As well as creating content and writing sponsored posts, some of the bloggers act as brand ambassadors.
“This is where brands will sign up bloggers on a partnership basis. Woolworths has signed up five of our bloggers for the whole financial year,” she says.
“They’ll blog each month and host events and create content for Woolies. Another blogger will be in a TV ad for a big brand and we’re seeing more of that as well.”
Murphy measures the success of a campaign across four different pillars: exposure, interaction, ROI and action.
Exposure relates to the reach of the post, while interaction is measured by the number of comments, tweets and likes a post gets. ROI is the key objective and in many cases it’s measured by click throughs. Action involves people engaging with the brands through things like competition entries, coupon redemption and newsletter subscriptions.
When Murphy devised her business plan initially, she went into such detail she even described the characteristics of who her first employee should be.
Creating a positive team environment has always been one of Murphy’s goals, having come from an agency with a “great culture”.
“We do a yoga class together and we do a social event once a month. I also organise an ‘inspire lunch’ every two months or so where we go to a nice restaurant and have lunch with someone who knows their stuff,” she says.
“Another thing we do is deliver on our values. There are four values and we each have a vision board of things which bring the values to life. Whenever we see someone meet the value we give them a gold star, and then if you get 20 stars you get gold class tickets.”
Murphy says the initiative is “largely just a pat on the back”, but it’s effective and keeps team morale high.
Murphy works till around 7pm each evening, but has a rule that when she’s home, she’s home.
“I love cooking, cooking is like my meditation.
“I love getting into the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon. I’m also involved in (knowledge sharing program) The Entourage, founded by Jack Delosa, and I go to school every two months with them and we connect and share experiences, there are 100 members now.”
“The Entourage is like a mentorship, we all mentor each other.
“Lisa Messenger from The Messenger Group has also been a great mentor. She’s really exciting and she does her own thing despite what market trends are saying.
“I tend to write to successful entrepreneurs for possible mentors and people have been really generous.”
Murphy wants to explore overseas markets, but is aiming to keep the agency to a small number of bloggers and primary clients.
“I think the beauty is bloggers are global and I think that’ll be something we could easily do. Then I guess it’s really just solidifying what we’ve been doing and continuing to be leaders in the space and having the freshest campaigns.”
But it’s not all smooth sailing. Murphy says a potential challenge on the horizon is getting the balance between sponsored content and independent posts correct.
“The reader will think it’s boring and switch off. We’re careful to maintain that balance and we’ve found that the bloggers have increased their readership, one has actually doubled, but it still needs to be an organic nature.
“Another challenge will be connecting with the bloggers which have true influence, and determining who these people are. Some are more exclusive and harder to get a hold of,” she says.
