What is a Content Marketing Manager & Why Having One Matters For Your Small Business

Do You Have A Content Marketing Manager For Your Business?

Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads.

But what does it take to conduct content marketing? Who handles the many efforts that go into it?

This is where a content marketing manager comes into the picture. 

So what is a content marketing manager exactly? What do they do all day? How do you become a content marketer?

We’re answering these questions and more in this post.

So some of you may be wondering why we’re talking about what a content marketing manager does instead of going over what content marketing is. 

The reason is because

1. We already have a post on what is content marketing, and
2. understanding what content marketing is great, but you need somebody to actually execute it. 

And for a lot of small business owners, they’re working on a budget…

…and can’t yet afford to outsource the work to professionals, like what we do for our clients at LYFE.

So that’s why in this post, we’re going to show you what you’ll need to do if you’re your own content marketing manager.

Or, if you’re looking to get into the marketing industry doing content marketing, this post will be an equally helpful resource for you.

Let’s get started!

What You’ll Need To Do If You’re Your Own Content Marketing Manager

1. You’ll need to understand that content marketing encompasses many different platforms. 

The definition of content marketing is that it’s “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content…

…to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

So, “creating and distributing” content could occur anywhere: on social media, on emails, on your website, and more. 

So as a content marketing manager, you’ll need to be prepared to create, edit, manage and/or oversee all of these channels. 

If you’re totally new to all of those platforms, it will probably help to read some of our posts around each of the given topics.

So, given that you’re going to be juggling multiple platforms, the next thing you need to be able to do is…

2. You’ll need to be able to coordinate your efforts between multiple platforms.

Take a look at what we do for example. 

When a new YouTube video is published on our channel…

• a corresponding blog is published on your website,

• a Reel is posted on our Instagram, and

• a YouTube Story is posted

…to alert our followers and website visitors of the new episode.

And in the same instance, these pieces of micro-content in themselves offer a nugget of information, education, and value to our audience. 

But we’ll talk more about micro vs macro content in a minute. 

For you, coordinating your efforts could look like sending an email out when a new blog is released on your site.

Or send a text message to your SMS list about a free, helpful tool that you’re now offering.

The point is you don’t want all of your different channels to act on their own agenda.

They should all be in sync with each other to achieve your main overall content marketing goal.

3. You’ll need to be able to communicate with any team members you have working on these efforts. 

We know earlier we mentioned how it’s often a one-man show in the early stages of operating a small business.

But once you start growing, you’ll soon have a team of people to oversee who are executing these efforts for you. 

At that point, it will be important that you ensure correct and clear communication…

…between what your social media team is doing and your website team and so on.

This is so that everybody is on the same page about what needs to be published and when. 

4. You’ll need to be able to plan out a content strategy with your customer in mind. 

While your content marketing platforms should all be aligned…

…you, as your own content marketing manager, will find that you publish the content differently on each channel because:

1. of the formatting and nature of each channel, and
2. of people who find you on IG are probably in a different stage of your marketing funnel than people who are deep into your blog on your website.

So you’ll need to meet your audience where they’re at in their buyer’s journey with each piece of content. 

5. You’ll need to understand what your audience cares about at each stage of your marketing funnel. 

If they’ve never heard of you before, they’re probably not ready to give you their email for a free lead magnet yet. 

We’ve published a post on the marketing funnel as well as our digital marketing for beginners…

…where we talk about how to identify your audience’s goals and pain points.

This is so you can be sure you’re creating content about things that your audience actually cares about.

Now before we get into our next point, we just want to remind you that our new social media ads training course is out now.

Be sure to check it out if you want to take your social advertising skills up a notch.

6. You’ll need to understand SEO or search engine optimization. 

We have several posts on this so we’re not going to spend too much time talking about it here.

But the gist of it is that you can leverage your blog and website’s content writing…

…to rank high in the search engine results for keywords and search queries that matter to your business. 

And the process of how you do that is called SEO, and is what we teach you how to do in our SEO posts. 

You need to know how to do that so that your blog and website content can be doing two things at one time; providing value to your audience.

Therefore establishing brand-consumer trust, and helping you garner brand awareness and website clicks…

…from qualified people from ranking high in the search engine results.

7. You’ll need to ensure that all of your content marketing efforts align with your brand guide. 

People should be able to recognize your company no matter what channel they’re on when they see content from you. 

A brand guide is something that allows you and your team to be on the same page as to:

• what colors to use,
• what language,
• what font,
• when to use which logo.

8. You’ll need to stay on top of trends and new channels or formats as they become available. 

You never know what new trend or channel may take off next, but you want to be there ready to jump on that gravy train when it does. 

For instance, when we started using Instagram Reels, our Instagram reach soared. Look at the last 90 days of our Instagram insights. 

The majority of our content reach is from Reels, reaching over 33,000 more people than the next content type.

And the majority of that reach is non-followers! 

This means we’re attracting tens of thousands of new people and getting brand awareness from that…

…simply by posting organic content using a new feature from Instagram. 

So, always be on the lookout for new opportunities there.

9. You’ll need to analyze your results and pivot or optimize accordingly. 

When talking about looking for new opportunities for growth, looking at your existing results so far is often a great place to start.

Looking at each channel’s analytics allows you to see where people are falling off…

…and where or how you can improve your content on each given channel or collectively as a whole.

10. You’ll need to share your reports and findings with your entire content marketing team. 

You may want to set up a monthly or bi-weekly meeting with everyone…

…to share this information so that you can all see what’s working and what’s not.

But at the very least, you need to be able to communicate what’s been going on effectively.

11. You’ll need to put some case studies together.

Depending on the nature of your business, they may be very simplistic or very deep in coverage.

But the point of any case study or testimonial…

…is to give your target audience an unbiased, yet positive peek into what your company has done for someone just like them.

So this might entail you reaching out to your best customers to see if they’re willing to:

1. do an interview with you, or
2. allow you to put their brand name and results on your website.

Even if they have always complimented you on your service or given you satisfactory feedback…

…you always want to ask because you don’t want to find out too late that that client wanted to keep all of their information private.

And speaking of case studies, check out our digital marketing case studies post to see an example of how you can put together content from it.

12. You’ll need to manage your content marketing budget. 

This will include the cost of any paid content efforts you run as well as the cost of your content team’s labor.

As with most marketing efforts, the point is to gain profit from them.

You can’t do that if you’re spending more on your content team than their efforts are putting out.

So those are the things that you’ll need to be able to do if you’ve decided to be your own content marketing manager.

Now if you think that’s too much to manage on your own, then call our content marketing firm today. We’d love to help you out!

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