How to Save $700,000 On Content Marketing in 2 Years
By: Corinne Meier
Tags: CFO, Costbenefitanalysis, Costsofinboundmarketing, Cost

This blog is going to outline how you can inch your way into affording a true in-house powerhouse content marketing team the RIGHT way. This is about securing and maintaining your digital dominance.

Let’s get real. Every brand wishes they had an entire army of marketers from graphic designers creating spicy visual to copywriters pumping out blogs that make you sound prolific day in and day out. Social media managers that know how to make that prolific content get read and our own personal SEO strategists instructing our web developer to adjust the website every ten minutes according to Google’s every little sporadic (yet predictable) algorithm change.

Every business owner’s GREATEST DREAM is to have just a load of experts taking every waking minute of their day and maybe even their evening dreams to find ways to propel the brand forward.

It’s a dream. It’s a goal. It sounds like heaven… but can you afford it right now?

One day you’ll be able to bust into an entire floor dedicated to your success. Listen, we all want convenience!

Alas, the reality is that the budget is what it is and the growth of your business is good — but bringing in an entire department of experts will cost you. Welp, I mean, how much would it cost to bring in the proper, structured content marketing team to get your content out the door with the process outlined below?

What does a Content Marketing A-Team look like?

Here are the 5 distinct positions of a comprehensive content marketing team.

1.Content Team Lead

You might also see job descriptions like Senior Content Consultant, Chief Content Officer, etc. Basically, this person is the head of the team or department and is responsible for overall strategy, budget, execution of goals, communication with the executive team, etc. This person likely won’t be very involved in the actual creation or editing process, but will likely be involved in brainstorming and customer feedback processes.

The average salary for a Content Team Lead is between $120,000 to $140,000.

2. The Managing Editor

Job titles for this role might include Content Coordinator, Editor in Chief, etc. The person that fills this role on your team will play a critical role in quality assurance and will ultimately be the one responsible for ensuring that your content maintaining your brand’s voice and is relevant to the intended audience.

Aside from having very strong communication skills, you are going to want to ensure that this person is extremely organized (obsessive) because the managing editor is the one responsible for the editorial calendar, assigning jobs to content creators, managing the content production process, and overseeing the myriad of other logistics in involved in a successful inbound marketing campaign.

The average salary for a Content Marketing Manager is between $80,000 to $100,000.

3. Content Creators (Graphic Designers + Copywriters)

Content comes in a wide variety of forms and job titles in this role might include Writers, Content Producers, Videographers, Graphic Designers, Photographers, etc. These are the people that are going to be tasked with creating the actual content for the editor to review. Many times, companies will outsource this to freelancers who have niche-specific skills like graphic design or video animation.

The average salary for a Writer is between $60,000 to $90,000;

Graphic Designers salaries are between $80,000 to $100,000.

4. Social Media Manager

A scant few years ago, this role didn’t even exist. Thanks to the massive increase in the popularity of social media, those days are long gone, and now talented Social Media Managers are in hot demand. A Social Media Manager is key for managing your content distribution, engaging your audience online, and building relationships with influencers in your market.

The average salary for a Writer is between $60,000 to $80,000.

Total cost for an in-house content marketing team starts at $590,000

Content Team =

1 Team Lead ($120,000)

+ Managing Editor ($80,000)

+ Writer ($60,000)

+ Social Media Manager ($60,000)

+ Graphic/ Web Designer ($80,000)