and additional exposure which helps increase brand awareness and sales.
Throughout my travels to California, Chicago, Denver, and Portland, I worked with everything from Vegan restaurants like VeganBurg, Nick’s Kitchen, AVIV, and Homegrown Smoker, to boutique hotels like Jupiter Hotel, or Napa wineries like JaM Cellars, Kieu Hoang Winery, and Ledson Winery. For each press trip, I had at least 3-5 sponsors. Not too bad for a little black girl from Ohio.
So how did I get all these collabs?! Well, it’s not rocket science believe it or not. All you have to do is pitch and bitch. You’ll bitch when you spend hours writing and sending emails only to receive “We cannot accommodate your request at this time. Thank you for your interest. Have a good day.” Lol — this one still burns. Even after 10 years.
To help you, #MakeUrPenLoud, I’ve decided to include a few tips that I share in Chapter 15: How To Collaborate with Travel Brands. Note: this is a short overview of the chapter, if you want the full chapter and more then pull out those pennies and buy a copy. These pages ain’t free, b. http://bit.ly/MakeUrPenLoudEbook
How to Collaborate with Travel Brands
1. Do Research – check out the brand’s website and social media to learn more about them and what they do.
2. Find Contact Info – in order to pitch to a brand, you need to contact someone in their public relations or marketing department. This is really, really hard. And time consuming AF. But it’s not impossible. Check the ink in my book for exclusive tips on how to find info. I promise it’s worth it!
3. Write your pitch – In your pitch, you should introduce yourself, talk about current + previous projects as well as brands you’ve worked with. You should also include stats about your readers and followers such as age, income, location, etc. Your pitch should also include exactly what you are proposing and how you plan to execute it. Again, there’s more info on this in the book.
4. Sending the pitch – In my book, I share the best days and times to send a pitch. Note: it’s not Friday, lol!!!
5. How to send the pitch – This tip I’ll update here because the book suggests you use Boomerang to schedule out emails BUT Gmail has also created a scheduling tool so you can now use that to schedule and send emails. Scheduling emails is perfect for creatives with 9to5s.
6. Complete media request form – A lot of hotels and major corporate brands have media request forms. These forms seek to learn more about the publication by asking for your stats, url, social media links, and story angle. This helps the brand decide if they want to work with you or not.
7. Write the post – Once you land a collaboration, be sure to write the post! Don’t turn into “Disappearing Debbie” when it’s time to actually deliver on what you promised. Write your post in a timely fashion and be sure to include high quality photos and link back to the brand’s website.
8. Follow up with the brand – After you publish your blog + social posts, send links to the brand featured. That way, they can see the work that you created and they’ll know that “you say what you mean and mean what you say”. Plus it helps for relationship building, they next time they do a blogger collab, they’ll be more likely to work with you.
Alrighty so that’s all the ink for today. If you want more details on how to work with travel brands, check out my book, #MakeUrPenLoud here: http://bit.ly/MakeUrPenLoudEbook
And there it is. de la Pen…All Pen Everything. With us, keeping it real never goes wrong.
