Claiming to be “a first for the Australian marketing and social media landscape”, PR veteran Lorraine Murphy today launched a new talent agency for bloggers, called The Remarkables Group.

With five high profile “mummy bloggers” already on board, the agency will manage partnerships and coordinate briefings, approvals, payment and evaluations for its blogger clients. There is no cost to brands to work with The Remarkables Group.

“The Remarkables offer a powerful channel for brands to get their message talked about by their target audience, in what is an increasingly cluttered media landscape,” says founder Lorraine Murphy.

Murphy has eight years of PR experience in Australia, the UK and Ireland - most recently working at Naked Communications in Sydney. Her work included coordinating an event specifically for mummy bloggers on behalf of her client GlaxoSmithKline - an Australian first.

She said in an announcement post that she recognised “a need for a coordinator of blogger and brand relationships in Australia” and is keen to use her PR experience to “assist brands in reaching their target audience by partnering with some of Australia’s most influential bloggers”.

“We’re also keen to help Australian brands pioneer new ways to work with bloggers, based on the success in the US of blog ambassadorships and bloggers being featured as above the line talent,” she explains.

The initial five ‘Remarkables” are Mrs World from Woogsworld, Nikki Parkinson from Styling You, Eden Riley from Edenland, Sarah from A Beach Cottage and Beth from BabyMac. However, Murphy states that “more Remarkables will be added in coming months”.

Blogger Nikki Parkinson says she’s excited to be represented by Murphy, adding it “leaves me to get on with what I like best to do. Write. About something I love. About something you seem to love too”.

The other four bloggers all posted about the launch in their own unique style: Woogsworld’s post, Edenland’s post, A Beach Cottage’s post and BabyMac’s post.

Murphy said the five are the perfect representation of what she wants to achieve.

“Mum is the main purchase decider in Australian families, so communicating to them is a top priority for many brands in the current marketing climate. It made sense to launch The Remarkables Group with five bloggers who are having thousands of conversations every day with Australian mums,” she said.

​UPDATE - PR ADVICE

PRs will do well to consider The Remarkables Group, according to Murphy, who told Influencing a number of tips to work with the firm and bloggers.

“The advantage to PRs in working with The Remarkables Group is that they’re in safe, knowledgeable hands,” she advises. “Blogger outreach programs can be tricky in their own right, but when discussions move in a paid-for direction, it can be very difficult for brands to know what a reasonable fee is, and how to structure the agreement. The Remarkables Group can manage the partnership.”

“Be it a sponsored post, ambassadorship or something else - from start to finish, we will ensure a smooth, successful campaign. Evaluation is also key for us, so each campaign is properly audited so that it’s as easy as possible for PRs to report success back to their clients.”

And in terms of what to do should PRs be interested, the big advice is to contact them as early in the planning stage as possible.

“We would encourage PRs to get in touch when they’re planning their campaigns so that we can help them achieve a PR campaign that fully integrates the blogger partnership element with the more traditional aspects of it. We can contribute ideas, and also get The Remarkables involved in planning - they know their readers best after all,” Murphy says.

“We know from our own experience though that turnaround sometimes needs to be tight, so we’re happy to get involved later in the day as well!”

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Thanks to Lorraine.

Find out more about The Remarkables Group or on Twitter. 

If you have any news leads, press releases or would like to be featured on the site, email tim@mediaconnect.com.au.

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