Article URL: https://onesignal.com/careers/b824ffc4-ac55-4744-b7d8-b5ace6272e96
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27357687
Points: 1
# Comments: 0
Category: Business News
Business News
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SEEKING WORK | UTC-5 | Remote | Web (Backend/Frontend/Devops)
10+ years in senior and lead engineering roles at Silicon Valley startups and independently (5+ years remote).
Diverse technical experience designing, building and managing complex and critical systems, building out large greenfield projects, integrating with/rewriting legacy systems. Most of my roles have had me working directly with business stakeholders to design and build products.
Some of the tools I’ve worked with: Python, Ruby, PHP, Javascript/ES6, Java, Golang, Perl, Rails, Django, Symfony, PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, HTML5, React, React Native, Angular, AWS, Docker
Reach out for my resume or any questions.
hn062021@hall.to
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VoxMedia | Senior SRE, Engineering Manager, Full Stack Engineer, Software Engineer | Remote US | Full Time
As the leading independent modern media company, Vox Media ignites conversations and influences culture. Across digital, podcasts, TV, streaming, live events, and print, we tell stories that affect our audience’s daily lives and entertain as much as they inform.
We’re hiring a bunch of roles on the Technology team, I wanted to highlight a few here:
Engineering Manager: https://boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/jobs/3086598?gh_jid=30… A bunch of these on a few different teams, I’m personally looking for an SRE Manager.
Senior SRE: https://boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/jobs/3159000?gh_jid=31… A great role for someone who wants to take what worked well for 20 developers and scale it to 100. This is primarily hosted in AWS with Fargate
Senior Software Engineer: https://boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/jobs/3114588?gh_jid=31… Building the APIs that help publish and distribute great journalism.
Full Stack Engineer: https://boards.greenhouse.io/voxmedia/jobs/2672437?gh_jid=26…
Great team working on the https://concert.io/ ad management platform
Even more roles: https://www.voxmedia.com/pages/careers-jobs#product-technolo…
It’s a remote first team but there are offices in DC + NYC that will reopen for the folks who are more productive in that setting.
Keeper Tax (YC W19) is hiring engineers in SF
Article URL: https://www.workatastartup.com/jobs/43038 Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27346031 Points: 1 # Comments: 0
Agapé (YC S21) Is Hiring a Founding Lead Engineer
Article URL: https://www.notion.so/Lead-Engineer-Agap-abbd2edbcff94dfc8f9d3d1dcf56799a?v=e42eecd8e93040f8aef5830bd7769f22 Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27343140 Points: 1 # Comments: 0
How to Create Unique Gift Guides for E-Commerce Content
Whether it’s for a loved one or a colleague at work, getting a gift for someone is never easy.
One reason is there are billions of options to choose from. The other reason is most people don’t have the time to look through millions of catalogs to pick one.
That’s why if you run an e-commerce store, you should make it easy for your customers to select one of your products as a gift.
To do that, you must equip your customers with a gift guide to help make the selection process easier.
Why Should You Create Gift Guides for Your E-Commerce Site?
Besides making it easier for your customers to decide which of your products to buy as a gift, gift guides serve many other purposes. Here are a few more reasons why you should create a gift guide for your e-commerce site:
Gift Guides Boost Brand Awareness
One of the most significant reasons to create a gift guide is to help boost brand awareness. Particularly during holiday seasons, holiday gift guides are a popular form of content. Because they’re helpful in inspiring purchases, consumers are likely to share them with their networks. As a result, you’ll enjoy a boost in brand awareness.
Gift Guides Can Increase Sales
Every business-related activity you undertake must ultimately have an impact on your bottom line. That’s exactly why you must invest in a gift guide for your e-commerce store. A well-designed gift guide is an effective tool in helping you increase sales on your e-commerce store.
Gift Guides Provide Blog and Social Media Content
Another reason to invest in creating a gift guide for your e-commerce site is gift guides provide you with engaging content for your blog. They also make for excellent social media posts. As a result, you’ll be able to maintain high engagement rates with your target audience.
Gift guides are also able to help you achieve many of your marketing and sales goals.
How to Create Unique Gift Guides for Your E-Commerce Business
Now that you know what a gift guide is and why having one on your e-commerce is essential let’s dive into how you can create one.
1. Identify Your Audience
Audience research is one of the most critical steps in creating a gift guide. That’s because knowing your audience is key to developing accurate buyer personas.
For your gift guide to be appealing, you must understand your target audience enough to create personalized recommendations.
Here are a few tips:
Collect Demographic Data
Demographic data refers to your target audience’s physical attributes. Examples include:
- age
- gender
- marital status
- occupation
- geographic location
Understand Your Audience’s Psychographic Data
Psychographic data is information about your target audience’s:
- values
- attitudes
- interests
- personality traits
- beliefs
Both demographic and psychographic data are essential to understanding your customers’ needs, pain points, and aspirations. As a result, you can tailor a gift guide that will be relevant by offering personalized product recommendations.
2. Choose Items to Include in Your Gift Guides
Once you understand your audience, the next step of creating your gift guide becomes easier: choosing the products to include in your gift guide.
Though you may be armed with rich customer data, choosing the right products to include in your gift guide can be a daunting task. A few tips to guide you in choosing unique gift ideas include:
Look at Your Sales Data
The most effective way to choose items is to look at your sales data. Your data will give you insight into:
- buying trends and habits
- popular products
- unique segments
Besides your own sales data, you can also leverage tools like Google Trends to identify emerging opportunities in your niche.
Ask Your Customers
Another effective way of figuring out what to include in your gift guide is to ask your customers. The best way to do this is to leverage interactive content like surveys, polls, and quizzes. These will give you insight into your audience’s preferences. To leverage interactive content, you can invest in an interactive content tool. Alternatively, you can create polls on your favorite social media channels.
Consider Creating Gift Bundles
Not sure what to include and exclude in your gift guide?
Then consider creating gift bundles.
Gift bundles are an excellent way of showcasing your product range. For your bundles to be effective, you must get the right mix. Tips for getting the right mix include bundling:
- complementary products from your product range
- products you’ve succeeded in cross-selling
- fast-selling products with slow movers
You can also consider collaborating with other brands that target a similar audience to yours but don’t sell the same products you do.
Consult Your Suppliers
Your suppliers are another avenue you can leverage to know which products to include in your gift guide. Ask them which products are moving fast in their inventory or those they anticipate to be buzzworthy.
The success of your gift guide lies in knowing which products are relevant to the season. Invest time in ensuring the products you include will resonate with your target audience.
3. Craft Headlines for Your Gift Guides That Evoke Emotions and Inspire Action
Like all other types of content, your gift guide depends on a powerful headline for success. Take your time to craft one that:
Evokes the Readers Emotions
Gift buying is usually an emotion-driven endeavor. When your customers shop around for a gift, they do so (in most cases) for someone they have an emotional connection with. Hence, they want a gift that will have an emotional impact.
That’s why your gift guide headline must evoke your target audience’s emotions.
To craft such a headline, use personalization. Speak directly to your customer by using the word “you.” You can also create emotion-evoking headlines by using words that trigger an emotional response in your readers.
Inspires Readers to Take Action
Your gift guide headline must also inspire readers to take action, preferably purchasing one of your products. To do this:
- use active voice and avoid passive voice
- use power words
- paint a picture of the benefits of reading your gift guide
A well-written headline is essential to hooking your target audience and getting them to browse for the perfect gift for their loved one or colleague.
4. Find Quality Product Images
Once your customers click through into your gift guide, you must immediately grab their attention. The best way to do that is to use high-quality product images. Here’s an excellent example from Brightland’s gift guide:
Besides attention-grabbing, images also help:
- Give instant information: Human beings are visual creatures and process images faster than text.
- Make your gift guide easy to scan: Images are an excellent way of helping your readers scan your gift guide.
- Images encourage sharing: People love sharing helpful stuff they find on the internet. Those who love your gift guide are more likely to share it if you use high-quality images.
Getting the images to use in your gift guide is quite easy. Your first port of call would be to get your manufacturer’s product images. However, a better option would be to hire a professional photographer and take your own images. Doing so allows you to place your products in a setting of your choice, resulting in personalized images.
5. Determine the Format of Your Gift Guides
Gift guides come in all shapes, sizes, and styles. As you plan on creating your own, you must determine which is the best format for your guide. Examples of the gift guide formats include:
- blog post
- slideshow
- infographic
- video
- social media post (like Instagram posts)
How do you know which content format to use?
There are a couple of factors you can use to guide you on the best format for your gift guide:
Your Audience
When deciding which content format to use, the first port of call must always be your audience. Check your blog and social media analytics to see which content types perform well with your audience.
The Platforms You’ll Market Your Gift Guide On
The platforms you use to market your gift guide are another factor determining the format of your guides.
Your Niche
Finally, another essential factor that impacts the format you should use for your gift guide is your niche. If you’re in a visual niche, your gift guide may not need as much text as one in a niche where info plays a bigger role in driving conversions.
6. Market Your Gift Guides
With your gift guide ready, it’s time to show it to the world.
How do you get eyeballs on your gift guide?
Here are a few tips to help you market your gift guide to the right audience.
Share It on Social Media
One of the best marketing channels for your gift guide is social media.
With over 3.6 billion monthly active users, social media gives you access to over half of the world’s population.
That’s not the best part.
Particularly when you run paid ads, you can hyper-target your campaigns to reach people who match your ideal customer profile (ICP).
Send It to Your Email List
Another excellent marketing channel for your gift guide is email. Although it’s one of the oldest and most basic digital marketing channels, email is still one of the best when it comes to marketing your gift guide.
One of the best advantages of email marketing is most of the people on your list are already interested in what you have to offer. The chances of them knowing other people interested in being gifted with your product are also high.
Another advantage of email is you can segment your email list, enabling you to create personalized messaging. You can also consider making a personalized gift guide for each segment, increasing the chances of conversion.
Leverage SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is still applicable to marketing your gift guide. While basic, it’s easy to forget to implement best practices like:
- keyword research
- adding tags to your images
- strategic linking
- focusing on user experience (UX)
Make it easy for your customers to find your gift guide when they’re looking for gift ideas. Having an effective SEO strategy is exactly what you need to do that.
Creating your gift guide is only half the battle. Getting it in front of the right people’s eyes is the other half. With your well-designed gift guide and these three gift guide marketing tips, chances of your gift guide succeeding in driving sales.
FAQ: Gift Guides Best Practices
Shopping for gifts is never easy. It becomes a more difficult task if you have a long recipient list. That’s why your customers appreciate a helpful gift guide. While we’ve covered how you can create a unique gift guide for your e-commerce site, you probably have a few questions regarding gift guide best practices. Let’s quickly answer a few before we wrap up.
Do Gift Guides Really Help Boost Sales?
There are two main reasons gift guides work so well. The first is people don’t have time for gift shopping—yet they have to. The second is there are just too many products to choose from. Gift guides solve both problems by helping your customers find and decide on what to gift their friends and loved ones.
How Do I Improve the Chances of My Gift Guide Converting?
One word: data.
Before getting started with your gift guide, you must gather all the data you can about your target audience and market. Scour your sales records, and use competitor analysis tools and any other data collection tool you can get your hands on. Use these to mine every piece of data that will help inform the design and creation of your gift guide. Doing it this way will ensure you create a hyper-targeted gift guide.
Conclusion
Creating a gift guide is a must if you run an e-commerce business. They don’t just boost your sales during holiday seasons; gift guides also help raise your brand awareness.
Gift guides are the perfect marketing tool as they attract high-intent shoppers.
That’s why you must include them in your marketing strategy. However, for them to work, you must ensure yours is unique and well-crafted. Use the tips above to create your first (or next) gift guide for the next holiday season.
Have you ever used gift guides to boost sales on your e-commerce store?
6 Ways to Fund Your Startup When You Can’t Get a Government Business Loan
Those who died in military service did so for our freedom. Part of that freedom is the ability to open a business. In fact, you can even get a government business loan to do so. However, that option will not work for everyone. How can you fund a startup when you can’t get a government business loan?
Discover Other Ways to Fund a Business When a Government Business Loan Isn’t An Option
First, you may not qualify. They typically require good credit and some sort of collateral. Likewise, even if you do qualify, a government business loan may not be enough. What are the other options?
1.The Credit Line Hybrid
The Credit Line Hybrid is a funding option that may offer an even better interest rate than a government business loan. Yet, you get the money faster and easier also. Furthermore, you don’t have to supply any bank statements or check stubs. You can get funding in a few days rather than weeks, without supplying any collateral or documents.
It is revolving, unsecured financing that allows you to fund your business without putting up collateral, and you only pay back what you use.
How to Qualify for the Credit Line Hybrid
Your personal credit score should be at least 680. In addition, you can’t have any liens, judgments, bankruptcies or late payments. Furthermore, in the past 6 months, you should have less than 6 credit inquiries. Also, you should have less than a 45% balance on all business and personal credit cards. You need to have at least two credit cards with limits of $2,000 or more and at least a year and a half of good payment history as well.
Yet, if you do not meet all of the requirements, you can still get this funding. You can take on a credit partner that meets each of these requirements. Many business owners work with a friend or relative to fund their business. If a relative or a friend meets all of these requirements, they can pair with you to allow you to tap into their credit to access funding.
Learn business loan secrets and get money for your business.
How Much Funding Can You Get?
Generally, approval is up to 5x that of the highest credit limit on your personal credit report. Sometimes, you can get interest rates as low as 0% for the first few months, allowing you to put that savings back into your business.
The process is pretty fast, especially with a qualified expert to walk you through it. Another benefit is, with the approval for multiple credit cards, there is competition. This makes it easier, and even likely if you handle the credit responsibly, that you can get interest rates lowered and limits raised every few months.
2. Retirement Account Financing
This Credit Suite program offers a flexible and powerful way for a startup to leverage assets that are in a 401(k) plan or IRA. It even has the blessing of the IRS. In fact, they have their own name for it. It’s called a Rollover for Business Startups (ROBS).
How to Qualify for Retirement Account Financing?
No financials have to be submitted, and you do not need good credit. In fact, all the lender will ask for is a copy of your two most recent 401(k) statements.
If the plan has a value of more than $35,000, you can get approval. This is true even if you have really bad personal credit. You can get however much of your 401(k) is “rollable.” Sometimes, you can secure a low-interest credit line or loan for 100% of your current 401(k) value.
The plan you use cannot be from a business where you currently work. It will have to be from previous employment. Also, you can’t still be contributing to it.
The cost is 5.25% (prime +2) and the term is 5 years. There is a $1,995 lender fee rolled in as well, which includes 5 years of management and consulting.
3. Line of Credit
The difference between a traditional loan and a traditional business line of credit is that the line of credit is revolving credit rather than a term loan. Like a credit card, you only pay back what you use. Also, lines of credit typically have lower interest rates than business credit cards. The trade off is, there are no rewards like cash back or air miles.
Learn business loan secrets and get money for your business.
At Credit Suite, our funding partners offer an unsecured line of credit that has a minimum FICO score requirement of 600. You also must show business tax returns with net profits over $20,000 if you have been in business between 6 months and a year. If you have been in business for over a year, you need to show $10,000 in monthly revenue. These requirements are much easier to meet than those typically set forth by lenders.
Terms are 6 to 18 months and interest rates range from 12% to 25%. You can get up to $250,000.
4. Alternative Lenders
There are a number of non-bank lenders that will lend to startups. You do have to be careful, as there are a lot of predatory lenders out there. They also tend to have higher interest rates. However, they aren’t all bad. Here are a few decent options for startup loans if a government business loan isn’t available.
BlueVine
BlueVine requires that you be in business for at least 6 months. If you have at least $120,000 in annual revenue, you may qualify for a loan from them. The minimum credit score for a line of credit from BlueVine is 600. Furthermore, if you want invoice factoring, you can get approval with a score as low as 530, 3 months in business, and $10,000 in monthly revenue.
Kiva
Kiva is different. First, the interest rate is 0%. As a result, even though you have to pay it back, a loan from them is free money. There is no credit check at all. However, you have to get at least 5 family members or friends to donate to help fund your business as well. In addition, you have to pitch in a $25 loan to another business on the platform yourself.
Accion
Accion also may also be a good fit if a government business loan isn’t happening. It’s a nonprofit that offers microloans. The minimum credit score is 575. You don’t have to already be in business, but if you are not, you must have less than $500 in past due debt. In addition, your business needs to be home or incubator based.
Remember, details such as interest rates and loan requirements can change, so be sure to check lenders directly for the most up to date information.
5.Crowdfunding
This option for startup funding is growing in popularity. With crowdfunding, you get a lot of smaller investments from a lot of people, or a crowd if you will. It is different from getting the bulk of your small business funding from one or two larger investors.
First, you have to figure out which crowdfunding platform is best for your situation. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are two of the most popular. Be sure to take note of the rules each platform has for when you gain access to funds. They can vary greatly.
Learn business loan secrets and get money for your business.
6.Angel Investors
These are investors that are typically less formal than regular investors. An angel investor can be anyone. For example, it could be a family member or someone you met through networking.
The best way to find an angel investor is to ask people you know. Another option is an angel investors website or network. For example, Gust keeps a database of investors, companies, and programs.
Wait! Don’t Apply for Any Funding Before Your Read This
As you work on starting your business, you need to think about building business credit so that you can get the funding you need as your business grows. Unlike your personal credit score, you have to initially work to establish your business credit score. The best way to do this is to work with a business credit expert from the beginning. The process is not hard, but if you don’t know what you are doing, it can be difficult to navigate. A business credit expert can help you start off on the right food, and guide you through the process in the right order. This will save time and money, ensuring you build a strong business credit profile from the start. See for yourself with a free consultation.
The post 6 Ways to Fund Your Startup When You Can’t Get a Government Business Loan appeared first on Credit Suite.
How to Find Image Sources For Proper Attribution or Research
There’s no shortage of amazing images online, but that doesn’t mean you’re always going to find the original. So many images you find on blogs and other websites originated from somewhere else. While it may not seem like a big deal, it seriously pays to know how to find the original.
Here’s how to find an image source quickly and easily.
Why It Is Important to Find Image Sources
It’s always handy to know how to find proper image sources online. It won’t just make your life easier when it comes to finding high-quality photos; it could also help you avoid legal trouble.
You Saw an Image and Want to Find It Again
Is there anything more annoying than seeing a cool image online, saving it to your desktop, and then forgetting where you found it in the first place? Worse still, you then have to waste hours trawling through your browser history to find it.
All of this wasted time and effort can be avoided when you know how to find image sources quickly.
You Want to Use an Image in Your Blog Post and Attribute It Properly
Images are vital when writing blog posts. Research shows articles with photos get 94 percent more views than those without them. That’s because nothing puts readers off more than huge blocks of text. Images help break your writing up, make points clearly and improve the reading experience.
However, you can’t just use any old photo you find on the internet in your blog. You have to make sure you are legally allowed to use it and that you can attribute it properly. You’ll need to find the original image source for both of these tasks.
Once you’ve found the image source, you’ll be able to work out whether you’re allowed to use the image (I help you with this below if you’re still not sure), and you can attribute it correctly if you need to.
While it’s very rare for small sites to get into legal trouble for using copyrighted images or not abiding by Creative Commons, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
You Need a High-Quality Version of an Image
Low-resolution images suck. They look bad on your blog, and they look even worse when you scale them up for printed marketing materials — but pixelated images are exactly what you’ll get if you don’t find the original image source.
Why? Because reposted images are usually shrunk to reduce the file size and increase website load times. This is great for the website in question, but it’s not great for you. The original image, on the other hand, is usually much larger in size. Whether you want to use an image in a piece of marketing collateral or edit it yourself, it pays to be able to find the source.
5 Ways to Find Image Sources
Finding an image source isn’t difficult. Here are five different ways you can use to find any image source today.
1. Use Google’s Image Search to Find Image Sources
Google Images Search is the de-facto place to find images online. You probably don’t need me to tell you that, though. What you may need me to explain, however, is how to use Google Images to find the source of an image.
You can do that easily using Reverse Image Search. Head over to image.google.com, but instead of typing in a keyword, upload your image. Google will show a link to every page on the web with that picture, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find the original.
You can even use Google’s Reverse Image Search on your iPhone by requesting the desktop version of the site in Safari.
2. Use Other Reverse Image Tools to Find Image Sources
Ever found an image on Twitter or Facebook and wondered where to find the original image? While it sounds like a tall order, reverse image search tools actually make finding original sources using just the image far easier than you’d think.
All you need to do is upload or copy and paste the image into the tool, and the search engine will find every instance of that image online. In most cases, it won’t be hard to find the original image.
There are plenty of reverse image search tools out there, but here are a couple of my favorites.
TinEye
TinEye is a great reverse image search tool that helps locate an image source in seconds. You can search by uploading a URL if you have one or the image itself.
You can also use TinEye’s Chrome extension to right-click on any image while browsing and instantly get access to the platform’s data.
Search By Image
Search By Image is an Android app that lets you reverse search for images on Google TinEye or Yandex. Search by uploading images from your phone or opening images from Facebook, Twitter and other apps.
3. Look Up the Image MetaData to Find Image Sources
You can find a surprising amount of information about an image in the file’s metadata. Sometimes it will even include the image’s source.
You don’t need to be a technical whiz, either. First, download an image. For the purposes of this example, I’ll be downloading this image from the Good Housekeeping website.
On a mac, you can find the image’s metadata simply by right-clicking on the image and selecting “Get Info.” You’ll be served up a load of data that probably won’t make much sense, but you’ll clearly be able to see the image’s source.
On Windows, just right-click the image and select “Properties.”
4. Use the Chrome Browser to Find Image Sources
If you use Chrome, you don’t need to visit Google Images to do a reverse image search. Instead, right-click on the image when you find one you want to search and click “Search Google for Image.”
You’ll be shown the full reverse image search results as usual.
5. Use Visual Search by Bing to Find Image Sources
Bing has its own image search functionality called Visual Search that makes reverse image searches a breeze.
You can drag your saved image into the search bar or upload it, and Bing will show every location it can find it online. You’ll also get a pretty in-depth rundown of the image’s attributes and any text that Bing can find in the image.
How Do You Attribute Image Sources Correctly?
How you attribute images depends on the type of image and where you found it. Most sites will be very clear about what you need to do when it comes to attribution, but it can help to know the following terminology.
Creative Commons Images
This nonprofit organization allows the use and sharing of images and other creative materials through a series of licenses. Some won’t require attribution at all, some will let you edit images, and some will be incredibly strict.
Attribution is a legal requirement of Creative Commons images unless the image has been published under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. The Creative Commons outlines clearly what it classes an “appropriate credit” using the TASL method. You’ll need to include the following details:
- title
- author
- source
- license
Here’s an example from Creative Commons that shows exactly what they mean.
“Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco” by tvol is licensed under CC BY 2.0”
If you alter a Creative Commons image, you must include the changes in the attribution.
Public Domain Images
When work is listed in the public domain, it means the copyrights to it have expired. It is free to use, share, and edit. You don’t need to attribute the image at all or ever reference the original source.
Royalty-Free Images
Royalty-free images usually aren’t free. Rather, you have to pay a fee to use the image once, but are then free to use it again as many times as you like without paying royalties. That’s what the royalty-free part means.
Royalty-free images usually don’t require attribution, but be sure to check the licensing agreements of the site you downloaded them from. There may be other restrictions, too, like not using them for a certain purpose or in a certain niche.
5 Sites to Find Great Images
The costs of paying for images every time you use them quickly adds up for small businesses. It simply isn’t a sustainable practice. That doesn’t mean you have to go without images, however.
There are plenty of places online to find high-quality royalty-free images. Here are a few of my favorites.
Unsplash
Unsplash is probably the best stock photo platform in the world. You can use the images for free in almost any way you like.
Pexels
Pexels is another large, free stock photo platform like Unsplash. It has its own license that governs what you can and cannot do with photos.
Burst
Burst is Shopify’s stock photo platform. You can download photos for free without being a Shopify customer.
Flickr
Flickr is a fantastic image repository where you can find thousands of images to use for commercial purposes for free.
Canva
You may have used Canva to create a new logo or poster, but did you know it also has hundreds of free stock images you can use, too? You don’t even have to edit them to download them.
Conclusion
Finding an image source can seem like a lot of work, but it’s well worth it to find a high-quality image or protect your site from legal issues. Use any one of the five strategies I list above, and you’ll be sure to find the original source of just about any image you can find online.
Once you’ve found your image, make sure you are using it in the best possible way on your blog or are using the best editing tools if you want to make the image even better.
Where do you find your favorite images?
How to Run Ads With iHeartRadio AdBuilder
How do you maximize your exposure?
If you ask ten marketers this question, you’ll likely get lots of similar answers: Google Ads, social media marketing, etc. What you’re asking is which platforms offer massive traffic and have strong conversion rates.
Now, imagine you’re a marketer for a local business. How do you maximize your exposure now? Those digital campaigns with tons of traffic aren’t necessarily the answer for a brick-and-mortar store trying to get their community through the door.
There are plenty of businesses that desperately need to expand their reach but haven’t had a breakthrough with digital. That’s why today, we’re going to take a look at the potential of audio ads. iHeartRadio AdBuilder offers some ease and functionality to the world of radio ads, and it just might be a solution for local business owners.
What Are iHeartRadio Ads?
One of the most significant issues small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have had with audio advertising is it’s not particularly intuitive. The idea behind iHeartRadio’s AdBuilder was to create a programmatic solution automating this process.
AdBuilder is a self-service platform designed to help marketers create and promote audio ads. Beyond buying ad space, AdBuilder supports SMBs by using algorithms to target specific audiences.
SMBs can decide how much they’re comfortable spending, which cities they’d like their ads to play in, and how to focus on well-defined target audiences. AdBuilder radio spots are professionally written and produced with on-staff voice talent.
How Much Do iHeartRadio Ads Cost?
There’s no fixed cost with iHeartRadio Ads. What you pay is entirely up to you based on a series of options for your weekly budget. Depending on the market you choose, you see a minimum budget and a series of recommendations. You can also enter a custom amount of up to $30,000.
These costs purchase impressions, which are tracked on your account. Your weekly cost won’t exceed your max weekly budget and, even after your campaign is booked, you can modify dates and the budget for your campaigns.
Why Should You Run an iHeartRadio Ad?
Some marketers are looking for massive $30,000 nationwide campaigns; some want to spend $10,000. Some marketers have audio scripts ready; others have never written an audio script in their lives. The level of customization offered by iHeartRadio AdBuilder is unique and makes it worth checking out.
Of course, maximizing exposure is more than just a local business problem. Digital brands that want a specific type of customer or client can benefit from a national presence. Increased exposure means increased sales and can lead to higher quality engagement.
Whether you’re marketing for a local business or a national company, iHeartRadio AdBuilder may have something for you.
How to Set Up Your iHeartRadio Ad Campaign
Not only is iHeartRadio flexible, but it does its best to keep things simple. Setting up your campaign with them can be done in three steps.
- Provide Basic Information
Create an account and answer a few questions about your business and advertising goals. From there, you’ll determine your advertising goals, select target audiences, and pick a weekly budget. Their team of audio professionals produces a customized ad based on your goals and business.
- Approve iHeartRadio’s Ad
After they’ve produced your custom ad, you can listen to and approve the message. If needed, it can be revised (sometimes at no cost to you) and then be scheduled to play across iHeartRadio stations nationwide or locally.
- Your Ad Goes Live
Once your ad is approved, it goes live and starts airing. The iHeartRadio AdBuilder optimizes your ad budget to reach target audiences at particular times of day, using user data to target listeners via specific stations. You also have access to data reports once your campaign has ended.
5 Tips for an Effective iHeartRadio Ad Campaign
1. Understand the Medium
Savvy marketers take the time to learn about the perks and limitations of audio-only advertising.
One of the most compelling pros of audio advertising is its simplicity. You don’t need an expensive camera or someone to craft a heavily researched, complex article. Your iHeartRadio ad is meant to be consumed in 30 seconds, so minimalism is an absolute must here.
That said, the simplicity of these ads can feel limiting to marketers used to creating long-form content. If you’re struggling to wrap your head around what compelling audio content sounds like, there are a few stages to focus on: Capture, Excite, and Guide.
Breaking down the marketing process into these three stages can help clarify the audio marketing experience.
Capture
The Capture stage is about finding the memorable aspects of your brand and using them to disrupt your audience’s patterns. It’s not just about being controversial or unusual. Truly captivating moments properly and cleverly address your target audience’s pain points.
This moment is a reinterpretation of your elevator pitch, but there’s much more to it in the audio space.
The use of a particular sound effect, a unique jingle, and a specific style of voice actor can contribute to this aspect of advertiser storytelling. There’s a time for mentioning your brand and your unique selling point, but it’s not now. The script here should be more focused on creating mental images and bringing up emotions.
Excite
Now that you have your audience’s attention, it’s time to convince them your brand is worth considering. Be selective about the selling points you include.
Could you streamline five of your best- selling points and shove them into the 30-second ad? Probably. Should you? Not necessarily.
When you captured your audience, you tapped into their emotions and got them excited about your brand. If you start rattling off stats, you’re probably going to lose the excitement. Use one of your unique selling points to showcase what makes you different to keep the enthusiasm up.
Guide
When you guide your audience, you try to get them to follow through on the action you want them to take. Transitioning from excitement to sales is always tricky, but the right kind of call-to-action (CTA) can make this process much more manageable.
By streamlining the messaging and leading potential customers to more in-depth, comprehensive marketing (a landing page, for example), you can focus on making the iHeartRadio ad compelling instead of just informative.
2. Pick Your Target Audience Carefully
It may not be exciting, but ask any successful marketer, and they’ll tell you well-executed research is essential when developing a marketing strategy.
Over the years, the phrase “target market” has been used interchangeably with “target audience.”
A target market is broad (generation, income level, etc.) and tailored to particular groups due to interest, budget, access.
On the other hand, target audiences are specific groups within those target markets. If your target market is Millennials, your target audience may be post-college, female Millennials making at least $50,000 a year.
Good ad campaigns are for target markets. Great ad campaigns are for target audiences.
The specificity makes the research valuable, and knowing who your target audience is can help you make more relevant, compelling ads. With audio, you must understand which stations they listen to and what time of day they’re likely to listen. iHeart AdBuilder does this for you automatically.
3. Analyze Your Campaign Results Regularly
As your marketing campaign grows and evolves, you need to analyze its effectiveness properly.
One of the most valuable tools marketers can use is setting clear, strict deadlines and tangible goals for marketing initiatives.
Don’t just aim for an increased conversion rate; aim for specific numbers in a few metrics. Properly labeling your campaign goals like this sets your brand up for potential success with every new initiative.
If a new campaign performs well, you can identify which KPIs improved. If the new campaign doesn’t meet the projected goals, you can see which metrics underperformed and react accordingly.
4. A/B Test Different Campaigns
Marketers don’t live in a vacuum. More often than not, everyone brings their unique experience and perspective to the table. That human element can make advertising come to life, but it can also create a sort of cognitive bias we can’t always identify internally.
That’s why I recommend brands and marketers test two radically different marketing campaign approaches, especially if this is their first major campaign.
Maybe there’s a comedic iHeartRadio ad you’d like to make, but you’re worried it won’t resonate with your target audience. Perhaps you’re worried your simple iHeartRadio ad won’t stand out in a sea of dynamic competitor ads. This is the time to test out all those ideas.
As long as you’re setting clear, tangible goals and tracking the data, every experiment is a learning opportunity. Test every assumption your campaigns make. Collect more and more data to develop a clearer sense of what your audience responds to.
Once you’ve identified winning strategies, start to optimize.
5. Use Strong, Clear CTAs
Connecting with a target audience is hard enough, but turning connection into conversion is one of the biggest challenges marketers struggle with, iHeartRadio ad or otherwise.
When crafting a compelling CTA, your focus should be on words provoking emotion or enthusiasm. Simple things like adding an exclamation point can make a massive difference.
Pair your CTA with a compelling reason for taking the next step forward. Now, this demands a bit of awareness on your behalf. For example, are you moving this potential customer into the sales funnel or simply further down the marketing pipeline?
Find statements matching the commitment necessary to convert once potential customers reach the next stage. You’ll know you’re doing this right when you have a low bounce rate.
As for the actual language you’ll want to use, here are some options you can work into your ad:
- Sign up now.
- Sign up for free.
- Join free for one month.
- Get started today.
- Claim your free trial.
Conclusion
The most frustrating part of using a new marketing platform is the learning curve.
iHeart AdBuilder was seemingly designed with this problem in mind, taking the confusion and guesswork out of radio ads and replacing it with something both accessible and effective.
If your business needs a local boost, or you’re looking for a new way to reach your target audience, AdBuilder just might be the tool you need.
Are you considering radio ads? What kind of audiences are you hoping to target?
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