The Responsibilities Of A Content Marketing Manager
Content marketing managers have been around for decades. But in recent years, this field has become increasingly important for almost every business and industry out there.
It is important to stay ahead of social trends and technology and know how to communicate with your target audience and potential customers. All it takes these days is a bad Yelp review to let your business crumble to pieces.
A content marketing manager's job is, therefore, an integral one. And it cannot be taken lightly. It requires a broad set of skills, some of which are marketing related, while others are very much detail-, time- and people-oriented.
In this article, we will walk you through the responsibilities of a content marketer. We talk about what it entails to release relevant content into the world. Plus, what happens after the "post" button has been pushed?
What does a Content Marketing Manager do?
Content marketing manager duties include planning, developing, and implementing the company's overall content strategy. They manage the entire marketing operation. So, they are responsible for the success (or failure) of the company's marketing initiatives.
Images of companies are usually formed from social media.
This is why having a solid strategy for how to present your business online is vital. It's easy to say that every business does require some form of content marketing manager or content marketing director.
According to several job listings, the following responsibilities and duties are part of being a content marketing manager:
- Manage and develop a marketing communications strategy
- Align digital marketing with content strategy
- Create X amount of resources to drive subscribers, leads, and awareness
- Create content such as infographics, guides, blogs, whitepapers, ebooks, posts, etc.
- Be on top of internal procedures and policies
- Keep up-to-date with the latest digital marketing trends and industry news
Below, we will describe each responsibility and activity that is required of a content marketing manager.
1. Working and managing others
Depending on the size of the team, a content marketing manager will work and manage with freelancers or employees.
A typical day will entail delegating and overseeing projects, providing feedback for ongoing strategies, and making sure everybody is meeting the set deadlines.
Content marketing managers usually have their own team, but they also work closely with other departments and people within a company. Sometimes, they also work with other agencies that have been tasked with certain projects.
Content marketing managers have to keep close tabs on the following teams:
- SEO
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Paid Search Engines
- Web Development
A lot of times, they will also manage social media accounts. This usually happens by delegating the actual maintenance.
They also have to create a solid content strategy for each account that is in line with the company's ID.
It is important to work with other departments within a company to monitor the progress of each marketing strategy. For this, results in the form of data are generated through the content that is published.
In order to understand whether the marketing strategy is going well, this role needs to be completely up-to-date with the performance of each campaign. This is usually done through key performance indicators (KPIs) for search traffic, blog post readership, social media shares, and likes.
2. Research and Competitor Analysis
The content manager needs to successfully manage the business content marketing strategies. So it is absolutely vital to know what the market looks like. For this, a lot of research into the current (consumer) trends and competitors is absolutely vital.
Content managers need to know their target audience very well. They tailor the content strategies according to what they think is necessary to gain the audience's attention, following, and ultimately their buy-in.
The research usually involves:
- Finding out your competitors' content marketing strategy, as well as their methods of distributing content
- Identifying and researching your target audience (key demographics, behavior, and interests)
- Surveying current customers
- Identify business goals and business objectives
- Understand stakeholders
- Keyword research
- Working with Google Analytics
- Research on topics and subjects for content marketing
- Researching content tools and finding helpful software for creating content and promoting it
Preparation of Content Marketing Plans
After researching, the content marketing manager will set up several content marketing initiatives. Depending on the size of the business, these marketing plans will be aimed at:
- the brand
- several business units
- the business channels (such as social media accounts).
Here's what this actually entails in real-life examples:
- Banks might look for different marketing plans regarding their consumer, as well as their commercial offerings.
- Software companies work on marketing plans tailored toward generating new businesses and on a separate content marketing strategy that is aimed at retaining and up-selling existing customers.
These content marketing plans need to be carefully tied into the general content marketing strategy. Usually, a content marketing team will sit with the marketing manager and define how these plans can tie into the overarching business strategy.
These content marketing plans entail the following:
- Specified and measurable goals
- Timelines for said goals
- A budget with estimates for resources (staff, creative and paid promotions for digital marketing)
- Types of content
- Topics
- Channels used to distribute content (analog, blogs, social media, TV, adverts, etc.)
- Paid-promotion plans
- Execution plan for publishing frequency, content production (reviewing and approvals), and content maintenance
3. Editorial Calendar Creation
After the content marketing plan has been fleshed out, content managers will set up deadlines. These are for the creation and publication, as well as the promotion of a content calendar. This will give perfect oversight for the whole content marketing team. And it makes the project management of each strategy a lot easier.
On top of that, it aids in aligning content publication and promotion with key dates. Key dates are important dates that align with a business and its marketing campaigns.
An editorial calendar should always allow for a grace period. This is in case there are unforeseen delays in content production or if there are spontaneous real-time marketing opportunities.
4. Content Creation
This is the fun and creative part of the job!
Based on the content calendar and after getting all the buy-in from relevant stakeholders, the marketing manager can do what they do best: content creation.
Some of the tasks involved in content creation are:
- researching and writing
- sourcing photographs and illustrations
- add meta information
- find models for a photo strip etc.
With that being said, not all content managers actually actively participate in creating content. Some simply guide workflows and oversee a creative team that actually creates the content. But, their input is vital as the team needs to rely on their know-how and previous research to create content that is perfect for the marketing plan.
At the end of the day, the content marketing manager holds full responsibility for what is being published. Therefore, being closely involved in creating content is vital.
5. SEO
If you thought it would be enough to simply have good content that reads well and is free of spelling or grammar mistakes, think again.
These days, content marketing manager responsibilities also entail that content is optimized to do well on search engines such as Google or Yahoo. If the SEO strategy is not implemented correctly, web searchers will not be able to find the content as easily. And it certainly won't appear anywhere near the top search result rankings.
As a content marketing manager, it is your responsibility to outsource or employ an SEO specialist within your marketing team. This person must align your content with current search engine optimization trends and requirements. This is where the keyword research comes in.
6. Keeping the Style Guide references
Content marketing managers need to have meticulous attention to detail. They will be editing and proofreading most of the content before it goes out. They need to ensure that all content adheres to the style guide and marketing plan; otherwise, it cannot be published.
Part of this is also to give constructive criticism and provide opportunities for your marketing team to improve. So, people skills are essential.
The consistency within the brand's tone of voice and overall image needs to be kept at all times. This means creating consistent content can be challenging, especially when there are several writers involved.
If the marketing manager has created an exceptional style guide, however, this can actually be fairly easy. Included in the style guide should be the following information:
- Brand personality
- Color schemes and fonts
- Writing styles and TOV
- Punctuation and grammar preferences
- SEO best practices
- Guides on imagery and visuals selection
7. Publishing and Promoting Content
Once the marketing manager has overlooked, proofread, and approved each piece of content, they need to make sure it will be published and promoted in the correct way.
This means it must be tailored to the right audience and published in the right place (channel) and at the right time. There is no point in creating an Instagram post at 3 AM when nobody is online, right?
Most of the time, a content manager will source content automation tools to ensure that the media will get published as intended. This also goes for offline channels.
8. Monitoring and Analysis of Content Performance
Another content marketing manager duty is monitoring and analyzing published content. Only then will they be able to judge whether they have released an effective content marketing strategy and whether it was valuable content or a flop.
There are useful content analytics tools out there to aid in monitoring the reach and level of engagement of social media posts, blogs and advertisements. This data ultimately informs future content marketing campaigns.
Releasing the content is not enough, though. As a content marketer, you also need to ensure that what happens after the release of the content goes in line with the content marketing strategy.
In the instance of social media marketing, a marketing manager needs to ensure that someone replies to comments and potential customers' questions in the TOV of the business. They may outsource some of these responsibilities. But ultimately, they have the last say and highest responsibility in all of it.
9. Staying up-to-date
A fun part of being a content marketing manager is that the learning basically never ends. Technology and social media are constantly evolving, so new content marketing skills are required as time goes on.
It is part of the content marketing manager's requirements to stay up-to-date with the latest market trends. They must stay informed on social trends and test out the newest tools and apps that can yield new customers.
This job will definitely keep you well-informed and on your feet.
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FAQs
What does a content marketing manager earn?
According to the latest stats on Glassdoor, the average content marketing manager earns about $66,00 per year. The potential of earnings is going up to $96,000 annually.
The pay range is relatively wide. Because it depends on experience, portfolio of brands you have worked with, and track record of successful marketing campaigns.
Should I pursue a career as a content marketing manager?
If you:
- are creative
- enjoy writing and editing
- have a basic understanding of marketing
- like to work in teams
- manage projects
Then this might just be the perfect job for you.
Content marketing managers never have a dull moment. The industry is constantly evolving, technology keeps on getting better and social trends are ever-changing. You really need to have a zest for the Zeitgeist to thrive in this job.
What are content marketing manager job requirements?
The Content Marketing Manager job description has the following requirements in terms of experience and qualifications:
- BA/BS degree
- X years of work experience in the field
- Experience in building and managing audiences
- Understanding of online channels such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok, etc.
- Research and Writing skills
- Able to produce smart CTAs
- Multi-tasking abilities
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills
- Excellent time- and people-management skills
- Critical-thinker and problem-solving-oriented
- Adaptability and buoyancy
