Marketing Communications Manager with a $160,000/year salary

Welcome to another post in the $100k Club series. You can see the full series here. This is "My Morning Routine" for content marketing folks making six figures. The goal is to shed light on the skills and habits that enable people to achieve lucrative jobs and help get more people in this club.

These will be anonymous and updated regularly. If you make more than $100k/year and want to contribute, email me.

For more info on content marketing salaries, check out our salary report.

If you'd like to see more info on salary by job title, check out these resources: Content Marketing Manager Salary, Content Strategist Salary, Head of Content Salary, and Content Director Salary.

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What was your first full-time job in content? What was the salary?

Marketing project coordinator and I made $45,000.

How much do you earn today? What's your job title?

I'm a Marketing Communications Manager and a Marketing Manager. Combined, I make $160,000.

What's the single biggest salary jump you've made? (either from job-hopping or a promotion/raise)

I had tiny raises that I had to really fight for at one company, but the biggest jumps I've made are from job hopping.

I had a really different story though. I worked in the Midwest in data analysis and category management my first two jobs out of high school. My goal was creative marketing but I seriously lacked math skills so I took those jobs to improve my data analysis and reporting skills.

I started at $40,000 and stayed there for a year. I switched jobs to get to $55,000 and stayed there for 2 years. During that time, I volunteered at local organizations where I managed their marketing and helped establish their foundation, which gave me some accomplishments on the creative side to make a change.

I moved to Boston to make that change. It took me 3 months to get an entry-level job and I had to take a pay cut, but I knew I could crush goals and move up quickly.

I started at $45,000 as marketing project coordinator and worked for 6 months. I job hopped to get to $55,000 as content marketing specialist and worked at that company for 6 weeks, but that job didn't work out. I spent 6 months searching for the right opportunity with my limited experience, then starting working at a startup at $55,000 as marketing associate. I worked there for two years, fought for three raises and got up to $65,000 and senior marketing manager.

I job hopped to another startup starting at $85,000 plus bonus ($105,000) as marketing manager. I accepted an additional role (yes, I work two jobs) a few months later at an early startup and I'll be making about $60k in part-time work as marketing manager.

I love marketing and getting excited about building things, so I made an arrangement that I'd work for free until the company got its finances in order. They did, and tens of thousands of dollars started coming my way after months of work. It is SO WORTH taking a risk, people! Don't be afraid to work for free if the founders have strong integrity and honesty.

What is your most valuable skill?

I am very good at building up new programs from scratch, creating organization out of chaos, writing and developing long/short form content, conceptualizing and designing material, working with and managing others, developing new skills to get something done on a budget (e.g. I just learned a ton in Premiere Pro and I'm making our videos from scratch and free templates I find).

But the MOST valuable skill is being an opportunist and a go-getter. I am always looking for the BEST way to do things, I Google literally everything (best landing page examples, best drip email examples, best LinkedIn overview examples, etc.) to make sure I put out the best work, and then I do it. Doesn't matter if it's perfect, I accept a process of changes that starts with the first draft.

My weakness is spending too much time on making the best thing possible, but it's often worth it :)

What's the best book you've ever read on writing, marketing, sales, business or productivity? (Feel free to suggest more than one!)

Best book would be The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and doing the exercises that come with it. I actually took the 2-day course and it really helped me align myself to a mission statement and what I want to be known for personally as well as professionally.

Have you had a career mentor/coach? If so, how did you find them and what have you learned from them?

I've had a few here and there along the way, but my most consistent career coach has been Google. Like I said, I Google everything!

As a woman in my 20s, I've received a lot of unsolicited advice (both genders) from older coworkers and I learned not to take that for granted. It feels condescending sometimes, but they'll do the extra work to help you become successful and you need to learn to use that as a tool. Everything/everyone around you is a resource, you just have to see it to make use of it.

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

Organization for starters. I've implemented new systems, file structures, and best practices within the first two months of every job I've taken. It's valuable to everyone and if I'm the keeper of all the information, I make myself indispensable. Sounds counter-intuitive but I always find at least one way in which the company can't live without me.

I'm also damn good at writing, but my secret is Googling. I research for a bit, create an outline, and fill it in. I'll Google best ebook design examples and find a layout that can show information the way I want to, and then I create one from scratch in our branding using the one I found as inspiration.

It's also so, so, so important to be a team player. I show up for my coworkers in ways friends do, whether helping out on projects, donating money to their charity, being present in happy hours, and making a big deal out of birthdays. It's the little things that have created allies when I needed one too.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to join the $100k club?

Don't be stingy with your time and money. Be relational and take risks. Don't always sell yourself short, but meet people halfway when you can see greater opportunities down the line.

Show respect for yourself. If you're going out of your way to do something for a friend or client, make sure they know you're doing the work for less than you're worth because you want to help them win. They'll appreciate that much more than if you just say "okay, I'll do it" and they'll expect more of you next time. That transparency changed everything for me.

What is your gender and ethnicity? Where do you live? (optional)

I'm a white female living in New England.

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