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Job Description:

THE OPPORTUNITY

Outgoing and persuasive, you could have been a brilliant salesperson if you weren’t so intellectual… Writing talent and a knack for finding interesting stories hidden in the everyday had you leaning towards journalism, except for that whole “dying industry” thing… Fortunately, there is a niche that offers both strong career potential and a perfect fit for your talents: PR & Community Relations!

No, we’re not talking about running damage control after MegaCorp’s latest accidental slaughter of dolphins and baby seals. This is PR for SMEs and startups, where the name of the game is to hitch your client’s wagon to creative and interesting stories that journalists want to tell anyway, such as data-driven journalism, research studies, trend pieces, roundups, infographics, customer profiles, etc.

Even if you’re brilliantly creative, success in startup/ SME PR requires an awful lot of hustle: without a Fortune 500 brand in the “From:” field, you’ll have to work a lot harder to even get journalists to open your email, let alone listen to your idea. Building authentic relationships with bloggers, journalists, and other influencers in your client’s industry is a great first step. Being able to leverage emotional intelligence / empathy / behavioral psychology to write a persuasive pitch seals the deal.

If this sounds like the challenge for you, the good news is that you won’t have to go it alone!

As our new PR & Community Relations Associate, you’ll join a fast-growing team of digital marketing professionals dedicated to honing our crafts, achieving great results for our clients, and having fun along the way. Your role will entail everything related to outreach and pitching: responding to journalist inquiries, figuring out ways to get clients’ content or products mentioned in websites and media, pitching guest posts and reviews, and collaborating with team members on creative content campaigns that will drive links, social shares, and media mentions.

This is a remote work, flex-time position paying $18-22 / hr plus significant performance bonuses (top performers earn around double). Additional benefits include 6 weeks paid training, a learning stipend, technology stipend, performance bonuses, and the opportunity to work with some pretty badass digital marketers! Hours can range from 20-40 / week. Ideal candidates should have full-time or near full-time availability, and are looking to grow with the company long-term as they rise through the ranks of a digital marketing agency.

Our team is 100% remote, so telecommuters won’t feel like second-class citizens here.

ABOUT YOU

1-5 years professional work experience, or internships of extraordinary relevance and quality
Exceptional persuasive-writing ability: your college application essay made the Dean cry, and your status updates win more “likes” than a skateboarding puppy doing the Harlem Shake.
Startup compatibility: you’re comfortable with changing roles, blistering speed, and figuring it out as you go along
Passion for helping small businesses succeed
Self-disciplined: you prefer to structure your own tasks, all the better to try out that new hyper-productivity system you read about last weekend
Virtually extraverted: it’s OK if you’re shy at parties, but on the internet you’re not afraid to speak up, always remembering that there’s a real person on the other side of your monitor, and connecting in an authentic manner whether you’re pitching a TechCrunch writer or helping Milfred find a new web host for her gluten free dog biscuit store.

DEFINITELY APPLY IF ANY OF THE FOLLOWING ALSO APPLY TO YOU:

Prior success in a remote work startup environment
Existing blogger or journalist relationships
Experience in an SME-focused PR, SEO, or Content Marketing Agency
Tier 1 publication credits to your name

ABOUT US

Our company Open Development, Inc. is a fast-growing startup offering a unique “software+service” model to help small businesses improve the performance of their website with greater effectiveness and lower cost than a traditional marketing agency. You can think of our software side as something like Siri for your website, or “an online marketing expert in a box”, offered through partners like domain registrars and web hosts, as well as through our own brands CanIRank and Growth AI. Our services half is like “Uber for online marketing”, with a distributed team of online marketing professionals working together on the opportunities identified by the software.

By combining the power of machine learning and a specialized on-demand workforce, we help small businesses compete with the mega-corporations like Amazon and eBay, and prevent the web from turning into just another Big Brand strip mall.

A few things that make us unique as a company:

Founded by an experienced entrepreneur who has worked at 7 startups in 3 countries, including one $200M+ exit
Our core technology was developed by a team of 3 Stanford engineers, with help from one of the world’s leading predictive analytics experts
We reward great work with “thank you” gifts that have included a laptop, speakers, a trip to Paris, an espresso machine, and sailing trips
We’re a 100% distributed team with contributors from San Diego, Seattle, Cordoba, Barcelona, Wroclaw, and elsewhere. Never has meeting your coworkers been this much fun!
We believe a healthy employee is a productive one, and that means taking time away from the computer to cultivate other interests, which for our current team ranges from rock climbing to electronic music to ultramarathons.
A supportive company culture focused on helping each other become better at what we do, both informally (celebrating successes, pooling expertise, sharing good reads, etc) and formally (6-week paid training period, mentoring & feedback from experienced marketers, budget for continuing education)