Show notes

Episode 121 - Influencer marketing with Sinead Carroll

Esther

Good morning and welcome to the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. I'm Esther.

Melanie

And I'm Melanie.

Esther

And today we're joined by Sinead Carroll, founder and owner of Irish Blogger Agency, Ireland's dedicated influencer marketing Agency. And we're talking talking about influencer marketing. Welcome, Sinead.

Sinead

Thanks, ladies, for having me. Delighted to be here this morning.

Esther

We are so glad to have you here. Influencer marketing is such a hot topic at the minute. There are so many people talking about it. There are so many people wondering and interested in "how do I get somebody?" So let's start from the beginning and tell us how long you've been in the field of marketing and what started you in it.

Sinead

Yeah. So just to give you a bit of background, I suppose I spent 15 years in banking, so I was a banker. So I ended up coming near the end of my career in 2013/14 when I knew things in the economy weren't great and I had a property portfolio and I knew there was going to be dramatic changes in the banking landscape. So I decided to start blogging. And in 2013, I set up a fashion and lifestyle blog called Yummy Mummy. And I'm based here in the west of Ireland in Galway in Ireland. And I suppose my third child would sleep in the night. I know, it's funny, I had nothing to do after she slept. I was bored. So I literally decided to set up a blog and I didn't know how to do it. I just googled how to set up a blog and straight away then I created a blogger profile, created a website and started blogging about fashion. And I was speaking to the mothers and Yummy Mummies in particular, who loved going out, having dinner, wearing nice clothes, were at the same stage of life as me. So I suppose it was from my fashion and lifestyle blog back in 2013 when I got into the whole marketing scene. Then I went on to set up Into the West Blogger Network in 2014 because I reached out on Twitter to anybody in Galway who was also blogging or on social media and who wanted to meet up. And we met up in the G Hotel. 20 people showed up. It was an amazing day. We were tweeting all day. We'd got a sponsorship from Cara Pharmacy. They had given us a goodie bag. I say there must have been 100 Euro worth of products in it. And we had afternoon tea at the G. So from there, I suppose it grew legs and we were constantly meeting. And on our one year anniversary, we had 150 people at a sellout event back in the G Hotel. And they were coming from all over the world or all over Ireland, should I say and across the pond as well. There were people traveling from the UK as well over. So it was really great to see how it just grew legs. And then when I was made redundant in 2015, I actually had fell in love with digital marketing and the whole marketing space and I set up many media. And then Irish Blogger Agency was born in 2016 on the back of all the contacts I had and all the influencers I had in my Excel spreadsheet.

Melanie

So how did the concept of Irish Blogger Agency come up? Because obviously you're niching yourself to Irish, but I suppose it could be other countries and communities coming to Ireland to reach people here. I'd love to know how that began.

Sinead

Yes. So I suppose from planting the seed in Galway and then grown across the country and then we have influencers on board our platform in Northern Ireland and the UK also. So I have probably called myself Irish Blogger Agency for the simple reason that it began in Ireland and that's predominantly my niche market. I want to be able to connect brands and influencers in the Irish market space. But saying that if you're a company abroad looking to work with Irish influencers, I'm easy found then on search because you just type in Irish bloggers. And thankfully with the SEO I have on my website and the content, I'm being found by brands globally, which is brilliant. I've worked with brands in Sweden and Finland, the UK. So I'm happy that I kept the name Irish Blogger Agency and went with that. And now I have a database of 700 Irish influencers on board my platform with the reach of 13 million. And we're connecting brands and influencers every day now. So which is great.

Esther

Yeah, that's brilliant. Wow. For those that don't know, Ireland doesn't even have 13 million people in it. That is literally a global reach right there. Just because there's about four or 5 million in Ireland at the most. What kind of people register with you? Are they all bloggers or are they also like TikTokers? Are they video makers? What kind of people?

Sinead

So predominantly, I call them content creators. So they can be on any platform. They can be on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, wherever they're hanging out. And they're mainly niche, Nano and micro influencers. So they're like starting at 1000 followers, probably up to about 500 followers. That's the main core group of my 700 people. Then I've got some amazing influencers that would have 300,000 followers on Instagram and growing. So, like anybody really who has a passion for something that they're talking about, that they're consistently showing up on their social media channels and posting and creating valuable content. They're all the influencers or they're all the content creators that are welcome to register on my platform and then that's how it works. They register and they connect their APIs of all their social media platforms and they're there now for brands to find them once they're all connected and have their profile up to date.

Esther

So do they add in what niche they are in that or the brands go and look for their niche. Like Pharmaceuticals.

Sinead

Yes, exactly. So there is a variety of niches. So predominates fashion, beauty lifestyle, but we have categories there for actors, artists, tech people, photographers. So it's not just your usual fashion, beauty, lifestyle, there is many more. But Ireland just so happens to have quite a large amount of fashion, beauty, lifestyle influencers. But there are other influencer opportunities there under the various categories. You create your profile, you connect your accounts and then how it works is the brand or the business contacts us here at Irish Blogger Agency and we can do the search for them so we can act as the person managing their campaign. There is also an option of self service. So if you're a brand or an agency, you too can go on to the platform and register and create an account. And then it cuts out us as the middle person and you can find these influencers through our automated platform and use the various search facilities to make it easier for you to find your correct influencer.

Melanie

I remember way back when you first started Irish Blogger Agency, the graft and hard work that you went into in creating this platform. This is an entirely created by you and a team, obviously, of people just for your agency. What was the process there?

Sinead

Yeah, it was like a gift from God, to be honest, because I was like working on an Excel spreadsheet of 1000 people. And this is probably one of the highlights of Irish Blogger Agency and came so far out planting the seed and sending me out a tweet back in 2013. I never meant for this to happen. This happened organically and it happened. It's been a long time. Like, 2013 is a long time ago. Basically working off an Excel spreadsheet. And then one day your phone ringing and a team from Sweden and two of the representatives from Dublin coming over to meet you and go away and offering you this platform.

Melanie

Wow.

Sinead

So I'm the only Irish member with access to this amazing piece of technology. It allows me to create campaigns on it to find budgets to select and hire influencers. All the contacts can be done through the platform. Then we can look at real time performance of the campaigns, we can measure the campaigns and then we can look at the ROI and it's all done through one dashboard. So that is my unique selling point. And every day now I get up and I'm so excited about who's going to be sitting in my inbox looking to connect with one of these really great influencers. So, yeah, it's exciting times for us here at Irish Blogger agency.

Melanie

So I have to ask, we've explained all the massive pros and some of the cons as well. How much do you think influencer marketing has on people's decision to purchase?

Sinead

Well, which believes that the trend for influencer marketing is growing substantially over the last number of years. So back in 2015, I suppose when I started analysing the data, there was only 1 billion being spent on influencer marketing. And in 2022, I think the last figure I was looking at was something like 21 billion globally. So influencer marketing isn't going away. I think the last stats that I touched as well, 79% of businesses now are actually using influencer marketing as part of their digital marketing strategy. So when you find a niche influencer or content creator and you're speaking directly to your ideal audience through this influencer, you are going to see a massive impact on your bottom line because they've already grown their channels and they're allowing you to reach your audience through this. And these influencers are considered Nano and micro, and they're authentic. They are real. They're real people. This is the most important thing to know. They're like you and I. They may not have as many followers as celebrity style influencers, but they have a genuine fan base that are following them, listening to them. If they put up content, they want more from this influencer. So people are influenced all the time by these microinfluencers and just even alone from the campaigns I do, you can see that through the return on investment. So people are being swayed by influencers. I know myself, I'm on social media all the time and TikTok, and you are influenced whether you like it or not. And people make decisions based on these influencers. Yeah, yeah.

Esther

Funny. I was going to ask actually, why would people go with Nano and microinfluencers over the big names? The celebrities obviously too. There's a cost difference between hiring a celebrity influencer and micro or Nano one. Do you think you get more ROI, more return on your investment through a smaller micro/Nano influencer, rather than spending the big Bucks on the celebs?

Sinead

So I suppose I don't have very much experience of working with the celebrity influencers because predominantly my database is micro, but on the chances or the opportunities I have got to work with them, I've worked on one or two campaigns, for example, and we tried working with a micro versus celebrity style influencer. And in this case, it did happen that the micro influencers sales conversions were higher. Now, the reach and the brand awareness might not have been, but the actual sales, the bottom line figure was greater and they were like a fraction of the price. So what I just say to brands is when they're working with micro influencers is like one campaign is no good, you need to have it nearly like a brand ambassador role where they're showing up every month creating content and it's all agreed and the tone of voice, the messaging is all related to your brand and everything is sitting good with what you're trying to achieve as a brand. And this means then that you will get value for your money. But if you're just like doing a Facebook ad and you're just running one ad and not testing. That never works. You have to invest a little bit into it and check out Creatives, whether it be on Instagram, Stories, Facebook, Twitter going to work better or tiktok. But from the experience I've had, the micro influencers definitely get you a really great return on your investment for a fraction of the price.

Melanie

I wanted to ask you actually not just about money, but the time investment. So investment overall, I suppose, in finding and managing this relationship. So obviously we find Irish bugger agency, we register, we sign up, and then we have a look around or work through yourselves. So how much time are we talking about here in getting things started and how long should the campaign go on for? And if you can give us an idea of pricing, we'd be grateful.

Sinead

So if you're just starting to search for an influencer in the Irish market and you don't know where to go, irishbloggeragency.com has a page on it called Brands, and you go into that page and you fill out a campaign brief. It's a few questions. And if you put all that information in, if you know what you're looking for from a campaign, that's a good place to start. I can help you really quickly then. So as a brand, you need to be able to determine your goals, know who you're trying to influence, and then properly understand all the rules that goes around influencer marketing and your hashtag ad and your disclosures and all of that. But the main thing is, if you have to find your goals and you know what you're looking for, it makes my job easier then to go and send out. What I do then, after you create your brief, is I send out an email to my 700 influencers. They all get it and they all can apply for the campaign. And there's always a box on the form that I send out asking them for their suggestions. So they'll come back with ideas of how to work with this brand. So straight away, I'm making it so easy for a brand or a business. I take all the hard work out. I've already reached 700 influencers, who now know about this product and who want to potentially work with you, and they deliver it to me on a plate, really. So that turnaround time probably takes about three to four days, and I collate all the information. If there's 20 people applying for the campaign, I'll maybe pick out the top five and upload them onto my platform. And from there, the brand will be able to see their engagement, their number of followers, their audience type, is it male or female, where are they located. Literally, the search that I do is so there for you to make an informed decision before you ever spend any money. So you can know straight away, well, if I invest in these five influencers, I'm expected to get this amount to reach this amount of engagement, impressions, etcetera. So it makes it very easy. So to get to that step, I don't ask you for a cent, I don't charge for that. But as soon as I find influencers that match your criteria and you say, I want to work with them, you need a minimum of 1000 Euro spend before we can engage in any contract. Because other than that, I've tried it and I started as low as $250. It doesn't work. There's no value in it for you or for me or the influencer. So you need to be ready to invest at least $1,000 and then maybe for the thousand Euro, you might be able to work with an influencer over a two month period.

Esther

Really?

Sinead

Yeah. And also pay the agency fee as well. So how that works is I'm totally transparent on that. You know how much you're paying the influencer and you know how much you're paying the agency. So it depends on how big or how long the campaign goes on. But from the agency side, we charge anywhere between 20% and 40%. I think the highest I've charged so far was 30% for the size of the campaign. So it's normally about 20%. And you can get a really good campaign and a strategy around the campaign, because the influencers have already shared with us what they want to do for you.

Melanie

I just wanted to pick up on one thing you mentioned. You said you could have up to five people listed if there's sufficient interest. Would you recommend that the client would work with all five, or would the messaging get a bit mixed?

Sinead

So obviously it depends on your goals and your objectives and what you're trying to create from this campaign. But I'll give you an example for a campaign that's ongoing at the moment, Mental Health Ireland wanted to get brand awareness out about their campaign "Hello, how are you" launching on the 7 April. And we've engaged between 18 and 20 influencers to get that message out there. So I was able to cut through the noise and find out who was going to be able to speak about this campaign. Was the audience going to be relevant? And now the campaign is up and running, there's content being created. So on a campaign like that, the more the better. But if it was another one, we had a craft Butcher and we started out it was five or six of flags of the campaign that was potentially the perfect match. And we went with one influencer who was able to create content, create recipes, create really good visuals, photographs, videos that they could use on their social. And they entered into like a three month campaign with them. So it's like a monthly retainer that we're paying them. So that gives you kind of security every month that you know how much content is going to come up, you're going to get a recipe in this instance. So it gives the brand peace of mind that there's going to be content and activity on social. And also then you're getting the benefit of this influencer talking about you constantly over a three month or six month period. And as you know yourself, ladies, you need to show up more than once to make an impression on anybody, no matter what you're selling.

Esther

Definitely. Do you think there are some companies who just rely on the influencer marketer to do all their marketing, or do you recommend that they also continue doing the in house stuff and continue doing what they've been doing up until now? There's no point in just jumping in with an influencer marketer and doing nothing yourself.

Sinead

Oh, God, no. It's like only one element of digital marketing. So influencer marketing is like you need to keep your social media up to date. You need to keep your email marketing list. You need to do your blogs. Influencer marketing is another part of your overall digital marketing strategy. And if you think it's going to work alone, maybe it will. Something might go viral, you might just hit gold and it works. Just like a Facebook ad. You could hit gold or like a piece of viral content or a blog you put out. It could be shared by somebody. You have to try it and test it and figure out how it's going to work and work out what your goal is. And are you getting a return on that then? Because if you're starting out and you're trying to get brand awareness, you're going to have all your key metrics for that, your followers, your reach, your engagement. Then if you're going to get them through the funnel and to try and warm them up and then ultimately convert them, then you have a totally separate goal. So it is a really good way, though. If you're only creating a new product, for example, and you're bringing it to a new market, influencer marketing is a really good place to start, but have it with your overall digital marketing strategy as part of it.

Melanie

Well, we've got time for just the last couple of questions. I just wanted to ask. You really blew my mind there by mentioning a craft butchers. I was not expecting that to be amongst the influencer marketing strategy businesses types. So can you give us an indication of the types of businesses and the range that have applied and successfully got some influencer marketing done with yourself?

Sinead

Yeah, from anywhere from we had a competition app looking to work with influencers that was very successful. That was all brand awareness and people then buying a ticket from the app that was really successful. One currently going on at the moment is actually another app who's looking for beauty creators to create the video, which is most important to them and then the secondary objective is to get the reach and to get the influencers audience to know about this app or beauty products on sale on the app. So that's a key way for them to get their app launched. We're currently working with Ballet Ireland, like mentioning the campaigns that we're doing at the moment because they're exciting and fun. So Ballet Ireland is launching bold moves at the moment. Their performance coming up in April and they're working with three influencers to get their message out and to get the details out about the show. I'm trying to think, well, obviously, there's quite a few beauty and fashion and lifestyle that could be an artist.

Melanie

So retail as well.

Sinead

Retail, anybody, any brand can use influencer marketing. Like out of the 700 influencers, we're going to find somebody who match your target audience, match your voice, match your brand. So it's all different businesses.

Melanie

Actually, one more question. Aside from the last one, I'm sorry. It's my fault. Okay. So let's say the Monday Morning Marketing podcast wanted to bring you guys and she's laughing. Would you be able to find us an influencer?

Sinead

What's your goal? What are you trying to do?

Melanie

Well, we want to reach lots and lots of SMEs to tell them all about our marketing and to listen to us because we have some of the best guests and the best knowledge on the airwaves.

Sinead

Yes. So you just need to go onto my website and complete the campaign brief and define what you're looking for and what your goals are. And there's only one way of finding out who's out there that wants to collaborate with you and get your message out there. There are influencers that have got opportunities of speaking in the papers recently you know about what they do? And some of them could be looking at how to do a family meal on a budget or something like that. So that's one category you're looking at that may not work, but if you're looking for somebody to resonate with your audience, There could potentially be somebody in there and we may not know until we try. So I definitely think if you're looking to give influence a Martian goal, please do.

Esther

And on that note, where can people go to your website and sign up? Where can they find you?

Melanie

That was a great segway. I'm so good at segways.

Sinead

Yeah, my website is simple as irishbloggeragency.com. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and you can email me at sinead@irishbloggeragency.com and yeah, that's where I'll be hanging out.

Melanie

Great.

Esther

Thank you so much for joining us today, Sinead, and taking time out and talking to us about influencer marketing. I'm sure there are going to be lots of people and they will be more than excited to learn more from you as well. That's it for today, guys. We will be back next Monday Morning Marketing. Until then. Bye.