VP of Content Marketing Earning $240,000/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, 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?

I was a web editor for a local newspaper for $15/hour.

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

• $20,000
• $32,000
• $42,000
• $56,000
• $78,000
• $120,000
• $140,000
• $175,000
• $240,000

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

My salary as a VP of Content Marketing is $240,000 per year.

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

I was promoted from IC to Director and broke into six figures for the first time.

What is your most valuable skill?

Writing. All of this starts with writing clearly. Writing alone wont get you promotions, but it is where all of the future career moves will build from. If you manage a team, they will having trouble respecting you if you don't have one genre of content that you are amazing at.

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

The Elements of Style - less because of the exact rules. But more because of its focus on brevity.

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

I've had managers that have taught me lots. You should be excited about the companies you work for - but it's the people that will make you want to inevitably stay or go. If you find someone you trust and that is talented, you should bend over backwards to work with them.

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

I'm still working on it - but prioritization. You have to let some plates hit the ground sometimes. And that means you have to be ok with looking "bad" in the short term for the sake of the long term.

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

Every job has a scoreboard. Maybe it's traffic. Maybe it's leads. Maybe it's "brand love". What ever it is, know the game you're playing and know how the score is kept. Every role is different and sometimes the actual "score" is different than the stated KPIs.

Where do you live?

I live in a mid-sized eastern U.S. city.