Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Jess here from Jessi on a Journey and Travel Blog Prosperity here with another travel blogging tutorial. Today we'll be talking about one of my absolute favorite strategies and that is collaborating with other bloggers. Now if you've seen any of my videos before or heard my podcast episodes before, you've probably heard me talk about my outreach day strategy. I'll link a guide to it below in the video description. But basically, I spend at least one full day every single month just doing outreach. The type of outreach will just depend on my current goals. Maybe I'm reaching out to podcasts to pitch myself as a guest. Maybe I'm pitching brands to work together. Maybe I'm pitching other bloggers to co-create or cross-promote content. It just depends. But in this video, we're gonna be talking about a very specific type of collaboration and that is working with other content creators to guest email for each other, to cross-promote your apps and freebies and grow your email list. But first, I wanna direct your attention to the description of this video or the QR code on the screen where I've shared a link to my free Travel Blogger Resource Library, which includes 55 plus resources all meant to help you grow your traffic, community, and income. And this includes a pitch template you can use to reach out to other creators to work together on this type of collaboration or you can tweak it to reach out about other types of collaborations too. The resource library also has an email marketing workbook, a business planning workbook, a template you can use to write an SEO optimized blog post from scratch, a content creation and promotion workflow Trello board, and more. Feel free to even pause this video to go grab those resources. And when you're back, let's dive into the strategy. So the first thing we wanna talk about is figuring out who you want to reach out to. Now, in the whole grand scheme of collaboration, you wanna think about your specific blog goals. We'll talk about that more towards the end of the video, but let's focus in on this strategy where we are looking for bloggers, content creators, entrepreneurs, who have the same audience that we do, the one we wanna get in front of that would benefit from the opt-in freebie we're gonna promote, who don't have competing products. So for me, for example, I love to work with bloggers who maybe have products like courses related to social media. I don't really have any specific products related to social media. So it would be perfect if they're still trying to reach bloggers, specifically travel bloggers is what I'm really aiming for, who are trying to grow their businesses. The other thing you wanna think about though is do they have an engaged email list? What I like to do is actually join their email list to get a sense of, okay, is email marketing a big part of their strategy? What's the type of content that they're sending to their list? Does it align with what I have in mind to send? Just to make sure it's really a perfect partnership. And also don't be afraid to ask for stats and things like that if you're doing this type of collaboration. Maybe with a certain blogger, it would just make more sense to maybe cross-promote somewhere else. Like maybe they don't really do email marketing, but they're really active on Instagram. So maybe you could say, hey, I'll send an email for you if you share an Instagram post for me. You can absolutely do that. But again, let's stick with the email idea. Email does tend to convert really well. Of course, it depends. Someone might have an amazing, super engaged Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, whatever audience, and it'll make a lot of sense. But in general, email does tend to convert the best, and you can put links there and things like that. So it can be a great strategy. So let me now show you the template that I like to use to send sort of a initial pitch to do this type of collaboration. All right, so maybe you're thinking, okay, I've narrowed down some bloggers I'd love to reach out to to swap guest emails, cross-promote opt-in freebies, grow our email lists, but what do I actually say? Here is a template you can use. An example email. I will have this, again, in the Travel Blogger Resource Library in a doc like this so you can just copy and paste it for yourself. But let's read this. Hope all's well. My name is Jessi, and I'm the founder of Jessi on a Journey with a link, a travel blog with an entire section of my site dedicated to helping travel bloggers grow their traffic, community, and income. I've been on your email list for a while, and I think there's a great opportunity for us to collaborate. One current goal of mine is growing my email list by promoting my opt-in freebie, a free workshop on blog monetization. I linked to it so they can see it. I know you have opt-ins related to blogging too. Would you be up for a guest email swap to cross-promote our freebies? The blogging segment of my email list currently has 5,500 plus subscribers, and the average open rate is, and click the rate and I give my stats. Please let me know your thoughts. Looking forward to hearing from you. P.S. I just followed you on Instagram from Jessi on a Journey. Love your content. So let's talk about this. First, you wanna think about the opt-in freebie that you're promoting, right? Jessi on a Journey is a solo travel blog, but in this example, I want to promote an opt-in related to blogging. So that's what I'm going to keep in mind with this email. I wanna tell them that I have an audience related to blogging, because that's what we'll be cross-promoting about. If I was pitching a solo travel blogger to cross-promote opt-in freebies, I would talk about the solo travel content that I create on the website. And just going back to goals, the reason I typically like to focus on cross-promoting my blogging related opt-in freebies is those are the ones that make me the most money. With my solo travel newsletter, that content is monetized mainly through affiliate marketing. People click over to my website. I have ads in the content, sometimes sponsorships, but my travel blogging segment of my email list, I get a lot of sponsorships. It's a lot more sponsorships. I do affiliates as well. People can click over and look at the ads. And I have products. I have my courses and my membership and things like that. So there's a lot of ways that I monetize this segment of my list. I do have travel related products. I have my NYC photo tours and shoots, but the opportunities for me to monetize, especially with these digital products, is just a lot greater on this segment. So I put a lot more effort there. Okay, moving on. I've been on your email list for a while, and I think there's a great opportunity for us to collaborate. Just letting them know, like, I know who you are. I follow you. I know what you're about. I've done my research. One current goal of mine is growing my email list by promoting my opt-in freebie. And I link it so they can look at it and make sure it's something they'd want to promote. I know you have opt-ins related to blogging too. Would you be up for a guest email swap to cross-promote our freebies? That's just sharing the purpose of my email right now, why I'm contacting them. And then I talk about some stats just to let them know, hey, this could be really worthwhile. I could really get you in front of people who'd be interested in this. Then I do my little closing. I like to do, I do this with a lot of my outreach to bloggers. P.S., I just followed you on Instagram from jessianajourney, love your content. Just to really make it a little more personal, take the collab up a notch. You don't have to add that in, but it's just something I like to do. Now, let me also say, if I am pitching someone that I know at all, like another blogger that I've, maybe we comment on each other's Instagrams, maybe we've met at a conference, maybe we've just emailed back and forth a little bit, I keep this so much more casual. It could truly be, hey, it's been a while, how've you been? I'm looking to grow my email list and I just wanted to check if maybe you'd be up for a guest email swap where we can cross-promote opt-in freebies. What are your thoughts? I will keep this so much more simple. This is a bit more, if maybe you don't know the person too well, maybe you don't know them at all, you just love their content, you think it'd be a great fit. So definitely start here and make it your own, make it fit what you're reaching out to and who you're reaching out to. This is very formal to send to someone that you know, like a blogger that you've had lunch with or something, or you've, whatever, you've talked to on DMs. This would be quite formal. Now, just so you have an idea of what a guest email actually looks like, I will show you one that I wrote. I wrote it in Google Docs and sent it over to Aisha Priest. Her and I did an email swap about a month ago now and it was great. We both have a segment of our email list where we are speaking to bloggers and empowering them. So it was a great collaboration. My email was about three ways to monetize your blog and hers was about increasing your digital product income. So we'll just go over this. And I think the subject line was actually three clever ways to monetize your blog, something like that. Truth, creating content in itself does not lead to income. Your content can be profitable, but to really earn an income through blogging, you need a plan for how you'll make money, which is exactly what I'll be sharing in today's email. Hi, I'm Jessie, founder of the solo travel blog, Jessie on a Journey, which I've been able to turn into a six-figure business by focusing on profit planning and implementing revenue streams. Today, I'll be taking over Aisha's email to share three clever ways to monetize your travel blog. Before we dive in though, I invite you to grab a seat in my free 10 ways to make money travel blogging workshop. And from there, I talk about the workshop. I like to use emojis and make it really fun, like what you'll learn, make it stand out on the page. Then I also mentioned that free ticket to this actionable workshop also includes a Q&A, limited time replay, and special bonuses. Click here to grab your seat in the free travel blog monetization workshop in bold with an emoji. On that note, let's dive into the strategies. That pink link there was a link to a graphic I made in Canva that showcases the workshop, very eye-catching, just to really bring people's eyes to this opt-in freebie. Now, I do dive into the monetization strategies in the email. A little bonus tip there. And then at the end, I again talk about the freebie. Now, some people will say, okay, when you're really trying to pitch a product or an opt-in like that, you shouldn't link to anything else. I decided to put a link to my blog and do a little PS with a link to some of the other things I'm always trying to grow, my Profitable Travel Blogger podcast, and my Make Money Travel Blogging with Jessi on a Journey YouTube channel. So I did put links there in the PS after the workshop links. So that is an example of a guest email promoting an opt-in freebie. Keep in mind, your freebie does not have to be related to blogging or a business-centric topic. It can be solo travel, RV travel, whatever your niche is. Everything should be cohesive, right? You have your niche, your mission of who you help and how, and everything else should be an extension so that you're really attracting the community that would benefit from your free content, like your blog posts, your YouTube videos, your social posts, podcast episodes, whatever. They'll also benefit from the brands you work with, the affiliates you promote, the products you launch. Everything should be in line with this mission you create, and that includes your opt-in freebie and your guest email content. So keep that in mind. And keep in mind, when you reach out to bloggers to work together, you can pitch other things. What's really important is you think about your specific goals. Hopefully they're related to growing your traffic, your email lists, and or your income, and what you wanna get out there to grow these things and who can help you expand the reach. So in that example with the email swap, the opt-in freebie is the thing that's gonna help me build my email list, which in turn is going to help me grow my traffic because I promote my blog posts on there, my income because I promote products and things like that. Maybe you're trying to grow your YouTube channel. So you reach out to another blogger who has a YouTube channel in the same niche, and maybe you create some videos together. One goes on their channel, one goes on yours, and you encourage your audiences to follow each other. Just really think about your specific goals, and again, what you need to get out there to the masses to help that goal be reached. Now I do, before we sign off, wanna show you one other example of working with bloggers to grow an email list. It's a little more involved than a guest email, but it can be really powerful, and it's free. So Jen Ruiz of Jen on a Jet Plane and I put this together, this was a few years ago, and it was a free make money blogging toolkit. So you're in the draft section, it looked different when it was live, but turn your blog into a profitable business with the help of 21 powerful resources. So essentially it was a free bundle. Maybe you've heard of paid bundles where there's a lot of different paid courses and eBooks and products in there, and you purchase at a really good price, like at face value everything inside is worth $5,000, but you're paying 99, something like that. With this, it's all free resources, but to get each resource, you have to join that person's email list. The beauty of this, I call it a free bundle, I have a whole podcast episode and guide on how to launch this strategy too, I'll link that in the video description as well if you're interested. The beauty though is the cross promotion. If you put something like this on, make sure that everyone who takes part agrees to each send one or two emails dedicated to promoting the event, and maybe one share across their social platforms, whatever you wanna make the requirements, but the real power of this, you can see, there's a limited time, this timer had a countdown going on, but you can see it's all related to travel blogging. And again, the beauty is we are all promoting together. If people aren't promoting, if you're the only one promoting it, you're doing all the work. You share the workload to all collectively grow your email lists. All right, now I hope you enjoyed this video, I hope you feel inspired and empowered to start reaching out to other bloggers to cross promote opt-in freebies through your email list, or maybe pitching a different collab that can help you reach your specific blogging goals. Also, don't forget to grab access to my free travel blogger resource library. There are a ton of resources in there for growing your community and increasing your blogging profits, and that includes the pitch template that we looked at in this video in a Google Doc, so you can just copy and paste it and use it for yourself. And finally, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss future videos sharing these strategies for bloggers who want to turn their blogs into profitable full-time businesses. Happy blogging.