How To Pitch For Free Transport And Accommodation

Every time I tell someone what I do for a living, I am often met with a barrage of questions. Most of these relate to how I have managed to make a full-time income as a travel blogger. Much of that is to do with the type of blog I have (it’s not a simple journal of my life, but more tips and advice based on my travels.) Nor is it simply to do with the amount of advertising money I rake in… although that is an important part of it.

A lot of it has to do with profit margins. Your outgoings are just as important as your incomings when you’re a travel blogger. Even if you are turning over a million dollars a year in blogging (which for the record I don’t), if you’re spending a million and one dollars on travel expenses then you can’t sustainably travel. If you can reduce your travel expenses and outgoings to almost nothing, then any money you do make in advertising can be used for spending money, further investment in your business, or by simply saving it for those times where you may have a slow month in advertising sales. The less money you make as a travel blogger, the more important cutting down on your expenses is in order to fund your travels, but even if you make a lot of income regularly, everybody wants to save money!

To give you an example, I have just recently completed a 5 day tour of Scotland free of charge courtesy of a Scottish tour company. I also regularly receive free accommodation from hostels as I travel, I will be travelling on a free 1st class InterRail pass this winter in Europe, and next summer I will be travelling for free around Europe on the hop on/off bus service run by major European bus company.

In the past I have also taken part in TEFL courses free of charge, had free meals, or been offered free entry to attractions. All of these things I would be doing as part of my travels anyway, but because of my blog, and more importantly because of my pitch, I have been able to acquire these things for free… therefore greatly reducing my travel expenses. So how do you do it?

First Step – Put yourself in the travel company’s shoes

First things first, if you have very low stats on your blog you’d be much better working on building your traffic or page rank before first contacting a travel company. You need to be able to offer them something which makes it worth their while to give you this product or service free of charge, so you either need to have high traffic, or a good page rank. The only way you could possibly get away with this having low stats is if you target very small travel companies, who may not have the budget or reach of a bigger company, and who are very targeted to the niche of your blog. Or you are asking for a very low value product or service, less than the cost of advertising alone on a typical blog over a period of time.

Second Step – Make sure you’re speaking to the right person

It doesn’t matter how good your pitch is, if you are not speaking to the right person then it will be falling on deaf ears. If you think your blog has something to offer a company in exchange for a free product or service, find a contact for someone who deals with marketing at that company. Sometimes you will find it listed on the company website, however if not, try finding them on twitter. Usually the person who does the social media side of things for a company is either the person dealing with marketing, or works in or around that department. Private message them for a marketing contact and see if you get a response. This sometimes works where no email address is provided on the website. Alternatively, if you have seen that another blogger has worked with the company, contact them and ask (politely) if they’d pass on the contact details of who they dealt with. Most bloggers are happy to do so, provided you’re polite, and just asking for the one contact or willing to exchange contacts with them.

Third Step – Keep your pitch short and to the point

If it’s an email then you have a lot of time to prepare your pitch before you send it. Keep it as short and to the point as possible. Most travel companies are very busy. They don’t have time to read through screeds of unsolicited emails. Simply state who you are, what you want, and what you can offer in return. Try keep the tone friendly and polite, and end in a question. This is the most important thing! Even if it’s just simply “is this a possibility?”, or “what do you think?”, asking a question naturally provokes a response. It’s too easy to ignore an email which doesn’t actually ask anything. When you ask a question however, and keep the email short, more people reply.

Fourth Step – Follow up

As I mentioned above, sometimes travel companies are just busy. Maybe they intend to get back to you, but get snowed under by work and either forget to email back or take a bit longer than intended. Other times they may just not have opportunities at that moment for you, but are keeping your details on file and just don’t bother getting back until then… However, you want to try get a response from them of some sort even if that is just to say thanks, but no thanks, because this gives you a dialogue. Once a company has responded to you, they are more likely to remember you in the future should opportunities come up. Also, if they say no they will usually give a reason, which then gives you the opportunity to make a counter offer.So if they don’t get back to you after a few weeks, send a quick follow up email. I find most people reply to a follow up. If they don’t reply after that, leave it 3 or 4 months, or until your stats have had a big increase and try again. I’ve actually had successes after contacting companies on the 6th occasion without receiving a reply on the first 5 emails, because I waited a year when my stats were much better and luckily got back to them at the right time (off peak season when they have spare seats, and when they were doing a marketing push.)

Fifth Step – Always honor your agreements

If you are successful in your pitch, and are offered a product or service for free, you must always honor whatever agreement you have made! If you have agreed to write a review, place a link, banner ad, or whatever else you said you would. You MUST honor that and do what you said, and be prompt. Having a good working relationship with that company usually results in future opportunities with them. Also, if you start getting a bad reputation as a publisher, then you’ll find other companies will not want to work with you either. Always stand by your word.

Transport and accommodation are the two biggest bites out of any travel bloggers budget. Although I have had a variety of products and services for free as a result of my blog, getting travel and accommodation free have made the biggest difference to my profit margins, and therefore my ability to travel full-time. As they are the main expenses, it’s also worth more time trying to get them free as compared with maybe a meal in a restaurant, as one yes from a transport company could leave to free transport for a large part of your trip. Same goes with accommodation. Hopefully by going through the above steps you will be successful in a similar manner, but in general, this method of pitching regardless of whether it’s for a free product or to sell advertising space, is usually quite successful.

Do you have any tips on how to pitch for free transport and accommodation?

Image: TRC OFF