Senior Content Marketer Earning $195,000/year

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 us.

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.

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

I was the Senior Inbound Marketing Manager for a management consultancy back in 2018 and my main responsibilities were around content strategy and production in order to drive website visitors through to MQL.

My salary was $60K + $20K in bonus based on performance. Previously, I had co-founded a social media marketing agency, but closed down that business to go in-house.

This website had around 1,500 visits per month when I was hired and peaked at 10K visits a few months later.

List out your income by year for as long as you've been working in content marketing.

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

I currently have a base salary of $180K + $15K bonus based on performance. My title is Senior Manager, Content Marketing. I have assumed additional responsibilities on a part-time basis at my current company that are not directly tied to content and am being compensated more for those responsibilities.

However, I would not have had the opportunity to demonstrate these additional skills and achieve a higher base salary if it were not for my experience with demand generation-focused content projects.

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

The biggest jump was from job-hopping when I moved from Miami to San Francisco in 2018.

What is your most valuable skill?

Project management and being extremely organized. In order to run a content operation, you need to be inherently process-driven and able to see the scope of the entire strategy.

This allows you to zoom in and zoom out on the program, making informed decisions about what to do next. I am also fairly knowledgeable about on-page SEO and how to create content funnels that address both the top and the middle of the funnel, which helps both drive traffic and convert it.

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

• Everybody Writes by Ann Handley
• They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan
• The Sales Development Playbook by Trish Bertuzzi

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

I have never had a formal mentor or coach, but there have been several people in my life who have taught me a lot of things about marketing, management, and strategy.

These people are previous colleagues and clients that I've worked with, managers that I've had, and direct reports who I've managed that I still keep in touch with, many years beyond the initial times we worked together.

I also join many communities and enjoy networking, which has allowed me to stay on top of current trends to keep my content marketing arsenal fresh.

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

I am an obsessive user of Asana for project and task management. I also document everything in writing—from strategies, ideas, reports, processes, and everything in between.

I find this extremely helpful for communicating with various stakeholders as well as for personal reference down the line.

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

At every place I've worked as a content marketer, I have always been the internal subject matter expert on all things content marketing. This expertise is clear when I interview, and even more pronounced once I've been hired.

I keep an eye on benchmarks, goals, and progress over time and make sure to share this information regularly with management.

My edge comes from also being experienced in tying content activities back to revenue. If you can communicate how your content strategy is going to impact the company's bottom line, you will have a better chance of landing a higher-paying job.

Once you prove that you know what you are doing, you will continue to climb because you have evidence of your success.

Who are you?

I’m a Caucasian woman from Walnut Creek, California.