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A foundational piece of salary negotiation is having benchmark salaries for your role. That's why we run the Superpath salary report each year—more transparency means better pay for everyone. Our 2023 Salary Report Survey is live! Contribute your salary data here.
Like other industries, content marketing has seen its ups and downs in the last few years. During COVID we saw a massive hiring surge, but now as the economy trends downwards, budgets are tighter and jobs are harder to find.
When companies are scaling back on hiring, negotiating may feel like self-sabotage. You don’t want to lose the job you’ve spent weeks or months interviewing for by seeming too demanding. But there’s nothing wrong with asking for compensation that matches the value you bring to the table.
Content marketers with solid writing, storytelling, and data analysis skills are vital for a company’s growth. Employers are more focused on creating and distributing content as a way to grow their brand and connect with their target audience. You have every reason to negotiate if you can help them produce valuable and relevant content (and have a proven track record for doing so).
To help content marketers land their dream offer, we’ve curated the best blog posts, tools, and resources on salary negotiation. This article will help you demand your worth during negotiations and know what to say when asking for a raise.
As the old saying goes, a closed mouth doesn’t get fed. Not only will your employer respect you more for negotiating, but there’s a good chance they’ll concede. A study from Fidelity Investments found that only 42% of young professionals (25 to 35 years old) negotiated salary offers, but 87% of those who did got at least some of what they asked for.
Good negotiations start with good data. Before even interviewing for a role, you should know the market rate for your job and location. You can then negotiate a higher salary based on your specialist skills and relevant experience.
Note: Take a holistic approach to looking at salary data. Don’t just use LI or Glassdoor and call it a day. Some of this aggregated data can be lower than average, so make sure you ask people in your network and check multiple tools.
1. The Content Marketing Salary Report (Updated for 2022) – Our salary report is free and updated yearly based on salary data from content marketers in our community. It has contextual data based on gender, race, years of experience, and job title.
2. Robert Half Salary Guide – Robert Half’s guides are based on their annual surveys in marketing and other industries. To see their salary ranges, you need to enter your email address, job title, and location, and the site generates 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile ranges specific to your role.
3. Ultimate Guide on Content Marketing Salaries – Content Camel’s guide includes 131,963 data points they researched and analyzed based on data from LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Payscale. You can see low-range, average, and high-range salaries for your title and location.
4. LinkedIn Salary Calculator – This calculator is based on your job title and city-specific location, but you need to be a LinkedIn member or enter your current salary information to use it. Compared to other guides and tools, the numbers seem slightly lower than average.
5. Buffer Salary Calculator – Buffer’s calculator is super quick and easy to use, based on your title and whether or not you live in a high cost of living city. They also share their team salaries as a part of their commitment to transparency.
6. Know Your Worth Tool – Glassdoor’s salary calculator is free and pretty accurate. Just enter your job title, location, and the name of your current or desired company. After two or three searches you’ll need to add a review or salary data to keep using the tool.
7. PayScale's Salary Calculator – Payscale pulls from a large pool of data so the salary data is an accurate average. They also offer an option for a more comprehensive personalized salary report.
8. Superpath Job Board – Our job board includes salary ranges on most job posts for more transparency. You can find content creation, strategy, management, and freelance writing jobs updated daily.
9. Superpath community – The Superpath Slack group is great for networking with other content marketers in similar roles and getting real-life salary data. You can also post anonymously if you want a second opinion on a salary offer.
10. CNN Cost of living Calculator – This calculator shows you how far your salary goes in another city. It’s great for seeing how much salary you need to live in a specific location if you’re planning to move or work remotely.
Once you know your market rate and get the offer, it’s time to go to bat. Negotiation is an art—you want to come off as grateful but firm and confident. These blogs, templates, and videos will help you perfect your pitch.
11. How to Counter Offer in a Salary Negotiation – Builtin gives a comprehensive step-by-step guide on counter offering in the final stages of a job offer. He goes over negotiation basics, like pausing before responding and asking for a 10 to 20 percent increase.
12. The 10 commandments of salary negotiation – Niya Dragova, co-founder of Candor and someone who's helped hundreds of people negotiate comp at tech companies, created this handy go-to resource. It's super succinct and helpful—shout out to Ryan Baum, Head of Content at Gorgias, for the recommendation.
13. Email Templates by Mint – These templates can help inspire your script on a phone call or email when counter-offering. It’s best not to copy them word for word, but you can use them to help organize your pitch.
14. AMA with Carolyn Lyden on Salary Negotiation for Content Marketers – This awesome AMA features Carolyn Lyden, former Director of Search Content at Search Engine Land and a salary negotiation advocate. She provides detailed Loom video answers to questions like, “How do you know it’s time to ask for a raise?” and “How do you ask for alternative compensation?”
15. Everything’s negotiable: What to do when negotiations stall – Carolyn Lyden expands on a question from the AMA, “What if more salary isn’t in the cards?” She gives ideas for negotiating non-monetary items like vacation time, housing subsidies, and more. Her blog SalaryNegotiationPro has other great resources for negotiating.
16. The Gratitude Sandwich (@coachemrez) – This TikTok video gives a practical three-part method for negotiating salary in a way that sounds polite but firm. She has lots of other detailed videos on her page about asking for a raise and doing internal interviews.
17. What not to say and what to say during a salary negotiation (@apowermood) – This video gives some good tips for refining your language to sound more confident and professional during negotiations. She has tons of other videos on career development and how to get paid what you’re worth.
18. Shivani Berry, CEO and Founder at Ascend, a leadership program for women – Shivani shares some excellent career advice for women on her Twitter, like this Tweet about being promoted to a manager position but being too nervous to ask for a raise. She’s inspirational to follow if you’re a woman who struggles with poster syndrome or self-doubt.
19. Josh Doody, Founder of Fearless Salary Negotiation – Josh specializes in negotiating with tech companies on behalf of his clients. He also has courses and materials on preparing for interviews, negotiating the job offer, and negotiating the raise. Thanks to Kai Davis, a member of the Superpath Slack Community, for the recommendation.
Once you’ve negotiated the salary you want, the next step is showing up. Developing your skills and knowledge is key to continuing to evolve your career and pay through the years. These blogs and courses will help you do that.
20. The 7 Skills That Help Content Marketers Thrive at Work – Jimmy wrote this great explainer piece on the skills any content marketer needs at work, like storytelling, your ability to get sht done* (GSD), and analyzing data. Once you master these skills, you’ll be able to negotiate salary and raises more confidently.
21. Content Marketing Classics Reading List – These are the articles that every content marketer should read. Many of these reads were on my reading list as a new hire—they’re foundational pieces that will help you grasp how the industry has evolved to what it is today.
22. Solve for distribution by @visakanv – Many people spend 95% of their time creating content and less than 5% distributing it, which can prevent your writing from being read widely. If you focus even 10% more on distribution, you’ll see better results (traffic, leads, etc.) and will be able to ask for higher pay. This blog has a lot of great short reads on ‘slow marketing,’ which focuses on organic growth.
23. How to Write Thought Leadership Content by Ryan Law – If you can write thought leadership (TL), you will be in much better shape to negotiate salaries and raises. Companies are now relying more on non-SEO content to establish a credible brand and access new distribution channels.
24. Superpath Pro – Our premium course contains dozens of modules to help you level up as a content marketer. For example, the module How to Manage a Content Team includes tactical slideshows and SME interviews on reporting, vendor management, content planning and writing.
25. Free & Paid Certifications & Courses for CMMs – I created this Airtable base for the Superpath community since people often ask about free and paid courses to help them develop their careers. It’s regularly updated with suggestions from the community.
If you have a content marketing salary negotiation article, video, influencer, or course you want to recommend, email Superpath.
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Cierra is the Content Marketing and Community Manager at Superpath. You can connect with her on LinkedIn here.
