44: How to Get a Free Vacation this Summer Using UGC

Want to get paid to travel and lock in free Airbnb stays or free hotel stays by this summer without being an influencer? Today, I’m giving you the exact 5-step method I use as a content creator to travel for free. We are talking about the  5 steps to get a free vacation with UGC and content creation. 

I’m walking you through the exact system I use to land free stays — and this is the same strategy my students use to secure gifted trips all over the world.

We’re covering:

• How to create hotel/Airbnb sample content (even if you’ve never done it before)
• How to choose which stays to pitch
• How to build a high-converting pitch deck (yes, I’m giving you the template)
• Where to find properties to contact
• What to say in your DM + email pitch
• How to structure your content offer so it’s a fair value exchange

Download my FREE Pitch Template and use it to land your next paid stay. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're gonna go over five steps for how to get a free vacation by this summer by using UGC. This is literally what I send to hotels and Airbnbs. You ready? Welcome to the side of the internet where we get paid to travel. In this podcast, I will teach you how to create UGC content to fund your adventures so you can spend the majority of your days exploring the world rather than sitting at a desk. If this sounds like a dream, well, it's actually not. It's my reality, and it can be yours too, without needing to be an influencer or travel blogger or photographer. I'm your host, Maddie Garrett, and in this podcast, we cover all things user-generated content. I've been working in this industry for over two years now and have made over six figures filming outdoor and travel UGC content part-time. And have now taught over 5,000 UGC students in my master classes, programs, and one-on-one coaching. I help everyday people just like you start your own UGC business so that you can achieve this life-changing freedom too. Tune into the Paid to Travel podcast every Monday if you also want to learn how to get paid to travel. After having just gotten back from the pool, which yes is absurd because it's February in December. I mean, wait, oh my god, February and December. That's sending me. It's February in Denver, and it was like 62 degrees and sunny. It was so warm. I took my dog for a walk and I was like, so I'm gonna go lay by the pool because what is this? I'm gonna do the same thing tomorrow because we're preparing. I'm getting tan. But also, I thought this robe and this outfit was fitting because today we're talking about how to get a free vacation from doing UGC. And if this robe doesn't give vacation vibes, I don't know what does. So let's get into it. First and foremost, I'm literally teaching you guys how to do this and building your travel portfolio with you in Mexico from April 10th to the 14th. There's literally one spot left. Doors were supposed to close yesterday. And I said, you know what? There's one spot left. So the lucky person who wants that spot, they'll be able to get in by Friday. So hopefully, by the time you're listening to this, that spot's not already taken. But all the details for Mexico are gonna be below. But if you listen to this episode and you're like, oh, I need to do this, literally just come to Mexico because we're going to be learning all of this in depth and like actually building your travel portfolio with Airbnb hotel content, tourism content. So, like, yeah, you're gonna want to be there. Anyway, if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, I want that last spot, you can damn me on Instagram if you have questions or just go below. The details will be in the show notes and come to Mexico with us. I seriously can't wait. All right, this is gonna be a quick and hard-hitting episode. We're gonna go over five steps for how to get a free vacation by this summer by using UGC. So, step one. You ready? Step one is that you're gonna have one to three example videos that you have shot and have of Airbnbs or hotels. So if you're like, but Maddie, I don't have that. How do I do that? Great question. First source that you can go to is your camera roll. If you have footage from past Airbnbs you've stayed at, past hotels you've stayed at, try to utilize that footage to put together some example videos. You might already have footage in your camera roll that could work for this. Second, you can always literally go to a friend's house. If you have a friend that has like a pretty decently nice apartment, maybe they have a cool view, maybe they have cool amenities, whatever it is. Pretend that it's an Airbnb and go shoot content of their apartment and film example content as if you're staying at an Airbnb and like review the place and get cool footage of it. In exchange, you could tell your friend that you'll organize and clean their apartment for them so that you can get good footage of their apartment. So win-win. And third is that you can always go to local hotels and ask if you can shoot content of their hotel. So literally you can be like, I will give you guys this content for free. I just want to like come and shoot content of the lobby, the amenities. And if you're able to just like open one of the rooms, it'll literally take me 10 minutes to go in there and get some content of the room. So, like, literally, you it's not even like you need to go in exchange for a stay. You don't have to make it this whole thing. You could go in person to hotels and ask them if you can shoot content for them and just like go in the rooms, go to the amenities, get content and get their email and send them like a couple of videos. Like it that's literally probably the easiest way to do this. And then you actually have a hotel that you can put on your portfolio of like, I worked with this hotel. I created content for them. So that's pretty cool. The type of content that you're creating, it can range. So sometimes it's just a tour of the room and you're showing B-roll, and then you're doing a voiceover, kind of explaining the room, maybe talking about your stay. It could be like an aesthetic trending video. So, you know, those pieces of content that like pan the room and then look to the view, and it's like a trending audio and some like a trending text on screen over it. Content like that you could create. So there's a lot of different ways. Honestly, go to TikTok, go to Instagram, type in like viral hotel stay, viral um mountain cabin, or just go and look up example hotel UGC content. Like there's a lot out there on the internet. Go look it up. It's really not that hard of content to shoot. And if you're already familiar with the UGC world, this will come pretty naturally to you. Okay, that is step one. Step two, you're going to choose what kind of stays that you want to pitch. So you're going to kind of categorize them. So let's see you want to do a beach cottage stay this summer. Maybe you want to do a mountain cabin stay. Maybe you want to do a city hotel stay. Like I want you to create these categories based on what kind of stays you want to pitch, because this is going to help you in the next step, which is step three, make a pitch deck. So basically, you're creating a PDF where you're going to have a few things. First, you're going to have a bit about yourself, who you are, what you do, what UGC is. And then you are going to have the example videos that you created. And then you're going to also have other videos on there that you did not create, but that match the aesthetic of that type of stay. So if you are doing a mountain cabin, let's say you're pitching different mountain cabins, lodges, stuff like that, go to TikTok and search viral mountain cabin stay or viral mountain hotels, something like that. And you're going to find content that has performed really well for other stays or that other people have posted that have blown up. And you are going to screen record those videos and put them on this PDF. So you are, I mean, sorry, not really screen record. You're going to like uh screenshot that and then put the cover image of that video on the PDF and then link directly to that video. So like they could click on the video in the PDF and it'll take them to TikTok and they will see this exact video and they'll be able to see how viral it is and how well it performed. And so then you're able to basically communicate like, hey, here's some inspiration of the type of content that I could film of your stay while I'm there. Look at these types of videos that went viral for other stays like yours. Create this PDF for each type of stay that you want to pitch, and then you're good to go. I will actually link below the link to a template in Canva. This is literally what I send to hotels and Airbnbs. So if you want to use this template, go ahead and steal it from me. All right, step four is you got to find these places, right? So you're gonna go on Google, you can search on Instagram, you can go on Airbnb, and you're going to find these stays that you want to pitch. Super easy. You can literally go into Google and type in, you know, mountain lodges in Breckenridge, Colorado. And you can do that for the locations that you want to go to and the type of stays that you want to stay at. And then you can ideally find an email on their website that you can send a pitch email to. If you cannot find an email, then you can always DM them on Instagram asking for an email. Do not reach out to them directly on Airbnb. That is technically a violation of Airbnb's policy. So what I would recommend doing is if you find a place on Airbnb that you really like, see if you can find that somewhere else on the internet. So a lot of the times Airbnbs will have like a specific name, right? Like their name will have some kind of or um their stay will have some kind of like name that is recognizable. And so if you like copy that name in Airbnb and put it in Google or Instagram, see if you can find them elsewhere and then pitch them there. And then step five is to pitch them. So you are going to first, if you can't find an email, you can send them a DM. This DM can be pretty simple, just giving them a little bit of basics on who you are, what you do, and the kind of exchange that you would like to make. So, for example, hey, my name is Maddie. I'm a UGC creator. Um, I do content for a living and I'm coming to this location in June. I would really love to stay at your place in exchange for some social media content and some photos. Uh, if this is something you'd be interested in, is there an email that I could send a more detailed pitch to and some content ideas, something like that. And then once you get an email, or if you originally have already found an email on their website, then you can send them a full pitch. This is going to be similar to a typical UGC pitch, but instead you are pitching a stay. And then you're going to attach that PDF on there. So you are um going to attach the PDF that has that um, those example videos. It has a little blurb about you. And then also in the text of your email, you can give them a little pitch again, some background on just who you are, when you're coming to stay at that location, when you'd like to stay, um, and then letting them know like you'd love to chat more if this pitch piques their interest. From there, you just gotta continue to pitch, have conversations, have these negotiations, and then continue to do it until you land your first day. This is actually, I think, a pretty fun process. Try not to take it too seriously. I like to think of it as like, why not? Like, literally, what's the worst that they can say? No. Okay, great. I'll move right along with my life. Like, it's one of those things that's just fun because it's like, great, like, yeah, I'll have the audacity to like see if I can get a free vacation. Why not? Can't recommend it enough. I've gotten many free stays using this method. And if you're wondering, kind of, well, how much content do I offer in exchange for the stay? I usually just try to match the value. So let's say you are staying at a$200 a night hotel and they're giving you two nights for free. I'll probably offer them like two UGC videos and five photos because that's a pretty equal exchange of um value. That might depend on your experience, but I would say that's a pretty good baseline. I just saw my ex walking his dog outside of my apartment. Kill me. Um, no, I'm fine. Um I totally lost my train of thought because of that. Guys, this is why we don't date people who live in the same building as you. If there's anything I can teach you as a coach, I'm just kidding. Oh god. Um and that's it. I've had a lot of success sending PDFs like this. My students have had success with this. Um if you try this and you end up getting a free stay, I would love to know. Let me know in the comments. DM me on Instagram. Like, I love this stuff. And also, again, if you want to learn this stuff and do it in person and build your portfolio, come to freaking Mexico. There's one spot left. I'd love to see you there. All right, that's all I got for you guys today. I would say I'm gonna go get in the hot tub, but my apartment building decided that they had to do two weeks of maintenance on it. So, R.I.P. All right, see you guys in the next episode. Bye.