How To Reach Your Blogging Goals Faster With Outreach Days [Ep. 52]

Want to reach your blogging goals faster?

Well, you’re in luck, as in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast, we’ll be going over how to grow your blog quicker and easier using something I like to call Outreach Days; as in, set days where you are strategically reaching out to brands and other bloggers to see the results you want.

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand:

• What Outreach Days are and how they can help you achieve your blogging goals
• Blogging goals examples from my own workflow
• How to set realistic blog goals and see results even faster
• What to say when reaching out to potential blogger and brand partners (templates included!)
• How to keep your outreach organized
• And more!

Bonus: I also invite you to join my free list-building challenge to help really put what you learn in this episode into practice!

Note: This episode on blog goals contains affiliate links to trusted partners!

How To Reach Your Blogging Goals Faster Using Outreach Days [Podcast Episode Audio]

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Invite: How To Make Money As A Travel Blogger [Free Workshop]

While we’re on the topic of blog monetization, I’d love to invite you to my free workshop: 10 Powerful Ways To Make Money Travel Blogging.

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• Myths related to monetizing a blog (that may be holding you back!)
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Bonus Strategy: 14 Quick Ways To Grow Your Blog

Want to hit your blogging goals even faster?

Whether you’re trying to understand the aims and objectives of blogging, are setting first year blog goals, or have been blogging for a while and want to grow more, the above video can help!

Reach Your Blogging Goals With These Past Helpful Episodes:

How To Plan Out A Year Of Content In 1 Week

How To Monetize A Travel Blog (10 Ideas!)

How To Create A Profitable Blog Brand

3 Ways To Get Paid For Blogger Brand Collaborations When There Isn’t A Budget

3 Ways To Grow Your Blog Through Collaboration

How To Grow Your Travel Blogging Income With A Tripwire Funnel

Making Money With Webinars: 10 Do’s + 3 Don’ts

How To Create Your Travel Blog Business Plan

How One Woman Quit Her Job To Blog Full-Time

How To Do An SEO Keyword Competitor Analysis To Drive Traffic

Powerful Tools To Help You Reach Your Blogging Goals

The following tools can help you see success with blogger giveaways:

Keysearch (use code JESSIEONAJOURNEY for 20%). This keyword research tool is not only great for optimizing content for SEO, but also for finding backlink opportunities.

Google Drive. I use Google Drive, particularly Google Sheets, to keep track of my outreach and my blogging goals.

BuzzStream. This is a great tool for doing blogger outreach, pitching brands, etc and staying organized.

Twitter. You can search relevant hashtags to take part in social listening, which I personally love doing on Outreach Days.

Reach Your Blogging Goals Using Outreach Days [Episode Transcript]

One of my top secret weapons for growing my blog faster is scheduling what I like to call Outreach Days at least two days per month into my blogging workflow.

I discuss how I organize my year and months a lot in my Travel Blog Prosperity membership, but basically at least one week of each month is dedicated to content and outreach.

This involves things like writing blog posts, putting together YouTube videos and podcast episodes, and — the topic of this episode — doing Outreach Days that help me continuously land collaborations and grow.

Now, before we dive into how to successfully pitch collaborations and land blogger partnerships, I want to direct your attention to the show notes, where I’ve shared a link to my free Travel Blogger Resource Library.

Or, if you’re in the US or Canada, you can text the word “blogger” to 1-833-818-0342 to have it sent to you by text message. Again, you can text the word “blogger” to 1-833-818-0342.

Inside you’ll snag access to 45+ resources from cheat sheets to workbooks to workshops to video tutorials that can help truly turn your blog into a profitable business.

In fact, the library includes a few resources specifically created for this blogging goals episode – including an Outreach Days Organizational Spreadsheet, a giveaway sponsor outreach template, and an outreach template for pitching yourself as a podcast guest, which is something I always do on Outreach Days!

I’m all about implementation and I really want to make sure you don’t just listen to the episode and forget about it, but that you actually use what I share to make your blogging life easier.

Feel free to even pause this episode to go grab those resources.

You back? Then let’s dive in.

So the idea of Outreach Days is simple:

What makes a successful blog is often having a vision and holding yourself accountable to it. With Outreach Days, you have dedicated days where you pitch other people to collaborate, allowing you to prioritize this powerful task.

I’ve never done an Outreach Day and not ended the week with at least a few growth opportunities — usually at least 10.

The ways in which you grow is up to you, as you can totally choose who you reach out to and why.

That being said, in this episode I’ll be sharing some of my favorite outreach topics — including blog goals for beginners — as well as how I structure my Outreach Days, starting with:

Step #1: Choose your Outreach Day objectives based on your blogging goals.

Again, I’ll be giving you some ideas for this later in the episode, but in short you want to think about things like:

• Your current blogging goals
• How you want to earn a full time blogger income
• Your dream blogger partnerships
• If there are any events or projects where bonus digital products or other voices can be beneficial — such as reaching out to potential guests if you have a podcast as part of your podcasting workflow

From there, you can move on to…

Step #2: Stay organized.

There are many tools that can help with outreach — like BuzzStream and Postaga.

Personally, I use a good old Google spreadsheet.

Each tab correlates to a different outreach topic, and then I have columns for the person’s name, email, date reached out, response, etc.

I also like to have a space within a tab where I jot down people or brands I’d like to reach out to in the future.

By the way, to help with staying organized I’ve added an Outreach Days Spreadsheet to my free Travel Blogger Resource Library. Feel free to save a copy and adjust it to your own outreach efforts.

Next up is…

Step #3: Choose who you’ll reach out to.

Okay, so in this step I’ll share a bit more about who I like to reach out to and why. Keep in mind that this list is in no way exhaustive:

-Affiliates. I’m the creator of a number of travel blogging courses and also sell NYC photo tours and influencer shoots. When it comes to selling these products, it’s helpful to have relevant affiliates promoting them, too.

To find affiliates, I like to research niche blogs as well as blog posts promoting products like mine.

So I might search something like “best travel blogging courses” to find lists that are already ranking in Google.

Then I offer the creators of these blog posts access to the course I’d like listed so they can try it out to see if it’s something they’d promote as well as an affiliate link to the course with increased commission.

By the way, if you’d like to learn more about how to create a profitable online course check out this video:

Don’t have an affiliate program of your own?

You can also use this time to research and apply for high-paying affiliate programs to promote in your own content. This is a great way to increase your affiliate income!

-Backlinks. Outreach Days offer an opportunity to reach out to other bloggers for backlinks — which are great for Search Engine Optimization and can help you grow your blog traffic to your most important content.

You can use tools like Keysearch (use code “JESSIEONAJOURNEY” for 20% off!) and SEMRush to find backlink opportunities. For instance, you can see what blogs are linking to others in your niche already, which can make them more likely to link to you.

You might also use Google to search for articles where your blog post could be a valuable addition, or even resource lists where your post would be an easy add.

I often will also use niche Facebook groups to find collaborative linking opportunities. For instance, the Travel Collab Post Opportunities group is great for finding collaborative post opportunities where you get backlinks.

-Podcast guest opportunities. One great way to gain visibility and grow your community is to be a guest on podcasts that your desired audience listens to.

But, how do you actually get featured on podcasts?

By searching in Google or on podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts. I also like to search for podcast guest opportunities in niche Facebook groups. Even if the thread is old, it can tell you what podcasts accept guests.

There are also Facebook groups like the Podcast Guest Collaboration Community as well as podcast directories like PodcastGuests.com specifically dedicated to helping people land podcast opportunities and find guests.

By the way, I know this is a popular outreach task, so I’ve included a template you can use to pitch yourself as a podcast guest in my free Travel Blogger Resource Library.

-Co-creation opportunities. There are so many great ways to grow your blog through collaboration! Usually for this I reach out to other bloggers as well as my top affiliates to do list-building events. This might mean pitching a potential partner to co-host a free webinar, put on a joint free challenge, or swap guest emails.

For example, I once collaborated with another travel blogger who also sells blogging courses; however, she sells a self-publishing workshop while I sell courses on monetizing a blog from day one and working with brands. Because we have the same audience but aren’t product competitors, it made sense to swap guest emails.

I may also pitch affiliates I do well with to see if they want to collaborate to host a free challenge or host a free webinar together where I’m placing their product — often at a discount or with a free trial — in front of my audience to increase my income.

-Giveaway sponsors. If I’ll be hosting a blog giveaway soon, I might reach out to brands to donate prizes.

Note that I’ve got a giveaway sponsor outreach template in my free Travel Blogger Resource Library.

-Guest teachers for Travel Blog Prosperity. Inside Travel Blog Prosperity, a new course publishes every month.

While I often teach these courses myself, I also like to bring on guest teachers to add different perspectives and knowledge beyond my own.

To find these collaborators, I’ll reach out to experts on topics I know my community would benefit from learning about and other creators already teaching courses.

–Blogger brand collaborations. This is a great chance to get creative.

Whether you’re trying to land a press trip, an Instagram campaign, or you have a unique idea to help get a brand’s name out there, Outreach Days allow you to pitch and make new connections with the brands you’d love to work with.

-Teaching opportunities. I’ve been teaching online blogging courses and in-person workshops for over 10 years.

Along with running my own blogging school, I’ll reach out to other course creators with blogging courses, online and in-person writing schools, and companies that host retreats for bloggers to pitch them a workshop idea.

-Social listening. Social listening refers to getting involved in online conversations about your brand and your brand’s topic.

While it’s not straight email outreach like the ideas previously mentioned, Outreach Days are a great time to do some social listening.

For me, this might mean answering a Quora thread asking for blogging course recommendations or searching hashtags like #TravelBloggerCommunity and #BloggingCommunity on Twitter. to answer questions and position myself as a blogging expert.

-Other monetization opportunites. These could be things like selling a blog for profit, white label affiliate marketing, and more.

Step #4: Follow up.

After all of that outreach, it’s important to also follow up if you don’t hear back since people may have missed your original message. I usually do two follow ups if needed, which can lead to even more positive responses.

Final Tips For Using Outreach Days To Reach Blogging Goals

Before we end this episode, I want to share some final tips.

1. Outreach Days can lead to collaborations that go beyond your initial pitch. For instance, I once pitched a brand asking them to donate a product as a bonus for a launch event that I was hosting.

They then pitched me back and asked if I’d instead like to work together on creating a co-branded product and letting my audience help design it — which was an even more exciting idea than the one I’d originally proposed.

If you’re nervous about pitching brands as a blogger, this is also a great example of how it’s really just a conversation and an opportunity to share ideas.

2. When pitching consider what the benefit is for the other person or brand and make that clear. For instance, maybe you offer them an affiliate commission, a backlink, or some kind of visibility opportunity.

3. Have set goals for each of your outreach objectives. For instance, if you want to be a guest on a podcast, you might set a goal of reaching out to 10 podcasts, which can help increase your chances of actually being a guest.

4. Do regular check ins and schedule a New Year blog check in to revisit your goals. This helps ensure your outreach stays focused and on track.

Alright, now I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you feel inspired and empowered to add Outreach Days to your blogging schedule.

Don’t forget to grab access to the free travel blogging resource library.

Or, if you’re in the US or Canada, you can text the word “blogger” to 1-833-818-0342 to have it sent to you by text message.

There are a ton of resources in there on growing your community and increasing your blogging profits.

And of course, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes sharing these bite-sized strategies for bloggers who want to turn their blogs into profitable full-time businesses.

Happy blogging!

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