Show notes

Episode 86 - Interviewing the other one of the founder


Melanie

Hello. And welcome to the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. And this week we have a different type of podcast. Very recently you have my podcast. And this time it's going to be the podcast with Ester and Simon. So without any further Ado, listen in. And I hope you find it as fascinating as I did.

Simon

Hi. This is the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. And a bit like last time, this is Simon Coffin for Marsh Tech News, and I'm interviewing the other one of the founders. So who do we have the pleasure of speaking to today?

Esther

I'm Esther Ocampo

Simon

Cool and I guess, first of all, for those who don't know you, what's your background and where are you from? And as we were just chatting, are you Irish or what are you?

Esther

That's a heated question right there. So I'm born and raised in a small time near the border of County Down near the city of Nearly and that's Northern Ireland, British by birth, Irish by passport, Irish by Brexit, one of those.

Simon

Best of both Worlds.

Esther

Best of Both worlds exactly. So I live overlooking the mountains of Morn, so beautiful views every morning, and you can't beat it with a big stick, as we say up here.

Simon

Okay. So if someone said, what do you do now? What would your elevator pitch B to describe what it is that you do?

Esther

So I work with IPA Group. IPA Group is my business, and we are a one-stop shop for all your digital marketing needs. So whether that's website, graphic design, social media management, we are the ones that can help you with all of that.

Simon

Okay. Cool. So how long have you been doing this? Because obviously social media platforms are relatively new and are still also evolving in terms of which ones are maybe the best for you and your business.

Esther

Oh, definitely. Well, we've been running the business itself since just before my youngest was born. So that's coming up on ten years, we started the business over in Mexico. My husband is Mexican. Hence the weird surname. There is no apostrophe in my surname, even though it starts with an O and I live in Ireland, that's a general consensus that here every surname that starts with a O gets an Apostrophe straight after. So we started the business over in Mexico in Tijuana, on the California border. Like I said about ten years ago now and from there it has evolved. It always started off as web design and graphic design and social media management. But like you say yourself, we started on one platform helping people on Facebook, and then we developed and evolved and started helping more people on LinkedIn and on Twitter. And as the number of platforms grow as well. We're always keeping up with the trends and seeing which ones best for our clients. And even if they've been on one for many, many years, we will encourage them to move over to other platforms. If that's where their audience is.

Simon

So with that in mind, I was wondering, do you kind of do a diagnostic in terms of whether your clients are actually using the best possible fit? I mean, maybe they should be on X and they're on Y. Do you do that kind of analysis and what guides you in assessing where the best platforms for particular companies?

Esther

Yeah, we do that analysis. We sit down with them. First of all, before we start and decide you find out from them where they have been. And if they're on any platforms already where they are on those platforms, how many people can see their posts and those platforms? We're not so concerned about follower numbers. We're more concerned about people engaging in how many people can see the posts. So we have we run our diagnostics and from there we say, okay, but your audience is actually on like I said Y platform. So we talk to them and try to convince them to move over. Sometimes it's successful if we're managing it for them. Other times, if it's just a consultation, they don't feel comfortable moving away from a platform that they know how to run. So it's a bit of a struggle whenever it's whenever it's them deciding in them sticking with their you platform. So we do run their strategy and we talk to them about what would work best and where it would work best and how to run the different aspects of their campaigns, whether it be organic or ad campaigns. But yeah, trying to get people to change over into another platform is probably one of the most difficult things to do, purely because people are so comfortable on the platform that they've been on, even though the platforms are all so new. You know, you think about Facebook and Twitter, there're only 10,12 years old. So it's really difficult to then turn right and go, "no, you should really be on Tik Tok" whenever it's one year old, two year old. So they're sort of looking at and go "no, no, it's going to crash and burn. It's going to die. You know, people are going to leave that one and go back to Facebook" and they don't see the bigger picture. They haven't been on this side of the social media where we are looking at all the different platforms and seeing which ones will stick around and which ones might not.

Simon

So look, I hear you and it's kind of exciting. And I also grown sometimes when a new one comes along because obviously, like you say, you've been doing it well, relatively on maybe LinkedIn or Twitter. And along comes Tik Tok. And it is a new learning curve. So in terms of you guys, how do you eat your own dog food? Because let's say there's three big new possible things that come along. And maybe like Tik Tok. After a few evolutions and it changed became something that was worth being into other things weren't. And obviously you guys are the ones with the expertise, how much time do you give and how do you play around with new platforms to then assess which ones have value?

Esther

Well, we're really lucky here in IPA Group to have a team with us. So we have different people on the team assessing the different platforms. So we have ones that are you trying out Pinterest or trying out Tik Tok and trying out different ones, whichever new one comes along. You know, you've also got Clubhouse and you've got the audio platforms coming along. So we sort of divide and conquer. It's the only way that we have been able to do it, because if we tried just as one person to do it, it would take up the entire time. And, so we have different members of the team trying it out under their own personal branding or under IPA Group branding, depending on whether we think it may be feasible or not to move the whole company over. We're not averse to being on all platforms. We don't recommend it because it is a lot of work. But as long as you're on the ones that your audience are on, then that's the best thing for you. We find club host working really well for us recently with our Mexican office, because there's a lot now that it's fully open, there's a lot of Latin Americans and Spanish speakers on it and using it. Well, and that's been working well for our Mexican brunch.

Simon

Okay. So like you say, it's fast moving new things come along. If you have to predict the future for where the ordinances are going to go, I'll be going to continue to see new things come along. I mean, on one hand, the other thing happened with Facebook, where Facebook came along and ate all the other ones that were like it. Myspace and friends reunited slightly similar kind of stuff. And then Facebook became, you know, the big beasts in the platform. But in the future and I see it. And I guess I'm asking this because on the other hand, a lot of people went to Instagram and Whatsapp? But obviously Facebook bought them to try and future proof that then people might not use Facebook, but they might be on other things that they own. So do you think we're going to continue to see, I mean, I know Clubhouse came along and was pretty successful, and then there's another version, spaces or something. So do you think we're going to keep seeing innovation like this or is there a point where it's going to be finite.

Esther

I think there will always be innovation like this. A few years ago, there was a platform called Lab as well, which was like Zoom on Steroids and it was really good, but there was no funding behind it. There was no real way for them to monetize it or anything. Now that we've seen Clubhouse opening up. Then Twitter has opened up there audio version, which is Twitter spaces, and there are others and Facebook's talking about doing it as well. So it will be one new thing will come along and all the big guys will jump on to it.

Esther

So is like you say, people don't leave their platform. But the thing that really is annoying people at the minute with the more established platforms is that they are eating up into all the all the other smaller guys. They're buying them up. They're taking away their ideas. They are amalgamating with all the different platforms and then putting their algorithm to all these other platforms. So therefore, you're not seeing half the stuff that you really want to see. And as a small business owner, it's really difficult because Facebook, for example, they opened the paid events on Facebook. But you can only register for paid events if you are VAT registered. And not all small businesses are VAT registered. But most of them would be using Facebook to do paid events. So, you know, Facebook sort of shooting themselves in the foot there. And therefore the small businesses are looking at other platforms, like mighty networks and different places that they can go to really use another platform for their benefit. But at the end of the day, they're sort of feel like they're torn or they're tied to Facebook because everybody knows Facebook because it's been around for so long now. So it's one of those catch 22 situations of should I still be on Facebook because it's so big or because it's so big, nobody will see me anymore in Facebook, you know, it's one of those. Yes. I think there still will be new and improved technologies as well. I mean, podcasts have come a long way as well, and people are using them then and repurposing and putting them up on different platforms as well. So, I mean, there's always a different way to reach your audience as long as you've got the key, which is the content.

Simon

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like if it's boring, whatever platform you're on, it's boring. Yeah. So we've need to rise in podcasts and audio, and therefore a slight diminishing in text. And I guess it's always good to look at how do we prefer to consume our information? And sometimes we want to deep dive into text. Sometimes you want to listen, and sometimes we watch YouTube if it's maybe more instructional. So in the future, is it going to be a blended mix of text, audio, video, or is one going to dominate? I don't personally see it can all be video because, you know, if I'm driving a podcast works, but a video doesn't. But what are your thoughts on that?

Esther

Yeah. I would agree with you there. I personally don't watch videos with the signed on. I would listen to podcasts when I'm cooking or when I'm walking. But videos unless it's something you know,  step by step. You have to be watching carefully and paying attention I listen, I watch it with the signed off. So therefore you need the subtitles, you need the captions, you need the text there, because usually I'm watching the videos when I put the kids to bed, when there needs to be silenced in the house, or when I'm trying to put myself to sleep after a long day, either that or I would read. So like you said, there's different people prefer different methods. I'm definitely more text and visual as infographics and things like that. But there are others who just prefer a video, you know, give me a video and I'll know exactly what to do. You send me a video and I'll be able to follow those steps and do X,Y,Z. So there always will be different people who prefer the different methods. So I would say just keep sending out the different methods. I mean, yes, TikTok has been great and reels are great because they're short and sweet and to the point. But how can you repurpose those and always think about how to repurpose your content for other people who don't watch the reels and don't sit on Tik Tok for hours because the rabbit holes and people realise that if they go on to one platform, they may be there for hours and hours at a time. So find a way to reach them, whether it's in their inbox email marketing, you send the text that you put in the real edited for email and send that to them.

Yeah. Look, I hear you. So I mean, on Irish tech news, you can read it, but you can hit the button and you can listen to it. And the idea is to let the people consume the content in the way that they want to consume it. And therefore that surely increases your opportunities to reach people. So I think repurposing is a good tip, I guess. What are you excited about in the future and what are your plans, seeing as you guys are growing melanie's very positive about this. So if good goes well for you, what's the future look like?

Esther

Well, the future for IPA Group is just growing and growing. We've actually been able to expand and during COVID and during the crisis we've been able to hire two or three new people. So that's been great. And the future for the Monday Morning Marketing podcast is bright as well, and we're coming up with plans and going to have an event later on in the year. So stay tuned for that. I'm not going to give you any more details on that just yet, but you can find out more once we get it up on the website at the Monday Morning marketing dot com.

Simon

Cool. So that's what I was going to ask you. Then it is how can people learn more about you? And are you on Twitter? What are your outlets? I know you do everything. So.

Esther

IPA group are in everything. So you can find us on Twitter at IPA Group en. You can find us on Facebook. Instagram Instagram is at IPAGRP. The website is IPA Group.Co, so you can find it there. And if you speak Spanish. You can see it in Spanish as well.

Simon

Cool. So I had one final question, which was you said that you kind of began in Mexico. So did you initially have a Mexican Spanish speaking audience? And now you have an English audience like, I guess, are you reaching different audiences in different languages?

Esther

We are we've always been doing it in two languages. So we've always been before Facebook automatically and Twitter automatically translated the text. We would have put out two different texts to one in Spanish and one in English because our audience has always been international, with me being from Northern Ireland and having a lot of contacts in the UK and Ireland and also a lot of contacts in the United States. We always had that sort of cross border international connections and clients in different countries. So our text has always gone out in two languages. Now that it does translate automatically, then if it goes out in Spanish, people see it in English. If that's what their system is set up, and if it goes out in English, then they'll see it in Spanish. So it makes our life a little easier than they use Google Translate, which is not 100% and then can make us look silly, but yeah, I mean, everything that we do has always been bilingual. It's always been using the best of both cultures as well. So I think that's given us again, a bit of an edge in that we've always had that international feeling international team behind us as well. So it gives us that ability to see other technologies. I mean, there are things that we were doing in Mexico that we can't do here, like drone work and stuff. We can't do it here because you need so many different licences and certificates, and you don't really need all that in Mexico, but the augmented reality things that we were doing in Mexico, the UK and Ireland haven't caught up with that yet, either. So there's a lot of things that we still want to implement here in the UK, Ireland, that we've already had experience in with being over in Mexico.

Simon

Yeah. Look at it very much so. I think by having that more international perspective, you can see what's coming up in other places. And obviously, you know, Mexico has, what was it? 90 million people? It's a huge country.

Esther

130.

Simon

You know, so much interesting things coming out of Mexico, you know.

Esther

Yeah. Yeah.

Simon

It's been a pleasure to talk to you. And hopefully it's been informative for your listeners as well.

Esther

Thank you very much, Simon. Thanks for coming and interviewing us. Cheers

Esther

Bye.

Melanie

Well, that was eye opening, air popping and pretty damn interesting. Well, that's all we have time for, for now. But we'll be back very soon with another podcast. We hope you've learned a bit more about both of us and come to a better understanding as to why are we bringing this podcast to you today? So keep in touch. Keep looking us up on socials and we'll be back. By for now.