How to Get Brands to Sponsor Your Travel

How to Get Brands to Sponsor Your Travel

Attempting to get sponsorship for your vlogging, blogging, or photography expedition is not an easy task. Many aspiring travel gurus become discouraged when sponsorships don’t just seemingly fall from the sky. No matter how popular your vlog, blog, images or videos are, getting sponsorship is an art in and of itself.

Understand that if one opportunity doesn’t pan out the way you hoped there are plenty of others that may present themselves if you have patience and persistence. Below you will find the best tips, suggestions, and advice on how to get brands to sponsor your travels. Special thanks to Vintage Film Pics for the cover photo.

5 Ways to Get Sponsorship For Your Travels

Increase Engagement

Brands will be attracted to what you do if you have an audience that shows they are interested in what you offer. When it comes to sponsorships, it isn’t about the number of followers you have it is about how many of those followers interact with you. You can have a million followers but if only ten of those follows show they are interested in your next post or update you aren’t showing that you are actually reaching those million followers. Brands want to know that what they provide you will actually get seen by viewers.

Diversify Your Platform

You can open yourself up to more possible sponsors if your channel focuses on more than one specific niche. Lifestyle travel vlogs and bloggers can take sponsorships from an array of brands from clothing and accessories to luggage and lodging. If you have a platform that just focuses on one specific aspect of travel, consider how you may be able to expand your channel focus to include a few other areas that are travel related.

Network

Networking is the key to not just successfully gaining sponsorships but for growing your online presence, credibility and personal brand. A majority of vloggers, bloggers, and influencers fail to recognize the power of exceptional networking skills. Networking is simply building a relationship with those you work with, want to work with, and your audience. If you already have a brand in mind for sponsorship it is wise to follow their social platforms, engage with their content, and start or join in on the discussion. You want to be a familiar face on their comments feed but this needs to be done with tact. You don’t want to just bombard their social networks and obsessively follow every little thing they post. Be interested in what they post and this will make you stand out as an interesting candidate for sponsorship. 

Networking also requires maintaining relationships with those you’ve worked with before as well as those brands you contacted already. Again this is all about being interested in what they are doing. Have a friendly ongoing relationship with everyone you contact and make the effort to keep up that repertoire with them.

Know How to Pitch

You can’t expect brands to come knocking at your door offer your sponsorship opportunity for your next adventure. You need to know who to reach out to them. You can do this by reaching out to the brand’s public relations or marketing division. Once you have this information you want to have your sales pitch ready and a captivating media kit ready to go. 

Your media kit should act as a type of resume for your platform. You want to include relevant information such as the type of vlog or blog you run, page views, ambassador roles, and other pertinent information. This media kit should highlight the value you provide through your vlog or blog, accomplishments, and not a rundown of previous experience. You want to highlight how the brand can benefit from the sponsorship.

Your media kit can be a quick and easy toll to put together, your sales pitch, however, you will want to take the time to thoughtfully craft. Sales pitches can often be one-sided, mainly focusing on how the sponsorship will benefit you instead of both parties. Sales pitches should be included in your media. And include:

  • Who you are.
  • Your background.
  • Ask if they work with bloggers, vloggers, or influencers. 
  • Introduce what you do. 
  • Point out your audience size and demographic. 
  • Highlights how this can add value to them. 
  • Why or how your platform fits with their brand. 
  • What type of work you will provide for the sponsorship. 
  • Thank you. 
  • Contact info, social sites, blog information, and any other relevant way they should contact you or learn more about what you do.

Whether you have scheduled meeting, voice conference with human resources about getting sponsorship, cold calling, or just including it in your media kit,  your sales pitch is key to landing sponsorships. Unlike the videos, you post you won’t have an opportunity to edit or shot a re-take. You need to know how to sell yourself, your content, and be clear about the value you can bring the brand you hope to gain sponsorship from. Each time you send out or run through your sales pitch you should always find ways to improve upon it, to find ways to cater it to relate specifically to the brand you are reaching out to.

Take each no as a “Not right now”

You are going to hear a lot of No’s when you start pitching to brands and this is all a part of the process. Every no does not have to be the end-all. No’s should simply translate to not right now. Sponsorship just may not be in their marketing budget at the time, maybe you still need to build up your engagement, or the brand just needs to see you have long term potential. There are a million reasons why you are told no, don’t let this discourage you. Make the connection, stay connected, and take each no as a step closer to getting a yes. Brands can’t say yes to everyone and there is always a possibility for working with that brand at a later time.

SEE ALSO

  1. How to Start Earning Money as a Photographer

  2. 10 Tips for Making Money as a Videographer

  3. How to Make Money Livestreaming

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