Content Marketing Managers in tech are at a crossroads when it comes to compensation trends for 2024. Many of the biggest developments parallel those seen with sales and other go-to-market (GTM) jobs in the sector, where companies are moving away from hiring generalists and entry-level applicants, and prioritizing sourcing experienced “unicorns.”
This year’s version of the Betts Compensation Guide reveals several emerging trends along with the latest salary data, painting a clearer picture of what GTM talent acquisition will look like over the next year. In this blog, we will dive into how these patterns are impacting earnings for Content Marketing Managers now and what to expect in the near future:
Compensation Trends for Content Marketing Managers
Go-to-market hiring in the technology sector has been heavily driven by the economic factors affecting the industry over the past few years, as have the strategies and sales motions of many startups in the space as these are inevitably intertwined. The 2020 pandemic and its aftermath had a huge impact on the direction of many SaaS companies, who recruited new GTM teams in droves and now – for the most part – are scaling back on this recruiting approach to focus on a more consolidated organization style. This has thrown off compensation trends for roles such as Content Marketing Managers going into 2024, which were already starting to show signs of a slowdown in 2023.
The rapid spread of Generative AI is adding another complication to the mix, introducing new potential for scaling email and content marketing with less human input. However, buried underneath these developments are clear signs that tech startups are still looking for their right fit marketing team and placing a premium on unicorn candidates, including for content marketers. What we are seeing now is that a specific level of experience is the biggest priority when hiring go-to-market teams, and while most SaaS startups are recruiting at lower volumes, they are also ready to offer a higher pay rate for the candidate that knows exactly what they need to do to scale upwards.
Tech Content Marketing Manager Salary Data for 2024
The average base salary for a Content Marketing Manager in tech ranged from $100,000 – $140,000 across the United States. Range by location varied slightly, but it remained around this baseline in most areas outside of the tech hubs of New York and San Francisco – the highest of all – and in Mountain time zone cities which saw the lowest end of the pay band. What is interesting to note is that remote content marketers still earned the same level as the average, indicating that most can still qualify for a top salary without returning to the office.
Trends Impacting Marketing Compensation in Tech
There are many factors impacting the compensation trends for Content Marketing Managers and other marketers in the tech space, and many of these echo similar patterns affecting salary rates for sales and other GTM roles. Below we will dive deeper into the top developments that are influencing the going rate for content marketers and how these can change in the near future:
Remote Work Content Marketing Managers
SaaS companies helped to pioneer widespread distributed teams during the pandemic; however, most technology organizations are increasingly scaling back on the number of employees that can remain fully remote, with a growing minority opting for complete return-to-office (RTO). The majority are still allowing for hybrid environments that allow personnel to alternate, and as can be seen with the average pay for remote Content Marketing Managers, experience is still being prioritized over location for certain roles. We expect some GTM jobs will start coming with an earnings premium to work fully in-office, or a pay cut to remain off-site.
Demand for Skills and Experience
A consistent trend we have noted across the technology sector is a clear prioritization of certain skill sets and tribal knowledge, particularly for those that are hard to train or would take more time to than many can afford to in the short-term. Focusing on sourcing candidates that can bring specialization and deep experience allows tech startups to scale up their go-to-market strategy faster, and with content marketers this enables organizations to take advantage of their more mature understanding of what works for digital channels. This demand also creates a premium for experienced candidates, and SaaS companies should expect to pay up to 10% more for a marketer with more than 3 years of experience in this area.
The Importance of Marketing Planning
A trend that has been emerging quietly for some time is a greater need for marketing strategy and planning. Many companies are actively seeking for help in finding new ways to reach prospects, and a big part of the push for hiring more experienced tech marketers is the search for a unicorn candidate that can refine GTM outreach programs for the current new normal, or even build one from scratch leveraging their wealth of knowledge. This will inevitably throw off the compensation average as can be seen with our previous point on skills and experience, since tech startups seeking to rebuild their marketing planning are going to be looking for content marketers with the specific backgrounds they need (i.e., their unique “unicorn marketer”) to ensure they can handle this particular requirement.
Generative AI for Content
Generative AI is having a tremendous impact across markets everywhere, and is even threatening to replace some of the key responsibilities of certain jobs in tech. Since text output is one of the most common usages, many have questioned how artificial intelligence will affect content marketing across the board. However, with many kinks still being worked out between the technology and how humans can actually use it, it is likely that in the short-term a growing hiring requirement for content marketers will be having experience in using Gen AI to produce content deliverables at scale.
Scale Your Content Marketing Manager Recruiting with Betts
Content Marketing Managers with the wealth of experience you need to take control of your digital strategy and handle emerging technologies are going to become harder and harder to source as competition for their skill sets increase. Betts Recruiting can help you shorten your time-to-hire and reduce your cost-per-hire with our unique approach to scaling talent acquisition, crafted for the technology sector.
Contact Betts today to discover how we can help you optimize your recruiting search for your next unicorn content marketer.