Aldi’s secret weapon the Aussie mum whose Facebook fan page has 91,000 followers

YOU can’t buy the kind of publicity that comes from an impassioned mummy blogger ... well actually, you can if your name is Aldi.

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YOU can’t buy the kind of publicity that comes from an impassioned mummy blogger. Well, actually, you can, if your name is Aldi.

When Queensland mother-of-three Sam Jockel’s Aldi Mum Facebook page took off, the German supermarket giant sat up and noticed.

Now Mrs Jockel gets paid to post about Aldi products, with the retailer sending her a selection each week, from which she chooses five items to photograph and post.

For the chain’s plethora of diehard fans, it seems like a dream gig, but the 32-year-old says it’s only a side project — and she doesn’t feed her family for free.

“I don’t pay for the products being reviewed, but lots of the stuff I get is not stuff I’d normally buy, so I do pay for my own food,” she said.

What began as a whim five years ago has grown into a popular Facebook page with more than 90,000 followers.

“I just decided over a bottle of wine with friends to start a blog and Facebook page called Aldi Mum,” Mrs Jockel said.

“My friend and I made a bunch of Aldi Mum tote bags and sent them to their head offices in the mail, with a note saying ‘come and have fun with Aldi Mum’.”

Aldi Mum feeds her growing family on the cheap.

It reads like a advertising executive’s sleight of hand, but Mrs Jockel’s background is in theology and social work.

Her instinctive marketing nous has paid off, with Aldi agreeing to pay her an undisclosed sum to keep the Facebook page going.

“After a couple of months it was starting to take up more time, answering people’s questions and moderating the comments. So I started to go ‘okay, well this is actually taking up some of my life, maybe I should talk to them about this’.”

Mrs Jockel posts five products a week for her followers to comment on and discuss, and files a weekly report summarising the feedback — which range from “Okay, but the sultanas smell funny” to “Delicious. Exactly the same as Kellogg’s Sultana Bran.”

“I don’t say ‘this is great’ or ‘this is horrible’; I just facilitate other mums giving their comments,” she said.

Followers discuss topics like whether Aldi lamb chops are too fatty, whether its makeup removal wipes work (or sting the eyes) and whether the Aldi blender can be used to grind oats.

The discussion happens organically, unlike traditional market research, giving Aldi — whose magic formula is based on extensive product testing — a unique insight into its customers.

“There’s fresh things to discuss every week, that’s why it works,” Mrs Jockel said.

She said Aldi did not explicitly tell her what to post on the page, and the feedback was spontaneous and genuine.

“Not one of those mums is getting anything for their opinion about a product.”

When it comes to the weekly shop for her family of five, Mrs Jockel said she spent between $150 and $200, focusing on fresh produce, meat and dairy.

“I buy the goat’s cheese, haloumi, grass fed beef, Atlantic salmon — just really nice stuff that’s well priced and good quality,” she said.

“That’s why I love Aldi, I don’t go there to buy home brand.”

The famous Special Buys aisle came in handy when her children, now aged eight, five and one, were newborns, and continued to deliver when she faced an endless stream of kids’ birthday parties.

“I have a stash of birthday presents, and I bought some astro turf the other day and put it around the cubby house,” Mrs Jockel said.

Aldi Bub also enjoys the fresh food.

Aldi stocks a seemingly random assortment of Special Buys, with diehard customers known to line up to get into the supermarket when the stock changes on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Mrs Jockel is forced to venture further afield to satisfy her coconut yoghurt craving; Aldi’s product range has its limits.

And not every product hits the mark.

“Personally I don’t like their tomato sauce,” she said. “It’s too sweet for my liking.”

Mrs Jockel also receives products as part of Aldi’s new Tester’s Club, a separate program that does not involve payment, but these items do not feature on the Facebook page.

“I recently tried their version of Tim Tams, and they were mighty fine, really buttery,” she said.

Aldi Mum is not her only online venture. Mrs Jockel now runs a social media consultancy full time, along with a second Facebook page that is even more popular: School Mum, which made headlines last month when she posted an image of a so-called “vagina dress”.

She has representation with blogger agency The Remarkables, and has appeared on A Current Affair.

Aldi Mum’s viral sense of humour was evidenced by her Wayne Cooper “vagina dress” post.

An Aldi spokesman said in statement that online communities were “a big part of how Aldi operates in Australia”.

“We are always keen to hear what our customers are saying,” the spokesman said.

“Samantha Jockel has been a passionate fan of Aldi for many years and we were excited and humbled when she set up her Aldi Mum blog in 2010.

“In recent years, Aldi has been sharing some updates and products for Aldi Mum to use for reviews and giveaways if she deems it relevant.

“Aldi Mum in turn provides Aldi with valuable insights as to what products and topics her community is commenting on, so that we can then share feedback with our product development teams. Samantha is compensated for the time associated with the giveaways and reports.”

Aldi Tester’s Club launched in August, with 100 members chosen from among 17,000 applicants to receive four packages a year of 10 Aldi products to try, and send their feedback on at least five of them to the company directly.

Applications are currently closed, and the company is yet to reveal when it will take applications for the next annual intake.

A Woolworths spokesman said the rival supermarket chain briefed bloggers and social media influencers “on an ad hoc basis”.

“This is particularly the case when we are focusing on specialist areas,” the spokesman said.

“Our relationship with bloggers is very similar to that which we have built with journalists.”

Coles did not respond to questions about whether it had commercial relationships with bloggers.

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