Latest / Influencer Confidential / How to Get Paid Travel UGC Deals With Hotels & Travel Brands #311

Transcript

How to Get Paid Travel UGC Deals With Hotels & Travel Brands #311 · Influencer Confidential

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Influencer Confidential by Sidewalker Daily. My name is
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  Speaker 1: Nina Zeta and I will be your host. I love
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  Speaker 1: working with brands and influencers on all things business strategy.
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  Speaker 1: Are you ready to learn what it takes to work
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  Speaker 1: in this influencer industry and see behind the curtain? Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's jump in. Let's talk about UGC, but this time
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  Speaker 1: let's have it focused on the travel industry. As many
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  Speaker 1: of you guys know, I have tons of experience on
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  Speaker 1: the brand side, paying creators for influencer jobs, press trips,
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  Speaker 1: paying for creators UGC content, running ads to it, all
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  Speaker 1: of that. And because I come from the brand perspective,
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  Speaker 1: I love to share with my creator community some tips
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  Speaker 1: that can help you guys think a little bit more
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  Speaker 1: strategically in your outreach and in your partnerships. Now, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the creators in my community do UGC, but
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  Speaker 1: they also want to do travel UGC. The reason I
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  Speaker 1: think this deserves its own video is because I would
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  Speaker 1: categorize travel as very different than the other types of
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  Speaker 1: UGC content you are used to making. Because when you're
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  Speaker 1: selling travel or creating content for a travel brand, it's
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  Speaker 1: very different than a product, right? Travel is all about
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  Speaker 1: showcasing the experience. Travel is a visual industry. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of times the UGC creators I work with, they do
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  Speaker 1: a lot of product demonstrations or testimonial videos and things
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  Speaker 1: of that nature. But I feel like travel is a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of a different beast. And that is why
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  Speaker 1: I want to speak about it. I also think when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to working with tourism boards, which are government agencies,
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  Speaker 1: and when you think about like hotels, it's just a
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  Speaker 1: different beast in general. The good news is just like
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  Speaker 1: any other type of UGC content, it is not follower specific.
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  Speaker 1: You're not going to get the job because of your
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  Speaker 1: follower count. You may get in the door because of
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  Speaker 1: your follower count. You may have a conversation with me.
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  Speaker 1: because of your follower count. But that is not the
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  Speaker 1: determining factor because ultimately, my client is trying to run ads.
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  Speaker 1: They don't care about your following unless they're doing the
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  Speaker 1: whitelisting add-on. Most of the times when a travel brand,
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  Speaker 1: tourism board, hotel wants to work with creator, they already
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  Speaker 1: have their ad teams and their creative teams doing the
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  Speaker 1: work for them. They're just looking for you to produce
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  Speaker 1: the creative And then they're going to use your content
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  Speaker 1: to run ads to it. Now, before we talk about
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  Speaker 1: the different types of content travel brands specifically need, I
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  Speaker 1: want to start with a story because I think it
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  Speaker 1: can give you guys a really great perspective. I have
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  Speaker 1: a creator that once worked with a tourism board and
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  Speaker 1: she was flown to this destination. She created content for
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  Speaker 1: this destination and she got paid for that press trip. Okay. Now,
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  Speaker 1: after the fact, she licensed to this tourism board, a
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  Speaker 1: piece of content. And that video had a one-year usage expiration.
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  Speaker 1: So basically, the client could use that video for a year. Well,
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  Speaker 1: guess what? Every single year, this client keeps coming back
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  Speaker 1: easily and goes to her and renews their license. And
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  Speaker 1: this is because within their contract, that video is being
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  Speaker 1: able to be used not only on the tourism board's
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  Speaker 1: paid ads, but also when there's different meetings and events
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  Speaker 1: and conferences A lot of times, conferences and meetings, they'll
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  Speaker 1: go to the tourism board and be like, do you
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  Speaker 1: have videos? Do you have assets? And of course, this
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  Speaker 1: would have to be in the contract that you could
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  Speaker 1: sub-license it. However, this creator was fine to do so.
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  Speaker 1: And she's making like $ 4, 000 or $ 5, 000 a year just
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  Speaker 1: renewing the license. Because again, when you're working with a destination,
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  Speaker 1: you're working with a city or a state or a country,
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  Speaker 1: and they're working with you to create these sort of videos,
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  Speaker 1: depending on how they're going to use your content, you
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  Speaker 1: can also be charging and Making extra. When I think
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  Speaker 1: about typically like UGC and travel, there are so many
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  Speaker 1: different ways that a travel brand can use your content, right?
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  Speaker 1: There's obviously organic social media. This just means you're creating
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  Speaker 1: content for them to post on their socials. Easy breezy.
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  Speaker 1: There is paid social media. You are creating content that
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  Speaker 1: they are using to run ads to. It could also
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  Speaker 1: go on your page. Like I mentioned briefly, there could
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  Speaker 1: be a whitelisting element where the brand is running ads
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  Speaker 1: through you, even as a UGC creator, even as a
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  Speaker 1: smaller account, again, because they are just using your account
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  Speaker 1: so that the ad comes from a person and not
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  Speaker 1: a company. They may be sublicing your content to something
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  Speaker 1: hotels or different conferences, kind of like what we spoke
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  Speaker 1: about in that example. Newsletters, I've seen a lot of
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  Speaker 1: tourism boards take the content that is created and using
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  Speaker 1: it in their newsletters. Also trade shows, if this is
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  Speaker 1: a city or a destination that gets a lot of
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  Speaker 1: trade shows, they may go to the trade show and
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  Speaker 1: be like, here's our resource library, here's our content, and
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  Speaker 1: your content can show up there. So you're creating for
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  Speaker 1: that purpose. Same for like media placements. If that tourism
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  Speaker 1: board is hiring a publicist or a PR firm to
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  Speaker 1: run their traditional media and their PR. Your content may
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  Speaker 1: be what the PR person is pitching. So they may
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  Speaker 1: be using your photos or your videos when they're doing
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  Speaker 1: their pitch to the media. I've seen that happen. I've
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  Speaker 1: also seen when magazines go to a tourism board and
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  Speaker 1: they're doing an article on, I don't know, visit so-and-so country.
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  Speaker 1: And then now the country is providing them with assets
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  Speaker 1: and that's your video, your content you created. So as
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  Speaker 1: you can see, when it comes to travel, they can
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  Speaker 1: use your content in so many different ways. rather than
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  Speaker 1: just traditional paid ads. Because it, again, it's not like
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  Speaker 1: a lipstick company, right? Where it's just limited. Like this
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  Speaker 1: is a very different beast. So that is why when
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  Speaker 1: we think about travel, all the different places that your
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  Speaker 1: content can live just gives you so much more opportunity. Now,
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  Speaker 1: if you are a travel UGC creator and you are
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  Speaker 1: hearing all of these places and you're still a little
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  Speaker 1: stuck on like your licensing fees or like how much
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  Speaker 1: to charge, I do offer rate sessions. You can go
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  Speaker 1: ahead and book a call with our success manager. You
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  Speaker 1: can just book one hour with me and we can
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  Speaker 1: definitely dive into your rates, your licenses, how much you're
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  Speaker 1: going to charge and put packages together. So you feel
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  Speaker 1: very confident about your pricing. Now for our next piece,
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  Speaker 1: what I want to do is actually show you guys,
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  Speaker 1: instead of talk about it, I want to show you
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  Speaker 1: a really solid trick to help you understand the type
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  Speaker 1: of content the destination that you want to work with
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  Speaker 1: or the hotel that you want to work with is
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  Speaker 1: looking for so that you can use this in your
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  Speaker 1: advantage in your pitch. All right. So I want you
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  Speaker 1: guys to research where brands are spending money, what type
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  Speaker 1: of content they're making. So one of the things I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to suggest you do is head over to Facebook
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  Speaker 1: ads library. You literally would just search Facebook ads library.
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  Speaker 1: It's going to pop up. You want to go ahead
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  Speaker 1: and click the destination. I'm And for this example, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to do two. I'm going to do a tourism board.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to start with Visit Jamaica, and then I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to do a hotel. So if we were to
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  Speaker 1: go and look at Visit Jamaica's active ads, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to get a understanding of the type of content that
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  Speaker 1: they like. It looks like they have a lot of photos,
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  Speaker 1: photos with big texts around specific promotions. Now, when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to their videos, they tend to be like horizontal.
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  Speaker 1: Let's take a look. Ah, Jamaica. It's sweet. So it
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  Speaker 1: looks like their videos that they are running ads to
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  Speaker 1: are like really highly produced. It's not like normal people
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  Speaker 1: experiencing and living Jamaica. So again, if I was to
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  Speaker 1: pitch them, maybe I would want to offer something different.
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  Speaker 1: But it is important you go and do your research
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  Speaker 1: and see the type of ads they are running. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this destination is running a lot of ads. And when
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  Speaker 1: I see a lot of active ads, that already tells
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  Speaker 1: me ding, ding, ding. They're spending a considerable amount of
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  Speaker 1: money on Meta and they're running that. So they need creative,
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  Speaker 1: which means they are a great brand to pitch. Let's
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  Speaker 1: go ahead and try a different property. Let's try the
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  Speaker 1: hotel side. I want to go ahead and choose Marriott
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  Speaker 1: because I know a lot of my creators want to
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  Speaker 1: work with Marriott. Let's look at Marriott Bomboy. We're going
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  Speaker 1: to go ahead here and just do this together. All right,
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  Speaker 1: let's take a look and see what pops up. Now
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  Speaker 1: Marriott is having a bunch of different styles of ads.
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  Speaker 1: It looks like they have photography. Let's take a look
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  Speaker 1: at this video. This video looks like it's a compilation
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  Speaker 1: of a bunch of people's licensed assets. So it's not
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  Speaker 1: just one person. So you could definitely throw your hat
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  Speaker 1: in the mix. Let's look at this one. So this
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  Speaker 1: one is a voiceover style piece of content. I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to go ahead and mute it, but like it is
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  Speaker 1: one person. captions talking about taking the solo trip. Let's
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  Speaker 1: do it. And integrating Marriott integrating Bonvoy. This is an ad.
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  Speaker 1: This is a person. She got paid for this. Most likely.
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  Speaker 1: I hope anyways, if she was working with me, she would. Um,
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  Speaker 1: what else can we do? Let's go ahead and play around.
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  Speaker 1: I like to go in. Let's take a look at
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  Speaker 1: this one. Now I'm going to also hit mute on this.
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  Speaker 1: So it doesn't drive us nuts. Let's watch and see
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  Speaker 1: this video. They're testing. So it looks like this one
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  Speaker 1: is just more of a fun, trending, like more of
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  Speaker 1: an animation style. This is not typical ad style, but
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. They're being playful. They're trying something new,
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  Speaker 1: which tells me they're open to this type of content.
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  Speaker 1: And what I'm just really trying to get you guys
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  Speaker 1: to do is look at their ads, research their ads,
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  Speaker 1: find something that, again, would speak to you. I want
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  Speaker 1: to just do one more. Let's just see this one.
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  Speaker 1: We're here at the Sprinkle Sweets today. We're going to
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  Speaker 1: show you how to make the perfect waffle. So this
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  Speaker 1: is so funny because I swear I feel like they
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  Speaker 1: took this idea for me. I swear because I always
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  Speaker 1: talk about my waffle example. There's a property I used
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  Speaker 1: to work with that had a great waffle maker. I
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  Speaker 1: am having a whole moment with you guys. But anyways,
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  Speaker 1: let's watch this. So this looks like it's people. They're
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  Speaker 1: filming the waffle. This is something that they are obviously
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  Speaker 1: just two people that shot and made it, right? So
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  Speaker 1: they went in, they did it, boom, video's done. Now,
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  Speaker 1: what's interesting is for this video, again, it is coming
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  Speaker 1: from Marriott. So that's why research is so important, y'all.
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  Speaker 1: And I hope this gave you guys a really good
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  Speaker 1: first step. Now, one of my favorite strategies for getting
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  Speaker 1: travel UGC jobs is to find something timely or something
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  Speaker 1: fresh and new. So when I think fresh and new,
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  Speaker 1: I think like a renovation, for example. So I don't
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  Speaker 1: know if you guys follow my paid creator. It's my
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  Speaker 1: sub stack where I post UGC jobs, travel jobs, etc.
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  Speaker 1: But I want to go ahead and share my screen
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  Speaker 1: because I want to share this as an example. This
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  Speaker 1: was shared. an opportunity. Marriott is having a full renovation
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  Speaker 1: of a property on the Grand Cayman. And inside of
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  Speaker 1: this article, I obviously give pitch ideas and angles and
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  Speaker 1: I give the contact. However, our company is constantly looking
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  Speaker 1: for these type of opportunities because for me, a renovation
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  Speaker 1: is means that that would be a great time for travel, UGC, right? Now,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: if you're not subscribed to the paid creator, we do
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  Speaker 1: have a free version and then we have another version
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  Speaker 1: that's $ 8 a month. We send about three opportunities a day.
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  Speaker 1: So there's UGC, there's travel, there's wellness. It's literally the
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  Speaker 1: cost of a coffee, you guys. I spend $ 8 on
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: a coffee every day. So you can also subscribe, take
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  Speaker 1: a look at these opportunities and use them to pitch. Now,
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  Speaker 1: outside of renovations, I like to look at new things.
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  Speaker 1: I recently had a creator that saw This hotel went
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  Speaker 1: straw free. They removed all their straws from property, but
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: all their old photos had straws. So she pitched that.
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  Speaker 1: I like to find, you know, special promotions that hotels
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  Speaker 1: are doing. I go on their websites. I look at
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  Speaker 1: their blog. I look at their promotion calendar. So find
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  Speaker 1: something interesting, timely, and fresh and use that in your
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  Speaker 1: UGC pitch. Now, travel UGC is very important that y'all
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  Speaker 1: understand this. You need a portfolio that shows your travel work.
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  Speaker 1: If I land on your portfolio and the top is
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  Speaker 1: skincare and makeup and beauty and all the way at
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  Speaker 1: the bottom is travel, you're probably not going to catch
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  Speaker 1: my attention. So sometimes people say, okay, put the travel
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  Speaker 1: towards the top or maybe make a separate section on
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  Speaker 1: your website for it or even just duplicate your portfolio
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  Speaker 1: and make it feel very travel. Because again, if you're
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  Speaker 1: pitching the four seasons and they're seeing all this lip
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  Speaker 1: gloss and beauty stuff, And they have to scroll to
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  Speaker 1: find your travel stuff. Again, will the pitch hit? I'm
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  Speaker 1: not sure. Ideally, you would have either a travel portfolio
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  Speaker 1: that is very specific to travel so that the minute
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  Speaker 1: they get your portfolio, they're like, oh, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: This is the type of work she does. Now, a
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: really good hidden tip. It kind of goes off of
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  Speaker 1: the waffle story. I was going to actually share it
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  Speaker 1: on today's video. It's in my notes to share. But
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  Speaker 1: basically find things that guests love to experience on property.
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  Speaker 1: And the story that I was going to share on
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  Speaker 1: waffles was we had a creator pitch us the waffle story.
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  Speaker 1: You know, when you think of the property that I
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: was working for, it was always like the pool, the beach,
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  Speaker 1: all of that. And no one pitched us the waffle story. However,
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  Speaker 1: our guests love that experience with their kids, like making waffles.
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  Speaker 1: It was like always such a memory. And when the
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  Speaker 1: creator pitched it, I was like, wow, that's brilliant. So
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  Speaker 1: something that you guys could do is like go into
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  Speaker 1: Yelp Reviews. Read and see what the guests love, what
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  Speaker 1: excites the guests, and use that in your pitch. Now,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: something I will mention when it comes to putting your
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: portfolio together or your pitches together, if you guys need
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: support on that site, we do have a 30-hour program.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: It is visual. It will show you how to build
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: your portfolio. It will show you how to find the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: contact of the brand. It will show you what to
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: say in your pitch and literally help you pitch about
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: 10 brands a week. I will leave that link below.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: So go ahead and check that out if that's something
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: that you need support with. when it comes to pitching.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Last but not least, we could not talk about travel
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  Speaker 1: UGC without talking about seasonality. Seasonality is very important in
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  Speaker 1: travel more than any other industry, truly. If you are
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  Speaker 1: a travel UGC creator and you are pitching in high season,
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  Speaker 1: the hotel can't even accommodate you. I remember we once
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  Speaker 1: had these creators pitch us over 4th of July. I
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  Speaker 1: was like, you do not want to come on 4th
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  Speaker 1: of July. The pool is a mess. It is crazy.
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  Speaker 1: There's so many kids. No, You would be better off
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  Speaker 1: pitching me in September or October when it's a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more quiet and the people on property can actually
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: attend to you. You know, you can set up your drone.
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  Speaker 1: You can shoot all the content that you want. So
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: seasonality is so important. Don't pitch during high season. Pitch
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  Speaker 1: when the properties are a little slower. Same thing for destination.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: If they are hosting the World Cup, it's probably really
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  Speaker 1: busy for them, right? Versus, you know, maybe a quieter
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  Speaker 1: time of year. So don't forget to look into seasonality. Anyways,
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  Speaker 1: I hope this helped y'all. Let me know if it did.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: And again, don't forget to check out the paid creator.
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  Speaker 1: We launched an Instagram, the paid creator daily. We post
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  Speaker 1: travel opportunities. We post UGC opportunities every day, Monday through Friday.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: So we are hooking y'all up for the cost of
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: a coffee. You're going to get these opportunities in your inbox.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did make
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: sure to rate review and subscribe to our show. And
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: visit SidewalkerDaily.com for more resources on all things influencer marketing
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and social media. Until next time.