Content Marketing Lead Earning $120,000 CAD/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, fill out the form here.

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?

Marketing Coordinator ($40,000 CAD)

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

I'm a little fuzzy on some of these numbers, but I believe it goes like this..

• 2014: 40,000
• 2015: 45,000
• 2016: 45,000
• 2017: 40,000
• 2018: 78,000
• 2019: 78,000
• 2020: 85,000
• 2021: 100,000
• 2022: 108,000
• 2023: 125,000
• 2024: 135,000

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

Content Marketing Lead, $135,000 CAD

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

From a Sr. Manager of SEO & Website to Head of Content — 108k to $125k. I jumped companies for this.

What is your most valuable skill?

My background as a Publisher and Editor in the fiction space combined with my marketing background as a Marketing Automation specialist and SEO consultant.

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

Toxic Positivity by Whitney Goodman — not any of the above, but gives permission to be yourself in a space dominated by toxic positivity, which makes it easier to be successful and aligned with your values

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

Yes, I have a mentor who was a former leader at a company I worked from.

Best quotes:

"Your 100% is someone else's 130%. Give yourself room."

"You're always replaceable, but so is your company."

"Your executives don't care about the same things you do. Find out what they care about, and align with their interests."

"Disentangle your work life from your concept of yourself, and work life will get a lot easier."

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

• Leaning into my productivity windows and not forcing it
• Knowing where I'm strong, and knowing when I need strong resourcing partners
• Self-advocacy aligned with a set of values I believe in
• "If I'm bored by the content, everyone's bored by the content"
• Having TIGHTLY organized asana calendars
• Being a cross-functional partner who works to bring understanding, compassion, and value

Tell us about your current job. What does a week in your life look like? What are your primary responsibilities?

I'm founding a content program for a mid-sized start up. That means content planning, keyword research, recruiting and training freelancers and agencies, organizing our project management software, creating collateral to help keep us organized, overseeing content creation, and thinking about how to grow the content program into the future (where do we go after SEO?).

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

Don't be scared of 100k. I was. I had a panic attack when I hit it, because I grew up low-income and had never dreamed I'd make so much money. But people who make over 100k are exactly the same as people who don't: they've just usually come from money that means their expectations are higher.

When it comes to actually accessing it, what sets a content strategist apart from a content leader is the ability to manage executive interests and tie your work to revenue goals. Work on craft up to 100k. Work on internal politics and advocacy after.

Where do you live?

Toronto, Canada