Google has learned that searchers are more satisfied with those more specific queries. It's actually better to create content for longer tail, lower volume keywords that include modifiers.

In this tutorial, Bernard explains how to use Clearscope to do better keyword research and shows a number of examples to illustrate why keyword selection is so important.

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Clearscope is an official partner of Superpath! To get a free keyword report, send a DM to Bernard Huang or Shannon Ratliff in our Slack community.


You can see the other tutorial videos in this series here:

• Why Content Optimization Is All the Rage

• How to Refresh Content That Doesn't Rank Like It Used To (Or Never Did)

And you can learn more about Clearscope's other powerful features and pricing here.

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 the Content and Communications Manager at a small startup earning $80K a year plus equity.

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

BOUTIQUE PR AGENCY (5 people)

• Account Executive - $50K - 1.5 years in the role

• Senior Account Executive - $60K - 10 months

SMALL STARTUP (20 people, seed)

• Content & Communications Manager - $80K + equity - 2.5 years

LARGER STARTUP (250+ people, Series C)

• Content Marketing Manager - $92K + equity - 1 year

—Inflation adjustment after 7 months to $98K—

• Content Lead - $132K + 33% equity refresh

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

I'm currently a Content Lead making $132,000 a year.

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

My recent promotion at my current company took me from $98K to $132K for a 35% bump, and it came with a 33% equity refresh. I've been poached or recruited for every job I've moved to and this internal promotion was still my biggest jump in salary.

I went from an L3 individual contributor at my company (Content Marketing Manger) to an M2 manager level role (Content Lead), as part of this promotion. I've been managing one person for 6 months as a trial run and now I'm currently building what will be a team of four content folks under me.

What is your most valuable skill?

Everyone I manage is better than me at their individual function, which is my bar for hiring. But I think my most valuable skills are seeing how all those pieces fit together for effective strategy and managing my team toward those shared goals. I can get into the weeds with my team to provide content feedback and unblock projects, but it's not where I'm strongest.

I think this makes me a better manager than individual contributor, and I felt out of place in my roles up until I started managing because I wasn't playing to my strengths.

That being said, I used to get frequent feedback early in my career to master my current job before trying to do the next one. It used to really frustrate me, but now that I'm leading a team, I can see how annoying I must've been to my manager at the time. I think that's helpful context for anyone who's overly anxious to start managing: Take it one step at a time and show your value through the responsibilities you already have.

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

For content, I'm not going to say anything revolutionary: Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina is the first (and maybe last?) book on content that I found really valuable. I learn more about content from talking to other marketers and reading articles.

Everybody Writes by Ann Handley is probably my favorite book on writing for content marketers. If you're just starting out I recommend you also read all the classic journalism/writing standards that get rightfully mentioned every time this question gets asked (On Writing, On Writing Well, Elements of Style, etc.)

The book that inspired me the most to become a better writer is They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib. He's a cultural critic and essayist, but also a poet. That book of essays contains a masterclass on structure and cadence, besides showcasing some really compelling thinking and storytelling.

The books I've taken the most cues from in a work setting are actually old-school, direct response copywriting books and management books in general. My favorite management books are Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo (make it the first one you read as a new manager) and High Output Management by Andy Grove.

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

I am blessed with many mentors, peers and friends in the content marketing industry. But I had to be very proactive to get to this point.

My very first connections in content were through a group call I was invited to by a hiring manager after getting rejected from their open job. I am lucky to call them all friends now.

Everyone else, I either met through them or cold DM'd on LinkedIn or Superpath. I am constantly sliding into the DMs and I've never gotten a flat out "no" from anyone — only been left on read a few times as well. People are really open to chatting if you approach it well, including big-time content marketers that seem out of reach. People in our industry are really nice and generally want to help if they have time. I do 5-10 calls a week, most of them recurring.

When I talk to people ahead of me in their careers—mentor relationships—I'll often use the time to understand how they think about the next level, ask for advice on projects I have in more uncharted territory, or get advice on management. When I talk to peers, it's usually a mix of venting, sharing new solutions we're finding on a tactical level, and working together to troubleshoot the problems we're struggling with. Between these two groups, I'm not afraid to take on projects I've never done—I have a built in advisory board that I can stress-test ideas with.

If you're concerned about getting rejected, start a group call of 4-6 content folks in your niche. Then the others in the call can provide some additional value. For example, I started a group call with other ecommerce SaaS content marketers and made sure there was no direct competitors. But generally, you're going to make more shots than you miss, with the right approach to cold outreach (don't ask to pick their brain).

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

I'm an active contributor and sell my team's impact. I speak up in meetings, with ideas and challenges, and encourage my team to do the same. And I'm active in our Slack, sharing wins and stories from the work my team is doing. It's important that everyone understands what we're doing and the impact it can have.

I really care about my team and the work we're doing. Unfortunately, I think this puts me ahead of a lot of managers who only care about the work, which is a bar we need to keep raising. Everyone on my team has clear expectations, defined growth paths to their next level, and enough one-on-one attention to understand that I care about them as people, beyond what they can produce for the company.

I ask for what I need. Seems basic, but this is where I see a lot of people losing steam in their careers. When I need resources for my team, I make the case. When I want a promotion, I actively work with my boss to partner on a pathway to get there. Unfortunately, closed mouths don't often get fed.

I'm adaptable and unafraid to take on projects I've never done before. Part of this is my love of a good challenge, but I also have a lot more confidence here due to the network I mentioned above. I also have a brilliant team who can run with the unexpected, independently, so I do my best to empower that and give them the space to come up with their own solutions.

I also think I'm easy to work with and find a good balance of helping other teams while still staying focused on our strategic priorities. With content, everyone sees you as "the writers" and you can help level up most projects at the company. It's important to help and build relationships without getting derailed.

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

What gets you from point A to point B won't always get you to point C. I think a lot of content marketers love writing and the craft of content, and that will help you get the results needed for the next level. But you have to marry the results with management potential at some point in your climb, which is a different skill set. And once you're in your first management role, I think the importance of management over content skills grows even further.

A good first step is really understanding the strategy of your content team, marketing team, and business overall. The more you can tie what you're doing to relevant business outcomes, the better off you'll be.

As part of this, you need to be willing to "give up your legos," a phrase that I learned from a well-known First Round Review article. Basically, the work you enjoy the most might not be what helps level the business up. You need to be able to build a function, hire and pass it on to keep growing your team. And then you're on to the next function, to extend your impact even further.

Finally, I mentioned this above but if you want to get a promotion, you need to talk to your manager about it well before you think you should get it. My general rule is to push for monthly career conversations to get feedback and understand your progress. Then six months out from when you want the promotion, bring it up and literally ask what your manager would need to see for you to get there in that time frame. If you don't partner with your manager on your career growth, you're flying blind on feedback and hoping they read your mind on your goals. That's a recipe for a stagnant career.

Where do you live? What is your gender and ethnicity?

I'm a white man living in Brooklyn, NY.

Its first set of features include:

A form to submit new content:

A dashboard to track the status of content and payments:

The ability to change payment amounts:

‍

While it's basic, it's functional and already making it easier for customers to have insight on their content and get more content done quickly. Here are a few other things we've added this month:‍

• ‍A new field for document URLs. All submitted content will have a new Google Doc, and API customers will have their docs captured along with the rest of the data.

• Avatars for users and writers

• Functionality to manage your account/change password

• API access for enterprise customers. This means we connect the customer's content production tool directly to Superpath via a webhook. Those customers work in their own tool (Airtable, Asana, etc.) rather than submitting content through our portal. (Shoot me an email if you want to set that up for your own team.)‍

• Free content ideas! Check the footer for a link to content inspiration if you're not sure what to write about next.

And here's what's on the roadmap:

• Weekly email reminders to submit new content

• A spend management dashboard

• A Stripe integration

• Writer dashboard so you can easily see your writing team, their samples, and add private notes/ratings for each.

I'm very open to your feedback, so please don't hesitate to send it my way.

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

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've been a full-time content marketer and freelance writer since 2014. I started out writing blog posts for $15 for 1000 words, and slowly increased my rate to $450 for 1000 words. Note- I'm not sure if you are interested in freelance content, but figured this may be of interest if so. I've also helped other freelancers start their careers and have helped some hit 6 figures by sending them leads and offering advice.

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

• 2015 (first year full-time freelancing)- $30,000

• 2016- $60,000

• 2017- $120,000

• 2018- $165,000

• 2019- $198,000

• 2020- $172,000

• 2021- $201,000

• 2022- $186,000

All of this was purely through freelance income through my own business.

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

I earn between $11,000-15,000 most months. I haven't dropped under $11,000 (except for March 2020) since 2018.

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

I guess I'm not really a fit for this question. Every year, I'd increase my rates as soon as I had a booked schedule. My biggest jump in rates was from $200 to $350, which was in 2019.

What is your most valuable skill?

My most valuable skill is that I'm a strategic content marketer who is capable of really understanding how a business's goals, their audience, their products, and the content strategy need to align. I also believe that slow and steady wins the race, and that careful research, engaging writing, and careful optimization is a powerful triple threat in content marketing. When it comes to running my business, my content marketing skills speak for themselves, but my most valuable skill is the ability to leverage and highlight the value I offer to potential clients. Selling my services— and why they're worth my price points— is an enormous asset and a skill more writers should practice.

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

Sin and Syntax is my all-time favorite.

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

I have not. I tried a one-time appointment with a freelance coach, but I did not feel that she actually offered any actionable tips or content for how to earn more. I've found that most freelance coaches do not offer actionable feedback on how to actually solve new freelancers' problems.

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

Organization. I have a database in my Google Docs where I store each client's pay rates, special requests, work processes, style guides, and more. I review it every time I'm starting a new project, even for clients I've worked with for years.

Maintaining genuine relationships with my clients. If people like you, they want to hire you, and if you've cared to ask about how their five year old and their dog by name and send pictures of your own family in return, that goes a long way.

Staying up to date with what's changing in content. This is important- SEO is always changing. You need to be on top of those changes or you'll fall behind.

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

Finding momentum is important as a freelancer. A few great clients will often refer you to other great clients, helping you gain momentum and a busy schedule.That aside, learn how to reach out to clients, pitch projects, and highlight the value of those pitches. Explain why a blog post will be relevant to a client's audience and what sort of business results it can drive.

Where do you live?

Connecticut.

This AMA focuses on how freelancers can master "legalese." People asked about:

• Strategies for getting paid

• Creating simple agreements with your clients

• Handling intellectual property issues...and more!

You can connect with Brionna on Twitter and check out her website here

How do you recommend handling NDAs with clients, especially when your workforce is primarily part time freelancers?

Hmm, if you already have a confidentiality agreement in place with your workforce to keep client info confidential, then clients should not also require the individuals to sign their NDAs. You're right to push back on this. I would offer to let them see the confidentiality provision in the agreement that all your part-time contractors sign to work for you and see what happens.

Honestly, if they don't take your word on this that your people are confidentiality bound, it's probably better that they walked. There's a misalignment of values/distrust from the start.

I'm wondering about some of the most common red flags you see in freelancer contracts? Either from the client side or the freelancer site - what are some things to watch out for?

I was JUST working on this slide for my latest course so your timing is perfect. In contracts you get from the client, here are my top things to watch out for:

1. Definition of intellectual property is always too broad and tends to include your proprietary business processes /methods you've developed that you use for every client. You almost always need to exclude this.

2. Payment terms. I always tell my customers to find out how long it will take to get paid as soon as possible so you can budget accordingly and set up a payment schedule to get paid as fast as possible.

3. Insurance/indemnity: Clients often want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have final approval over deliverables AND require that you indemnify them and have insurance. They get final approval OR they can ask for indemnity. Insurance is absurd unless we're getting towards a 6-figure contract.

The insurance piece is also part of the same contract you just advised me on. So it's reasonable to ask for that clause to be removed too?

Generally yes! But depending on your client, they may not agree. When you do the contract review service, we'll troubleshoot it. Some clients are super unreasonable about these things, but there's ways to work around them/get connected to the right people to get what you need.

Sara: A few of the most common things I ask clients to revise are a) overly broad non-compete language—I usually explain that I need to protect my ability to earn a living as a content writer within niche industries, so that’s an automatic dealbreaker for me, and they remove or revise it; and b) an unexpected limitation on my ability to use their name or my work samples on my website or portfolio—I usually explain that samples of my work are what prove my ability to deliver and generate future work, and if the content I’m producing is not able. to be shared publicly, I charge more to compensate for that lack of portfolio-building, similar to ghostwriters. That usually gets them to just remove it.

Below is a clause in an agreement a client is asking me to sign. My concern is that what we're marketing could have some risk involved b/c it involves corporate training sessions on a sensitive topic (think mental health related). Am I exposing myself to too much risk here? In the past, I've requested a modification to indemnity clauses. I'm not sure if I should push this one b/c it doesn't strike me as egregious, yet the subject matter makes me a bit more concerned. "Indemnification: Contractor agrees to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless [client] and its ‍officers, employees, agents, and licensees from and against any and all claims, actions, damages, liabilities, and expenses arising out of any action of Contractor, including but not limited to the breach of any obligation, warranty, or representation of Client in this Agreement."

Your spidey sense is right! This is way too broad. It's hard for me to give specific advice without looking at the whole contract and the service you're providing (I have a contract review service if you need), but as a wellbeing entrepreneur myself, I would just ask to have the indemnity provision taken out. It's a workshop.

How much detail would you recommend giving in my request to remove that clause? Should I get into the "work for hire" nature of our relationship or simply ask them to remove it?

Sometimes asking them why they need you to have insurance for the service you're providing is helpful to make them play out the potential scenarios in their head and see that it's unnecessary. Same for indemnity.

There’s a clause that’s giving me pause. ‘Writer acknowledges and agrees that Company will only pay writer for articles that are published, and Company has the sole and exclusive authority to determine whether or not to publish any and all Articles submitted by Writer.’ I’ve not come across this before, anyone getting any red-flag vibes off this?

RED FLAG RED FLAG! You get paid for articles your deliver. It's not your fault if they don't end up using it. Your service is to write the article, not ensure it gets published. They are deciding what to do with it and you shouldn't get punished for their publishing decisions.

Any tips for collecting outstanding payments from a client without burning the bridge?

This is tough. After you've sent a couple friendly emails, I always prefer a phone/video call as a reset. We tend to be unhinged via email and live conversations are a good way to get to the bottom of things. If this is a client you're doing recurring work for, you can withhold delivering further work until you're paid for previous work OR you can include unpaid invoices to your next invoice.

For clients that have purchasing/procurement departments, I always suggest a phone call and I also suggest having a point person in purchasing/procurement so you can figure out what the hold up in payment is.

Are there certain types of insurance that freelancers should have?

Hmmm, I'm admittedly not an insurance buff, but I do tend to think it's overrated if it's just you. If you have a team, I think general insurance and professional liability insurance to cover your team is a good idea. But that's about the extent of my knowledge. Sorry!

Today's discussion will cover several key areas including:

• How to identify high-converting keywords

• Their process for hiring great freelance writers

• How they produce content for clients in all different industries

• Growing an agency

• AI and the future of content

Feel free to ask them anything about these topics or other areas of content marketing and agency growth. Let's dive in!

Where are the greatest opportunities for synergy between SEO and PPC? Our org's head of growth oversees adwords, and I oversee organic search, and we know there should be a regular exchange of insights but we're not sure what info would be most helpful for one another.

Benji: Testing keywords on paid and seeing which ones convert, then going after those same keywords organically.

I guess the big question is are you making big changes to your approach because of AI? Is Answer-optimized, AI optimized something we should all be thinking about a lot more?

Devesh: AI is making an impact in two areas of the content process:

1. Content production

2. Search results

Regarding search, there are two main themes:

• How Google's AI answers affect traffic from ranking on Google

• How non-Google AI tools might take "search" traffic away from Google

We're researching whether:

• Google ranking correlates with ChatGPT ranking for similar queries

• Our clients appear in AI search results through bottom-of-funnel articles

• Factors like backlinks and domain authority affect AI tool recommendations

Our previous study indicated ChatGPT tends to recommend tools featured in Google's first-page results.

What are some of the big trends in SEO that you think brands need to keep in mind for creating content in the future?

Benji:

• Brand mentions are becoming more important than just links, especially for AI search queries

• Unique content is increasingly important with AI-generated content becoming common

• Human writing will command a premium

• AI will assist writers rather than replace them

• Focus on Google optimization since it still drives the majority of business

I'd love to hear about your recruitment/onboarding process for new freelancers. Do you give them a writing test? How else do you evaluate them?

Benji:

1. Initial application reviewing background and samples

2. Paid writing test ($200 for writing the intro and first paragraph)

3. Feedback and revision if needed

4. First full article assignment

5. Testing across multiple accounts

6. Full onboarding after consistent good feedback

A detailed explanation of our process is available in this video.

When you're working with a new customer, what's your method for uncovering high-intent/hidden-gem/lower-volume topics and keywords that don't show up in the keyword tools?

Benji: We do a kickoff session at the beginning of every engagement where we interview sales, product, and marketing. We ask a ton of open-ended questions about who the customers are and why they buy and that helps us understand the buyer and identify topics. Then we find keywords that map to those topics.

How do you manage capacity planning for your agency? (ie: knowing how many clients you can handle, how long everything takes, etc)

Devesh: Each content strategist handles 2-4 accounts and either writes content themselves or works with 1-2 writers. When at capacity, Benji and I step in as interim strategists while training promising writers to become strategists.

Any advice on how to best track progress over time of how, where and when your brand is showing up in AI/ generative search?

Benji: If I'm honest, we don't have a process around this yet other than searching in the tools ourselves and/or looking in Google analytics and seeing when a post has a referral from an AI search engine.

How do you handle situations when it's not clear whether the SERPs want to prioritize a product landing page vs. a blog vs. a listicle vs. something else for a particular keyword? Do you just cover all your bases and make them all or is there a smarter way to think about it?

Devesh: We don't see that very often tbh. I'd be curious for you to post an example query and I can answer this more specifically.

We default to blog posts because they:

• Are easiest to produce

• Offer more content flexibility

• Outrank tons of competing URLs that are not-blog posts

• Convert as well as or better than landing pages very often

What were some of the biggest mistakes you made when trying to scale your agency? And what would you do differently if you had to start over from scratch?

Devesh:

1. Delegating operations too early without established processes

2. Not doing things that don't scale first

3. Being too slow to delegate specific roles

4. Trying to delegate to generalists instead of specialists

Maybe an impossible question, but how do you balance: (1) being an agency that needs to be super scalable, have good margins, and deliver results to every client, with (2) knowing there's no one-size-fits-all content strategy anymore, and there's a need to be somewhat experimental

Benji: We chose to do a productized service because we felt like we had a process that can generate results across multiple different clients and businesses. Making a productized service helps with more predictable hiring and what's needed on every account. If you have too loose of an offering, it gets really hard to staff for it. All expenses are rolled up to every client. So for example, there's a cost for writing, strategy, etc for every client. So that allows us to control costs and margins.

What does your team's tech stack look like? What are your preferred search tools?

Benji & Devesh:

• Trello for client work

• Data Studio for reporting

• GA4, HubSpot, and WhatConverts for tracking

• Ahrefs for SEO research

• Clearscope for on-page optimization

What are the top few valuable adjacent skills to writing that you recommend writers develop in the context of AI nipping at our heals moving forward -- or at least constraining the opportunity space? (Not including, "learn how to work with AI")

Devesh: Focus on becoming a complete marketer:

• Content strategy

• Keyword selection

• Analytics and conversion tracking

• Content promotion and link building

On the "growing an agency" front, what did you find to be the most effective business development process during your early stages of growth?

Devesh: We grew through disruptive content marketing with articles like:

• Mirage Content

• Specificity Strategy

• Originality Nuggets

• Customer-Content Fit

Our origin stories are collected in the Beginnings of Grow & Convert section of our site.

Any SME interview tips to get the good stuff out of them?

Devesh: What I find works well is to try to outline your piece before you interview them. We used to have team members just sort of get on cold to an interview and be like "so tell me about x" and they didn't go as well. But if they try to outline the piece first, then they force themselves to think through what they want to write and what the piece likely needs so then they have really specific questions and much more background.

---

That just about does it on time here for the AMA. Benji and Devesh, thanks SO MUCH for your openness and detailed answers, and thanks to everyone for the great questions - this was awesome!

It's going to take hours to dig through all these responses in detail. For those who want to learn more from these folks, you can:

• Learn more at their website

• Follow Benji and Devesh on LinkedIn

• Subscribe to their newsletter

• Subscribe to their podcast

• Check out their content marketing course

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

It’s a common content conundrum: people with the most to say write the least, and people with the least to say write the most. But you can’t be a thought leader without regularly publishing and building a track record as someone with good ideas.

Outsourcing your thought leadership content can be a great solution, but it's not without its challenges. In this blog post, we'll guide you through the process of outsourcing, from finding the right freelancer to nailing your tone of voice (TOV) and avoiding pitfalls.

If you’re ready to elevate your own voice and ideas with help from someone who knows exactly how to turn your thoughts into clear, interesting writing, keep reading.

Why many companies struggle to create thought leadership content

Many companies approach the Superpath Marketplace wanting to create thought leadership content. They’ve found it can be difficult to find a freelancer or agency who can match the tone and voice of the person with the ideas. This is especially true if internal documentation (style, brand, voice, and tone guides) isn’t readily available.

As we mentioned in another post about setting your freelancers up to win, you have to give clear input to get the desired output.

There also needs to be a repeatable process in place for the articles to be successful, which can be difficult to establish. Freelancers who specialize in thought leadership know exactly how to extract ideas from a founder and pull them into a persuasive piece of content.

We’ve asked a few of our Marketplace freelancers who specialize in ghostwriting thought leadership to explain their process below.

How to set up a process for freelancers to write thought leadership and nail your voice and tone (briefing, interviewing, reviewing)

1. Provide examples of thought leadership you’ve written

When you're outsourcing thought leadership pieces, it's crucial to find a freelancer or agency who can capture your TOV accurately. One way to ensure this is for you (the founder) to write the first few pieces yourself. This will help set the standard of writing for the rest of the articles.

“I was lucky when I was writing thought leadership for Dock because Alex Kracov, our CEO, already had a personal blog that I could draw inspiration from,” said Eric Doty, Content Lead at Dock—who contributed ghostwritten thought leadership content for Dock before joining full-time.

If you don’t have time to write, you could point the freelancer to tweets, LinkedIn posts, or outsourced thought leadership articles that fit your tone and voice.

2. Establish a process to set the freelancer up for success

It's also important to have a briefing process in place for each article. This should include giving the freelancer access to the documentation we mentioned earlier: style and brand guidelines, and any other internal docs. You should also give them a rough outline of the article. It can be something as simple as:

Working headline

1-2 sentence summary of the argument

• Supporting idea

• Supporting idea

• Supporting idea

An outline will help steer the direction of the piece and set up the next part of the process: the interview.

3. Make time for a call with the freelancer

We know, you’re a busy founder. But having a 30 to 40 minute interview with the freelancer is key to ending up with a finished product that sounds like you.

“Before the interview, I do independent research on the topic to try to get to the point where I can ask meaningful questions. The end goal of the thought leadership content is normally intended for experts, so you don’t want to waste too much interview time on 101 stuff, or you won’t have time for the juicy thoughts,” Eric explains.

“In the interview, I normally just let them riff thoughts on the subject until they’re done talking, asking clarifying questions along the way,” he adds.

If you can’t squeeze a call into your schedule, you could send a Loom, audio message, or past recorded webinars or podcasts talking about the subject. But there is a certain magic that happens in a live call that’s hard to replicate asynchronously.

4. Give the freelancer counter-arguments and examples

In the interview, the freelancer should ask you questions that help you make your case about the topic or give enough detail to form a narrative. Thought leadership is the sharing of “learned secrets,” as Ryan Law says, which is what makes it so valuable. Thought leadership can be:

• Lessons based on personal experiences

• Observations about your industry or current trends

• Defensible, contrarian opinions

• A framework or process for solving a problem

Depending on the angle of the piece, your writer should know which type of questions to ask. But you, the founder, can also come prepared with anecdotes and arguments.

“When I ghostwrite for leaders, I ask open-ended questions and, since I type really fast, record their answers in their exact words. I use as much of their original language in the article as possible. I also ask "counter questions" about customer objections, adoption challenges, and other factors that allow them to make a solid case for their argument,” explains Anthony Garone, Co-founder of Edify Content, an agency that specializes in executive ghostwriting.

5. Set some time aside for calibration

At this point, you should receive an article that’s essentially your spoken thoughts written out into a logical piece that flows. The next step is to collaboratively edit the piece, which will look different depending on the freelancer-founder relationship.

The editing process is similar to that of an in-house marketing team, but there may be more in-depth edits when working with a freelancer, explains Seth Merrill, Content Marketing Manager at Lucid Software, who contributes thought leadership content for the Marketplace.

“The first few article editing rounds are as much about getting the article in a publishable state as they are an educational period for the writer to learn more about the brand and person they're writing for,” Seth says.

“The most helpful feedback at this stage is comments that get at "why" certain things need to be changed vs. feedback like "I'm not feeling this line" or "This doesn't make sense to me." A good TL writer will be able to synthesize learning during the feedback stage, apply them, and over time they will feel more and more like an in-house writer,” he adds.

How to avoid pitfalls and hit your publishing goals

After going through these steps, lots of executives burn out. They get content fatigue, see what is required to do good thought leadership content, and lose interest. Yet, as we mentioned earlier, you can’t be a thought leader without publishing at a regular cadence. Handing over the process to the Marketplace can be a good way to keep publishing content without getting fatigued.

When outsourcing thought leadership, it's important to avoid common pitfalls that can lead to subpar content. One such pitfall is not vetting potential candidates thoroughly enough and making sure they’ve written TL for other founders and executives. Another is not making time for the interview, which helps get the partnership off to a good start.

Having a “download call,” as Seth calls it, helps freelancers capture the way you speak about a subject, whether that’s giving personal anecdotes, using metaphors, or citing lots of statistics.

By following these tips, you can make sure you get high-quality content that accurately reflects your company's voice—and most importantly, establishes you as a credible thought leader in your industry.

These will be anonymous and updated regularly. If you make more than $100k/year and want to contribute, email Superpath.

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?

My first job was working as a Content Writer.

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

• 2019: $50,000

• 2020: $50,000

• 2021: $50,000

• 2022: $100,000

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

Today I earn $100,000 as a Content Manager.

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

I got poached by an early stage startup which doubled my salary, from $50,000 to $100,000.

What is your most valuable skill?

My ability to build great blogs, take initiative by raising ideas and executing them and develop relationships.

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

I recently read Alchemy by Rory Sutherland which was fascinating. Do Purpose by the Do Books is also great.

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

Not officially, but I have friends with more experience than me who I've leaned on for advice in terms of salary negotiation and career moves.

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

My ability to write, take initiative and speak up in meetings.

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

Get some serious wins under your belt and leverage them to switch jobs, preferably for a company that has raised a good amount of money. Confidently ask for more than you'd expect. Have chutzpah.

Who are you?

I'm a man living in Tel Aviv, Israel.

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?

My first job in content was as a part-time editor for a large news and opinion website. I specialized in real estate and development news for my city. I think I earned all of $900/month, so I also did odd jobs to make ends meet. The year prior, I was still working in my first career (as a teacher) and started writing a column for a large regional newspaper. I had written an essay that caught an editor's eye at the newspaper, and when he followed up with me to ask if I had an idea for a column, I said I did. I didn't, at the time, but knew I would come up with something. It was that experience that certainly earned me my first true "editor" gig — which ended up being the foundation of everything I've been able to accomplish so far and led me to where I am today. I keep in touch with that editor, and thank him about once a year for helping a young writer earn her first real writing chops.

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

• Part-time editor: $12,000 (2015)

• Communications Specialist: $72,000 (2016)

• Communications Specialist: $72,000 (2017)

• Content Marketing Manager: $82,000 (2018)

• Content Marketing Manager: $82,000 (2019)

• Content Marketing Manager: $82,000 (2020)

• Gap years, pandemic

• Content Marketing Manager: $108,000 (2023)

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

Content Marketing Manager: $108,000 plus bonus, stocks, cash incentive plan (total around $122,000/year)

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

I went from being a part-time editor to a full-time communications specialist at a consulting firm. I went from earning all of $990/month to a base salary of $72,000, with benefits and a generous bonus. I didn't have half of the requirements they listed, but I went for it, and they later told me my resume and thoughtfully crafted cover letter got me an interview.

What is your most valuable skill?

I am a very hard worker, and don't consider myself too good or too experienced for any task. I will craft a content strategy and then help change the coffee filter in the break room. My team knows they can depend on me to bring that work ethic to everything I do. I thrive when my team and company thrive.

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

Rules of the Red Rubber Ball, by Kevin Carroll. There is one page that talks about how hard he worked at one point, how little he slept, and how no one noticed. I read this for the first time ten years ago when starting out on my new career in content, and re-visit it often. Sometimes the hardest things we do are things no one will notice. That doesn't make them any less significant.

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

I wish! I've had an unorthodox career path, so I'm finding people are coming to me now about how to change careers (from education to something else, most often) or how to find a job in content marketing. But I would welcome finding someone who can help me take the next step in my career.

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

Waking up early: I get up very early and get my free-writing done. I never forget that it's creativity that got me where I am, so I do three "morning pages" each morning before heading into the office or to my desk at home.

Openness: I like to listen and learn from my colleagues. I love process, and refining it so all stakeholders are listened to and feel heard. I'm not afraid of being wrong and take criticism and feedback very well.

Attention to detail: At the end of the day, I'm just a really good writer and editor with great people skills. I am always available for any editing task, whether a short email or 40-page research report, and my colleagues know they can depend on my eye.

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

I'd say work hard — it's very simple. Volunteer for tasks. Wake up early and deliver important assets with time to spare. At the same time, be a good strategic partner. Speak with confidence in meetings and above all ... listen. Listen to your colleagues, to your customers, and to your peers. Be open to new processes and challenges and don't be afraid to reach out for support when you need it.

Then — if the time comes where a big career move will catapult you into the 100k club, apply for that job. Even if you don't think you're ready, or have the requisite experience, keep applying and taking the losses as learning.

Where do you live?

Boulder, CO

• A six step process around content briefing

• Why companies shouldn't be over-reliant on AI-generated briefs

• SEO best practices, tools to use, templates and more!

Watch the webinar replay below and follow along with the slides here.

Want to learn more? Here are some more resources from George.

Templates:

• ‍Content Brief Template (General)

• ‍What Is {Target Keyword} Content Brief Template‍

• Best {Product} Content Brief Template

• ‍{Product} Alternatives Content Brief Template

• ‍{Product A} vs. {Product B} Content Brief Template

Webinars:

• Webinar: How to Build Topical Authority by George Chasiotis of MINUTTIA | Clearscope

• How to Perform an SEO Content Audit for Your Blog: Georgios Chasiotis (MINUTTIA)

• Webinar: A Topic Cluster Case Study (with Real Examples and Data)

Thanks for joining today! Keep an eye on the #announcements channel for news on upcoming webinars, AMAs and office hours.

• It’s run by the one and only Eric Doty!

• We consolidated our two paid tiers into one: Superpath Pro.

• It includes monthly 1:1 calls, group calls, courses, and members-only AMAs.

• We’re developing an SSO app with more benefits, including a library of content examples and a few other things. 😎

You can learn more and signup at superpath.co.

Here’s a quick rundown of what it is, why it was due for a sprucing up and a few lessons learned from four years of running a paid membership tier.

Superpath Pro: A quick history

Way back in 2020, I created the very first version of Superpath Pro. The idea was that some of our Slack members wanted more—and in this case, “more” meant courses and content. I also rolled out monthly 1:1 calls, where we’d randomly match each Pro member with another each month.

This worked pretty darn well for a while. Over time, hundreds of people signed up and we even started selling plans to entire content teams. I added a ton of content in the form of courses, blog posts, teardowns, and interviews.

Then, last summer, we started charging for 10 channels in the Slack community. This was included for Pro members, and everyone else who wanted access could get in for $20/month. This also worked well and is also exactly where we created confusion around our own membership tiers.

For the last year or so, we’ve essentially had three tiers of membership:

• Free (access to the free Slack channels)

• Paid Slack (normal Slack + 10 premium channels)

• Superpath Pro (courses, content, 1:1s, and free/paid Slack channels)

Here’s the first lesson learned: the paid Slack tier needed a name! I never actually named it and it just became “paid Slack.” There was quite a bit of confusion among prospective and current members about which tier was right for them (and sometimes, which tier they were already on).

In early 2024, Eric Doty took on a larger role in the community. This gave us the chance to talk about all the ways we could improve the membership experience. The first thing we did was poll members to see what folks really wanted.

The new Superpath Pro (aka what members really want)

Overwhelmingly, members said they want more opportunities to connect with the other members. Slack is a great start, but folks want more structure: chances to network, calls to discuss common issues, office hours, maybe even “just for fun” type calls.

The new, single paid tier (Superpath Pro) is built around this. It includes:

• Access to the 10 premium Slack channels

• Courses, content, teardowns, etc.

• Monthly 1:1 calls

• Monthly “Superpath Socials.” These will be themed discussions with breakouts.

We’ll be collecting lots of feedback and will add/remove features as we hear from members.

What’s coming next?

We’re building our own software, which opens the door to all kinds of possibilities. Here are a few things we are thinking through now:

• A searchable database of content examples, broken down by content type and with some analysis of each. (This is coming in the next few weeks.)

• Access to the salary report data so you can filter/analyze it on your own (in addition to reading the report).

• New features for Help a B2B Writer will likely be baked directly into the app, making it really easy for members to source subject matter expertise and to be a source for others as well. We’re thinking that Pro members will get access to a new HaB2BW Pro plan as part of their existing membership.

• Profiles/portfolios so you can showcase your best work. This data will also be connected to our marketplace so we can match you with customers in need of your skills.

Have ideas? I’d love to hear them. We’ll be announcing all this as we go, so keep an eye on our newsletter and Slack announcements.

BUT FIRST, do you actually have a content strategy? I mean, do you have a documented plan that outlines what you’ll work on and what goals you’ll work towards for the next 3-6 months?

If not, you don’t really have a content strategy. Most of the companies I’ve ever worked with don’t have anything documented. I understand why. When there’s no documented strategy, you have flexibility. You aren’t really committed to any single thing. If something better comes up, you can pursue that instead. As you have cool ideas, you can pursue them.

Because I like running analogies, think about the difference between exercise and training. It’s possible to exercise a lot but never lose weight or get in better shape. For example, it’s really common that folks will work out too hard on a regular basis, rather than going hard on hard days and easy on easy days. This constant exertion and lack of focus means that athletes work hard but don’t progress.

A few years ago, when I got a running coach, he actually scaled back the hours per week that I ran. But he also brought structure and focus to my training. Hard days were hard, easy days were easy. We set A, B and C goals. We built an aerobic base, then layered on speed work as races got closer. Not surprisingly, it worked really well. I made progress in leaps and bounds, even though I wasn't working any harder than before. I had a goal and a plan to get where I wanted to go.

This is why you need a content strategy. It might feel uncomfortable to commit to a clear goal, but it will add shape and meaning to all the work that you do. You’ll have a way to say “no” to projects that would interrupt your progress and you’ll be able to build a narrative around the work you’re doing. (See Marketing to the organization)

Once you have a content strategy, there are a few ways to assess whether or not it’s working.

• Are you trending towards success? In other words, if your goal is to hit 100 MQLs/week within six months, have you gotten to 16 MQLs/week by one month? This may seem really obvious, but many teams set stretch goals, then fall behind quickly. This kills morale and sends a team scrambling for ways to hit a goal that should never have been set in the first place. As HBR says, “The consequences of setting and then missing stretch goals can be profound. Failures can foster employee fear and helplessness, kill motivation, and ultimately damage performance.” (I highly recommend this article.)

• Is the business growing? A business can grow without any content marketing at all. A business can also fail with great content marketing in place. But, in general, a good content strategy and a steadily growing business go hand-in-hand. The relevant content metrics (traffic, organic visits, MQLs, etc.) should grow in parallel to revenue. Revenue may grow faster than traffic (as a percentage) or traffic may far outpace revenue growth. Either way, both numbers should be trending up. If the business is not growing, you need to take a cold, hard look at your content strategy. It’s possible that a long-term organic play (a great strategy in the right circumstances) will take way too long to bear fruit if revenue is stagnant. The content strategy should meet the demands of the business today.

• Is it supposed to work yet? I’ll add one caveat to the above point. If, for example, the business grows on the heels of word-of-mouth and/or paid acquisition, you might have a longer runway to execute your content strategy. Let’s say you work for a marketing technology company in a crowded market. Paid acquisition works but keeps getting more expensive. You can wean off paid acquisition by investing in organic growth. Although it will take time, you must constantly check your progress against the cost of paid acquisition. You need to know how much time you have. You can’t build a strong organic presence in two months, but you likely could in 12 months. If you can confidently say you have 12 months of runway, use that long-term thinking to your advantage. Build a strong organic foundation first, and worry about conversion-specific metrics later.

• What percentage of posts fall flat? Every content strategy needs to leave some room for content that just doesn’t work. If you work for a big company and your strategy includes 20 new posts/month, you can afford to have some duds in there. At least 50% of the new content should “work”—generate new traffic, attract links, support sales, etc. If you work at a lean startup and publish 2-4 times/month, you absolutely cannot waste time/money on content that doesn’t work. Shoot for 80% of new content to “work”—and shoot for content that can serve double-duty (i.e. rank for a keyword and be included in a lifecycle email).

Content strategy is often deeply intertwined with product marketing, sales, go-to-market, demand gen, etc. It can be hard to even see what exactly is content vs. what is text that supports some other part of marketing. In general, look for progress. If you’re not improving at least every quarter, it’s time to re-evaluate.

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 started freelancing in 2014 on the side while working in another field. I made $60,000 that year. I didn't move into content full time until 2022 and made $115,000 in salary and $130,000 full compensation in my first full-time content job.

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

Freelancing part-time USD (gross before expenses)

• 2014 - $60,000

• 2015 - $70,000

• 2016 - $80,000 (+$50,000 sale of an SEO-focused website)

• 2017 - $100,000

• 2018 - $80,000

• 2019 - $90,000

• 2020 - $30,000

• 2021 - $100,000

• 2022 - $170,000

• 2023 - $100,000

Full time jobs USD (full compensation: salary + benefits)

• 2022- $130,000

• 2023 - $170,000

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

Senior Content Marketing Manager

Full-time job: $170,000 full compensation

Freelance business gross: $100,000

Total: $270,000

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

The biggest salary jump I made in my freelance career was in 2022 when I scored on full year contract worth $60,000 and was on the market looking for full-time jobs and a number of companies I didn't end up accepting a role from wanted to work with me on a freelance basis. I made $170,000 that year (more than I was making at my job) but it was too much work with a full-time job.

I once received performance and retention related salary increases that added up to $30,000 in less than a year of working at an employer. My employer recognized the value I was adding and proactively moved to retain me.

What is your most valuable skill?

I'm a knowledge translator. I'm able to quickly learn very complex things and then explain them in an easy to understand way at the appropriate level for the audience in question. For that reason, I specialize in thought leadership and primarily write white papers and research reports in my freelance work. I can write them fairly quickly now.

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

I don't read business/marketing/productivity/writing books. I think the last one I read was Carol Dweck's book Mindset about a decade ago and I liked it at the time. As someone who is neurodivergent, I think I've gained more professionally from books about disability because I learned how to work in ways that worked for me rather than how everyone else does. My advice to others is to chart their own paths, as well.

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

I don't have a career coach but I've worked closely with someone who heads an agency and she taught me everything she knows about content strategy. That has been invaluable and I don't think I could have learned it as quickly without her. My old partner also was an expert at SEO and taught me everything he knew about that. This was also invaluable.

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

Because I was a freelancer for 9 years before going in house, I learned how to work quickly and efficiently since I was making money on a per project basis. I find I can write good copy much faster than most writers for this reason. I create a quick outline first and then fill it in. Because I've written so, so much content I understand very intimately how each part of an article should work. Generally, I can write 1,000 words an hour. But I can't do that all day. I am also good at knowing how to structure my days to correspond with my fluctuating energy and capacity throughout the day. I also need to block the rest of the world out when doing that by listening to the same song on repeat while doing it -- which is a common tactic to improve concentration for people with ADHD. People with ADHD are known for being bad at attention but we also have the ability to hyperfocus and, for me, it's about understanding how to tap into that.

I also keep a running list of my to dos which I break down by day and if I'm struggling to concentrate break down by what I hope to do each hour. The goal is to remove any cognitive work in deciding what to work on when. I'll look at my to do list before I stop working for the day and prepare it for the next morning so I don't have to think about what to work on when I get back to work the next day. I do this with my freelance work as well.

My boss tells me one thing she likes about me is that -- while I'm not a perfectionist -- I have very high standards around content. She's often told me that something is good enough and I will say that it can be better with just a little more work and then I'll make it significantly better. She appreciates that even within the intensity of working at a startup, I'm focused on quality rather than just getting all the things done. I'm also opinionated but strategically so. I won't die on every hill but I have a track record for picking hills to die on where it's proven that I was right afterwards. So, I've built a lot of trust around my judgement and strategy.

The other thing that I'd say is that I'm very, very good to my people. Whether you're freelancing for me or working with me, I am a servant leader who will treat you well, get you what you need to unblock you, and advocate for you. As I'm at a startup with a small marketing team, I am only as good as the freelancers who support me and who are willing to work with me. I make sure that my colleagues treat those freelancers well, once got a freelancer a raise on his rate for his good work and am approachable and responsive for questions or issues that come up. I even personally lent a freelancer money when we suddenly changed our payment terms and they were struggling to make rent having expected to get their invoice paid in time. I deeply care about my colleagues and my freelancers and want to support them however I can. Even sometimes in unconventional ways. As a freelancer myself, I also know how I don't like to be treated and I use that knowledge to try to create a freelancer-friendly environment where people will stay working with us for years because it's a good experience for them. Good freelancers are invaluable.

The other thing that I'll say is that as someone who is neurodivergent and disabled myself, I try to give talented disabled people opportunities that they might not otherwise get. I think being able to identify writing talent that hasn't been developed due to cultural biases around disabled workers and provide mentorship around that is part of what makes me successful. It's also helped me learn how to effectively teach different forms of content writing to people new to it.

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

For years, I've always said that I don't have good advice for how to get into freelance content marketing because the way I got into it was very incidental and based on coincidence and chance. Then, once I got my first break, I spent years just coasting via recommendations from editors I worked with or inbound requests. My freelance income collapsed in 2020 partly because I didn't know how to get new clients -- they'd always just come to me. In fact, it only rebounded in 2021 because of recommendation to an agency that is now my biggest client that came from an editor I'd worked with years before. While I have now taught myself ways to get clients when needed, I think there's a lesson in my past: do great work, do it before deadline, and be friendly to work with. I think all those things contributed to how many recommendations I've gotten throughout my career. People thought of me when asked for a recommendation or they moved to a new job. I also work in a number of technical niches that tend to pay better.

Around getting to $100,000 in your day job, I applied for hundreds of jobs in 2022 and the salaries for content jobs vary wildly. Some Writer jobs had salary ranges higher than some Senior Content Marketing Manager jobs. I focused on applying to well-funded highly technical startups because they tended to pay better. Then, I had companies competing over me and I was able to get companies to increase their offers.

Where do you live?

Canada

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?

Social Media & Content Writer (growth-hacking w/ a startup), which paid $20 CAD per hour. I'd been freelancing part-time in content for years before that, though.

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

• 2014 - $500 USD - took on odd content writing jobs for travel money while teaching in Spain

• 2015 - $1,000 USD - took on more odd content writing jobs while teaching in Budapest

• 2016 - $10,000 CAD - moved to Canada without a work permit, so started hustling under the table for any content or creative job I could get (editing, ghostwriting, blog SEO writing, song lyric translation). I also had a short stint at a startup working full-time as a social media and content writer, but the startup didn't get their next round of funding, so that was short-lived.

• 2017 - $8,000 CAD - I got really into this handmade jewelry shop I was running, so I didn't do as many freelance content-marketing projects as before. I made money from my online shop, from markets, and from working a little bit at an art collective store behind the counter. My yearly income with everything combined was probably $25,000 CAD

• 2018 - $25,000 CAD - halfway through this year, I got a job as a content writer at $40,000.

• 2019 - $50,000 CAD - I stayed with the company, was promoted as an editor, and got a raise.

• 2020 - $70,000 CAD - I stayed with the company, hired a few editors to replace me, and started being the content director. I got a raise. My total income was actually higher because of a 10K bonus and some profit sharing as well.

• 2021 - $100,000 CAD - I stayed with the company and got a raise, still working as our content director. My total income is more like 150K to 180K CAD right now because we have quarterly profit sharing and it's often a pretty fat cheque.

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

$100,000 CAD plus bonuses and quarterly profit sharing (so it works out to somewhere between 150K and 180K). I'm called a Content Director.

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

When we started profit sharing, suddenly I started having an extra $20,000 cheque landing on my lap every quarter. Those are subject to the ebb and flow of profitability, though. Times might not always be this good, but for now it's an awesome bump.

What is your most valuable skill?

Decision-making. I am comfortable taking risks, and I am good at paying attention—listening fully, asking questions, understanding the concepts behind what someone is saying. I can zoom into the technical stuff and zoom out to see the bigger picture. These traits make me very good at making decisions that are productive, timely, and have good outcomes.

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

The Artist's Way
Never Split The Difference

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

Not really, but I've learned a ton from the people I work with, and from my boss!

What skills or habits help you thrive at work?

Time management -- prioritizing, understanding the time suck of repeated manual tasks, deciding not to do unimportant things.

I also sleep well, get exercise, and have hobbies I enjoy. This makes me a waaaay better, more grounded person to work with.

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

Try to minimize the censor in your brain telling you you're not worth it, or not going to make it. If you have trouble with this or feel blocked, pick up The Artist's Way, an awesome book for anyone who wants to learn skills and habits to be kinder to yourself, happier, and more creatively free.

Also, don't just strive for money. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow—focus more on the quality of your time spent, so that even if you don't earn a rockstar income, you'll at least have invested your most valuable resource (your time!) into things that made the moments of your life mostly great.

Every time I find myself focusing on doing my best work and sharing my natural gifts, that's when the money seems to come. It's so freaking frustrating until you figure out how to do that more of the time, but whenever you can, try to spend time doing things that you love doing. The money will follow.

Where do you live? What is your gender and ethnicity?

White female living in Vancouver, BC, Canada

But Alex Kracov, founder of customer collaboration platform Dock, did the opposite. He believed he could get to $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with a good product, a strong personal network and grit. So he decided to invest in content marketing and SEO as a pre-seed startup, knowing it would take a year or more to pay off.

“Building a startup is a 7-10 year commitment,” says Alex. “If you need paid ads to get $1m ARR, you aren’t setting yourself up for scale. That’s why I wanted to invest in content marketing very early.”

Here’s an inside look at how Dock rolled out its content strategy.

Settle on a narrow strategy.

We’ve never met a content team that isn’t strapped for resources, and, as a pre-seed startup, Alex had to be incredibly thoughtful about his marketing investment. Spend too little, and he wouldn’t get the quality writing he needed to attract readers. Spend too much, and he wouldn’t get the volume of content needed to start gaining traction in search results.

He ultimately pursued two long-form guides per month plus a small template library. The goal was to create 3,000-word posts on high-impact, evergreen topics (like this massive B2B sales guide)—the stuff that was highly relevant to his target persona and closely tied to Dock’s product, which is built for sales and customer success teams. He embedded templates into these guides to help readers visualize how Dock could solve some of the challenges outlined in the posts.

Some early posts like Client Management: Your Guide to Happier Clients and Mutual Action Plans: Ditch the spreadsheet & win more B2B sales were built for SEO but also forced Alex to hone his vision for Dock’s messaging. What’s the company's voice and tone? How do you address customers? How do you talk about the product without losing readers?

It’s nearly impossible to know exactly how you’ll handle important questions like this before you have an article to write or edit. But the calibration period only lasted a few weeks, and then Dock was able to settle into the twice/month publishing rhythm.

Delegate the nitty gritty work.

Early-stage founders are way too time-constrained to spend much time writing blog posts. In many cases, though, a few posts directly from the founder set the tone for the company’s content strategy for years to come. Intercom’s Des Traynor famously wrote 93 of the company’s first 100 posts, sending them on a trajectory that established Intercom as one of the best content brands in the world.

Alex chose the topics, wrote content briefs and decided to hire freelancers to handle the writing. This is where Superpath came in. Our marketplace matches SaaS companies with vetted freelancers and provides an editing service. It’s an easy, fast way to get up content up and running. Alex wanted to spend about 5% of his time on marketing in the company’s early days but still wanted a full-fledged content operation rolling within the first 90 days. His vision, paired with Superpath’s execution, made it possible.

Before launching Dock, Alex was the VP of Marketing at Lattice, where he built a massive media arm and established a thriving community. That experience hardened his belief in content and made it easier for him to start a new content program from scratch. He had a firm conviction about content and knew precisely how to get it off the ground.

Once matched with a freelancer, the process looked like this:

• Alex chose the topic and provided a content brief. The briefs included some lightweight keyword research, info about the target persona, notes about how the topic related to Dock’s product and some examples of other brands’ content that Alex admired.

• The writer would schedule 20-30 minutes to pick Alex’s brain about the topic. This saved hours of research and ensured the content reflected Alex’s personal experience and insights.

• The writer would deliver a draft to Superpath, which was reviewed by a professional editor and delivered to Alex. After closely reviewing the first few posts, Alex could skim and publish, confident that the quality and tone matched his expectations.

And that’s it. Alex set the vision, Superpath and our team of freelancers turned it into reality.

Balance the long game with quick wins.

Everyone knows that content marketing is a long-term investment. It takes time to rank yada yada yada. But a seed-stage startup needs something back from it nearly right away.

Alex recognized that the most important thing about content is to start early. Adding backlinks and growing domain authority can pay huge dividends later, and he wanted “later” to arrive as soon as possible. In the meantime, he capitalized on the content for short-term gains in two main ways.

1/ Branding

While thought leadership content is the typical way to approach branding, high-quality SEO content can accomplish some of the same goals. It’s a chance to show and tell people that Dock is on a mission and knows its subject matter exceptionally well. (Case in point: How to Move Upmarket. The Guide to Enterprise Sales)

Alex pointed out that the product-led growth trend sometimes means many people are involved in a sale. Since folks can try the product themselves, they can spend a lot of time on freemium tiers and advocating within their organization. It means that even self-serve sales cycles are long. He wants to get Dock on people’s radars early and often.

2/ Retargeting

Dock isn’t bothering readers with pop-ups and other intrusive calls to action. Instead, he drives people towards a free trial and retargets some readers. The blog topics are mostly middle of the funnel, meaning they are created for a particular persona and focused on the product. This means that the readers, while anonymous, almost certainly fit the bill as target customers. Take MEDDIC Sales Explained: A Simpler Way To Qualify Buyers as an example. The topic will be interesting to salespeople but won’t attract a general audience as top-of-funnel content would.

Alex retargets them on search and social with copy designed to drive them toward a trial. Retargeting makes it feel like a company is everywhere, even though the ads are personalized to specific individuals.

Winning now and later

As Dock grows, Alex feels confident that he won’t need to wean the company off expensive paid ads a few years down the road. Many companies don’t invest in content until performance advertising is so expensive that it’s the only option.

Since kicking this off, Dock raised a seed round and hired its first full-time marketer, a content lead. Content is starting to rank, with a few pieces in the top three search results and plenty of others moving up from page two. The future is bright, and Dock is only just starting.

To follow along, check out Dock’s Revenue Lab and follow Alex on Twitter.