A content marketer plays an important role within a company’s digital marketing team. They plan, create, and share relevant and useful content with a target audience. They market this content to help audiences make important decisions, solve an urgent problem, or learn something new.

The content marketer uses their technical and soft skills to attract, engage, and convert leads for a company or brand. These skills include SEO, content writing, data analytics, empathy, curiosity, and storytelling. 

Table of contents

• What Does a Content Marketer Do? 
• Why is Content Marketing Important?
• What Type of Roles Do Content Marketers Have?
• Steps to Be a Successful Content Marketer
• Learn How Parse.ly Can Help You Reach Your Content Marketing Goals

What Does a Content Marketer Do? 

To help us learn what content marketers do, we can look at a few common functions of a content marketer:

Creating and updating social media posts 

The clever captions seen on social media posts are the often handiwork of content marketers. Content marketers will also engage with their followers through comments and direct messaging. 

Writing and repurposing blog posts

Content marketers will use their technical skills to write content themselves, or their soft skills will work with freelance writers or contract writers to have the content created. These same posts are repurposed and expanded into more content. This content can include webinar scripts, white papers, e-books, infographics, and more. As a content marketer, you should be repurposing content to increase reach and engagement.

Crafting email marketing campaigns

Email marketing remains a top marketing channel for content marketers and is an effective part of a content marketing strategy. Email allows companies to stay connected with their audience and content marketers use it to create campaigns and drive traffic.

Creating and maintaining an editorial calendar

Content marketers know how to create and build editorial calendars. They use these to focus their marketing efforts throughout a given week, month, or year. Using analytics to build out your editorial calendar ensures that you are creating content that matters to your audience.

Analyzing data and refining content

Data-driven decisions are at the heart of the content marketer role and help to inform content creation. Content marketers will use data from metrics to revise or update their content marketing strategies. 

Why is Content Marketing Important?

Interest in content marketing is on the rise. A recent Semrush survey indicates a 22% uptick in searches for “what is content marketing.” More companies are seeing the benefits of content marketing and are putting budgets behind it. Content marketing positions your company as a trusted source for your target audience and–it makes good financial sense.

A trusted resource

Eighty-one percent of consumers will research a company online before ever speaking with a salesperson or clicking a button. This means you need your content to show up in places where your audiences are looking for it. Get inspiration with these B2B content marketing examples.  

Good financial sense

Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and produces 3 times as many leads. Email, in particular, delivers a $36 return for every $1 spent on average. Let your boss know: the data is clear–content marketing will generate a return for your business. 

What Type of Roles Do Content Marketers Have?

A content marketer can wear many hats and go by many names. Their specific role will depend on their specific duties and responsibilities. Some of these roles include:

Content Marketing Manager

A content marketing manager leads content projects and teams. They usually have years of experience and can both manage and do the work needed to drive a successful campaign. 

Inbound Marketing Specialist

Inbound marketing specialists study the market to identify trends. They also build email campaigns, create landing pages, and analyze website data.

Social Media Specialist

Social media specialists manage and maintain a consistent flow of content across a brand’s social media platforms. Social media specialists may also help to create and inform the social media strategy for company brands.

Content Strategist

Content strategists collaborate with marketing teams to help oversee the creation of content. Content strategists often perform content audits, content gap analysis, and maintain editorial calendars.

Content Writer

A content writer uses words to educate and inform. Content writers often conduct background research, interview subject-matter experts, and produce evergreen content.

Copywriter

A copywriter uses words to persuade and convert. They craft compelling headlines, write persuasive copy, and update sales pages.

The types of roles that content marketers have will continue to grow and expand as newer technologies enter the marketplace. 

Steps to Be a Successful Content Marketer

Content creation requires managing both processes and people. A successful content marketer will need to have both strong technical and soft skills. Technical skills include SEO, data analysis, keyword research, and content writing. Soft skills include storytelling, empathy, and listening. While individual paths will vary, there are some typical steps to follow and questions to ask to become a successful content marketer.

Set a goal

Why are you creating content now? To drive more traffic to your website or landing page? Or to build brand awareness? Generate new leads for a sales demo? Or to increase signups for a webinar? Set a goal and use it to focus your content strategy.

Define an audience

Who engages with your company and brand? How old are they? Where do they live? What are their biggest hopes, fears, dreams, and pain points? Answer these questions about your audience to further focus your content strategy. 

Discover their home

What platforms are already popular with your audience and, even better, where are they trending toward? You can ask, for example, why are companies leaving Twitter and where are they going? How can you position your company and brand on these sites now?

Pay close attention

What is your target audience doing now to solve their problems and what are their challenges? What language do they use to describe these problems and how do they speak of your brand, if at all?

Create valuable content

Brainstorm topics that can solve a burning problem for your audience. Or help them get something they want. Then share it with them through your target channel. 

Analyze and refine 

Analyze metrics across your different platforms and channels and refine your content strategy accordingly. Learn 2022 trends in content marketing and use them to update your content creation strategies. 

With these six steps, your content creation will be focused, relevant, and useful to your target audience. To round out your skill set, learn which content mistakes to avoid when creating your content strategy.

Learn How Parse.ly Can Help You Reach Your Content Marketing Goals

For a better, smart content strategy, you need powerful and accessible content analytics. Check out Parse.ly, which enables content marketers and their teams to measure and optimize the impact of their content from first touch to last touch and everywhere in between. With tools including the content analytics dashboard and content conversion engine, understanding and acting on data is simple.

Want to learn more about how we can help?