E.51 The Ins and Outs of Partnering With Brands

Welcome to this week's episode,

Elona currently travels full-time, creating content for various brands in the travel & lifestyle spaces. In this episode, she shares with us the details behind her rise to success as well as gives tips on how to work with brands as a blogger.

Listen in below to hear Elona’s journey.

 

 

Elona’s career started in finance after she had graduated with a degree in microeconomics working as a financial analyst straight out of university for the first four years of her career. Elona always wanted to travel but with her crazy schedule she couldn't always find the time to travel. To solve that problem she decided to travel on weekends, to places like Europe, Asia and Central America for long weekends of three to four days at a time.. 

Elona didn't think there was anything out of the ordinary about how frequently she traveled so when people kept asking her questions about her travel she saw this as an opportunity to share her experience by starting a blog site to talk about her travel experiences.

A couple of months and trips into her blogging on her website, Business Insider contacted her for an interview!

They thought that the way she traveled was perfect for the demographic of their readers. The article went viral and her blogging audience started to grow. She had the perfect opportunity to build her brand when a well known hotel had contacted her, and a whole new world opened up for Elona that she didn’t know existed.

Elona resigned from her job as a financial analyst and dove right in to building her business.

 

Elona shares that diversification is key for keeping your business funded. On a weekly basis she sends out roughly 500 to 600 emails pitching to brands she wants to work with. Product placement ads, ad space as well as starting a travel jewelry business has been integral for funding. 

The industry changes so quickly Elona shares, you have to adapt and come up with new ideas or innovate other people’s ideas. It really is a combination, Elona says.

Elona shares with us when working with brands and to effectively monetize you first must figure out,

➤ What are your goals? What are your values? What value do you bring?

➤ Knowing what you need to sustain yourself is key.

➤ Place a number on it, that way you know that having comps and free hotel stays aren’t going to sustain you.

➤Utilize your comps and free hotel stays to create the best content you can, for example, to create reviews that people actually go to. Build trust with your clientele.

Content is king and consistency is queen when it comes to building your trust with your client base and sustaining yourself. This in turn creates reviews that build a loyal following. Eventually you can build on that, Elona explains,.You can do other things also for example, create an E-book, offer a course, and teach people how to become a travel blogger. 

It is really about building an audience you can provide value to in the long run, Elona says.

Elona shares that her biggest win was combining her charity work with her travel work when a couple of years ago she was able to take a young cancer survivor on a dream come true trip with her. Bringing her brands together with her charity work was very self fulfilling for Elona.

Lastly if Elona could look back and give her ten year old self advice she would say, it is all in your head! Sometimes you can't change the situation but you can change your perception of the situation. Elona shares there are some things that are in your direct line of influence and some that are not. The emotions that come along the way in your journey are normal. It is also important to practice self awareness and nourish your mind day in and day out.

You can find out more about Elona on her website, Instagram and talkshow!

 

 This week's recipe from the blog. 

 

 

 Product of the Week