All content marketing managers know that strong content marketing is the cornerstone of any successful marketing campaign.
Business owners who don’t have a content marketing manager will know how intense this process is.
That’s why you’ve run yourself into the ground strategizing, planning, creating, editing, uploading, posting, and sharing content. What starts as the odd promotional post, quickly becomes a full time job.
As a business owner, your time should be spent focusing on growing your business, not telling its stories.
That’s where a content marketing manager comes in.
If you’ve made it to 2022 and you don’t know what a content marketing manager does, you’re probably in need of one more than anyone else.
If you’re looking to invest in your business by making the leap to hiring a content marketing manager, here’s everything you’ll need to know.
Still copying content into WordPress?
You’re doing it wrong… say goodbye forever to:
- ❌ Cleaning HTML, removing span tags, line breaks, etc.
- ❌ Creating your Table of Contents anchor ID links for all headers by hand,
- ❌ Resizing & compressing images one-by-one before uploading back into your content,
- ❌ Optimizing images with descriptive file names & alt text attributes,
- ❌ Manually pasting target=“_blank” and/or “nofollow” attributes to every single link
Table of Contents
Publish Google Docs to your blog in 1-click 
- ✅ Export in seconds (not hours)
- ✅ Less VAs, interns, employees
- ✅ Save 6-100+ hours/week
What is a Content Marketing Manager?
The definition of a content manager may vary from job description to job description but the role always centers around the content development process.
In general, a content marketing manager is responsible for feeding a company’s narrative and unique value proposition through the sales and marketing funnel.
What this means, is that content marketing managers take on the role of communicating a firm’s value to its target audience, with the aim of increasing sales conversions and boosting brand awareness.
The role of content manager includes the strategy, execution, management, and review of all the company’s content and marketing activity.
Content covers a whole umbrella of marketing materials, including:
- Video content
- Graphic elements
- Long-form articles
- Opinion pieces and blog posts
- Podcasts and interviews
- Email campaigns
- Social media campaigns
- Print marketing channels
- PR and media coverage
By producing, releasing, and optimizing a robust content strategy, content marketing managers increase traffic and brand awareness.
Identifying key target audiences, content marketing managers plan and facilitate the production and distribution of content — sometimes leading a content marketing team, but often alone.
Content marketing managers collaborate across all departments in a company. They may need to draw from research and development, product production, customer relations, operations, and sales branches of an organization.
Through the use of analytics tools, content marketing managers are most often needed to use data-driven insights to further drive revenue, using high-quality content as the fuel.
What Does a Content Marketing Manager Do?
The basic job description of a content marketing manager requires candidates to take on a company’s content marketing strategy.
If your company doesn’t have a solid content marketing strategy, you’re lagging behind the 77% of successful companies who do.
Hiring a content manager will help to get your content ducks in a row, so that you’re no longer trailing behind the competition. Instead, you’ll be communicating your brand message to your target audience using powerful inbound marketing tactics.
But how does a content marketing manager do this?
Content marketing managers take control of the content cycle, shaping it and optimizing it to reach the most relevant audience for lead generation and effective conversion. This builds brand trust by enhancing brand awareness.
Managing every element of the content process, content marketing managers wear many hats throughout a marketing campaign’s lifecycle.
Strategy and Goal-Setting
Content managers are tasked with researching and planning content marketing activity.
By understanding the current market, industry sector, and audience trends, content marketing managers collaborate across company departments to design compelling content that’s relevant and engaging.
This strategic process requires content marketing managers to research and design business personas or target avatars, and create content strategy that persuades potential customers to convert.
Setting strong SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) goals, a content marketing manager will plan full editorial calendars of content, driven by analytics.
Manage Content Production Team
Content marketing managers are responsible for ensuring the entire content lifecycle is complete and that full, comprehensive content campaigns are executed on time and correctly.
Often, content marketing managers are required to manage a content marketing team, requiring them to delegate tasks, monitor progress, and foster team collaboration.
This content team could include a content writer, content editor, graphic designer, SEO manager, and more.
Content Optimization
While many content managers produce their own content, often content managers have to edit the work of the marketing team.
Content marketing managers are responsible for ensuring all work is accurate and optimized for SEO purposes.
Execute Content Campaigns
As a content marketing manager, you’re responsible for bringing together all the elements of content campaigns to facilitate efficient execution.
This may include the use of a wide variety of content marketing tools, collaboration softwares, and social media programs.
Analyze Content Data
To best meet SMART goals, your content manager will monitor content marketing metrics, like brand awareness, to determine how successful marketing campaigns have been.
Using analytics softwares, content marketing managers are responsible for identifying and interpreting data patterns, and incorporating these insights into future marketing efforts.
5 Reasons You Need a Content Marketing Manager
#1: Get Expert Advice
Right now, businesses are struggling to create high-quality content that’s effective at reaching these goals.
If you don’t have a content marketing manager, you’ll probably find that these content-related problems apply to you:
- 54% of business have difficulty generating high quality leads from content
- 52% of firms aren’t creating content that attracts more traffic
- 45% of companies grapple with content that speaks to their target audience
Content marketing managers tackle all these problems by fusing together the art of engaging content with the science of SEO and analytics.
By bringing experience and expertise to the table, your content marketing manager can create efficient, goal-oriented campaigns in ways you don’t know how.
#2: Improve Efficiency
While nobody is doubting your capacity to learn how to create an effective content strategy and learn the ropes, mastering content development takes time.
Experienced content managers use a plethora of content marketing tools, techniques, and procedures to reach goals and remove obstacles. In today’s world, 85% of content marketers use web analytics tools, while 73% use SEO tools, 67% use social media tools, and 57% leverage email marketing tools.
As a business owner, your role is to grow your business. Learning all the necessary skills of a content marketing manager is an ineffective use of time.
More problematic, however, is the idea that you’re spending more time communicating your brand’s purpose to your audience than improving your brand for those customers.
Hiring a content marketing manager is a more efficient route to content marketing success, since a strong marketing professional will have a comprehensive knowledge of relevant content marketing tools and procedures.
#3: Save Time and Money
The content marketing manager job role has become increasingly more demanding over the last few years.
Where fewer than 95% of 2014 bloggers spent more than six hours on a blog post, over a fifth of content writers today see this as commonplace.
If it takes 65% more time for a trained content writer to create a blog post now than it did five years ago, imagine how much time you’d need to allocate to get this done yourself.
Instead, choosing a strong content marketing manager will mean you can dedicate your time to driving profits. This will save money, since an experienced marketing expert will know the most dynamic way to achieve your goals.
#4: Enhance SEO
How visible you are on search engines will depend on your search engine optimization strategy.
Recently, Google updated its system to incorporate BERT, a neural network-based method for pre-training natural language processing. The update helps computers understand natural and nuanced human speech, enabling better and more accurate searches.
Now more than ever, your SEO strategy is vital for brand awareness. An experienced content and SEO manager will create a sturdy SEO architecture to boost your SEO rating, reaching more customers.
#5: Drive Revenue
For a content strategy to be truly engaging, it relies on consistency. In fact, consistent branding across all platforms can boost your revenue by 23%.
By hiring a content manager, you set your firm up with regular marketing activity that creates consistency in your company branding and online presence.
How to Hire a Good Content Marketing Manager
You don’t need a huge marketing department to produce an effective content strategy. In fact, 78% of companies have no more than three content specialists within their content marketing team.
Hiring a high-quality, experienced content marketing manager will keep your small marketing team in order, facilitating a cohesive flow. Make sure to implement proper employee onboarding so that the new hire easily integrates into the new job.
But how do you find a good content manager? Here’s how.
Invest in an Experienced Content Marketing Specialist
This year, a quarter of all marketing teams are planning to invest in their content marketing budgets, showing the pressing need for businesses to take content marketing seriously.
However, for solid content marketing ROI, you need to hire a top content marketing specialist. That way, you won’t need to hire a whole team of lackeys to pick up the slack.
To clinch an expert content marketing manager, this may mean investing more than you previously imagined. While there’s a sliding content marketing manager payscale, expect average results from those with average fees.
Don’t be afraid to ask for:
- Proven work experience in content management/production
- Experience managing a content team
- Experience managing campaign budgets
- Provable results boosting web traffic and social media engagement
- Demonstrable project management experience
- References/testimonials
Find a Highly-Skilled Content Marketing Specialist
As discussed, the content marketing manager role covers a broad spectrum of inbound marketing tasks and expertise. A highly-skilled content marketing manager is more able to concurrently run synchronistic campaigns in a prompt and relevant manner.
When surveyed, companies said that the main content marketing skills they consider when hunting for a content marketing manager are:
- Marketing (81%)
- Social media tools (50%)
- SEO (38%).
- Research (37%)
- Editing (25%).
- Adobe products (12%)
- Microsoft Office (4%)
Other technical content-related skills you might ask for could include basic graphic design skills, low-level HTML abilities, topnotch copywriting skills, and editorial mindset.
If you need your content marketing manager to be skilled with content marketing tools, try asking for:
- Proficiency with publishing tools, such as WordPress, your CMS, and Google Docs
- Competency with analytics platforms like Google Analytics
- Experience with organizational and collaboration platforms like Trello, Airtable, Pipefy, and Slack
Screen Your Content Manager’s Soft Skills
A candidate’s soft skills will show you how they work on their own and with others, their level of commitment to your company, and how they’ll grow your business strategy.
Look for content marketers with a growth mindset as these candidates understand how to scale your company by leveraging existing resources to create new marketing opportunities.
Other soft skills you may screen for include:
- Attention to detail
- Punctuality to deadlines
- Flexible and adaptable to changes in audience or company
- A strong business acumen and understanding of ROI
- Excellent collaboration and team skills
- Ambitious and passionate attitude
How Much Does a Content Marketing Manager Cost?
The salary for a content marketing manager varies depending on location and experience. A good option is leveraging nearshore outsourcing to find top talent at the best possible rate.
Expect to pay anywhere from $40 to $70 per hour.
Content managers in cities like San Francisco command the highest content marketing manager salaries, at around $80,000 per year.
In Seattle, businesses can expect to pay a content manager salary of around $70,000 annually, whereas Atlanta’s salaries are as low as $60,000.
Bear in mind the difference between a contractor and an employee.
While freelance content marketing managers may command higher salaries to cover their business expenses, you’ll need to cover employee benefits if you hire a content manager full time.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to hire a highly-competent content marketing manager, you need to look for an experienced specialist with a broad range of content marketing skills.
Look for candidates that exhibit a growth mindset, and who understand the fine balance of appealing to your target audience and constructing an SEO architecture for search engines.
You need a content manager that can envision a diverse, goal-oriented content marketing strategy that targets your key personas and leverages website and social media engagement to drive revenue through different stages of the customer journey.
As an entrepreneur and business owner, hiring a content marketing manager saves you time, money, and grief, and enables you to focus on growing your company rather than posting on Twitter!
