Are you pacing the floor of your office, wondering when your newly hired content manager will turn your investment into visible results? We’ve been asked many times before, “What are the realistic expectations for content marketing success, and when should we see them materialise?” This article tackles these burning questions, offering you a detailed timeline to guide your expectations and help you chart the course of your content marketing journey.
With an extensive background in content management, I’ve navigated these waters before, steering through the currents of content strategy development, execution, and analysis. I’ve faced the eagerness for quick wins and the reality check of strategic patience. Here, you’ll find an empathetic roadmap that addresses the concern of speed with practical steps and benchmarks for success.
This guide will walk you through the initial month of onboarding and training, into the deep dive of the first half-year strategies, and beyond to the continuous evolution of your content marketing program. If you’ve caught yourself saying, “I wish my Content Manager could move faster,” then this article is tailored to quench your thirst for speed with a sip of reality on the timeline of results. Keep reading to set your watch to content time and align your expectations with industry norms for a successful content strategy.
Month #1: Setting the Foundation with Your New Content Manager
The first month with a new content manager is crucial for setting the groundwork for your content marketing strategy. By the end of the first month, you should have done all the following:
- Hiring the Right In-House Content Manager: You need to make sure you hire the right person for the job. The candidate doesn’t need to have a background in your industry as they’ll learn this on the job, but they should have a journalism background. Here’s a guide on how to find the right Content Manager for your business
- Onboarding: You need to onboard your Content Manager, which involves getting them up to speed with the role, what’s expected and the ‘They Ask, You Answer’ (TAYA) fundamentals. As part of this onboarding, they’ll need to at least read the ‘They Ask, You Answer’ book by Marcus Sheridan and complete courses that teaches the TAYA writing style
- Understanding TAYA Writing Principles: Training in the basics of ‘They Ask, You Answer’ should be completed within the first month. Here’s a guide on how to write blog articles following the TAYA framework
- Weekly 30-Minute Training Sessions: Use these to align your content manager with company goals and brand voice. You can also use these to train your Content Manager on writing principles and their role
- Creating an Internal Review Process: Establish clear procedures for drafting, reviewing, and approving content. By the end of the first month, you should have a clear, working process for this. This may change over time as you innovate on this
- Gathering Input from Sales: If you want your Content Manager to generate revenue for your business then they need to be working with your sales team. By producing content that sales reps can use in the sales process, you’ll find your sales team having a higher closing rate. Here’s a guide on how the sales team and Content Manager can work together to achieve this, and here’s some more info on what types of content the Content Manager should be producing
- Outlining the Buyer’s Journey: By the end of the first month you should have a well defined customer journey. This represents the stages a customer goes through when interacting with your brand, from awareness to decision. Here’s a complete guide on creating a Customer Journey Map
- Planning with an Editorial Calendar: Your Content Manager should be using an editorial calendar to brainstorm and plan content
These initial steps are about creating a strategic foundation and operational rhythm.
Months 2 to 6
During the subsequent months, your content strategy should evolve into a more sophisticated and data-driven operation. Here’s what you’ll want to implement:
- Sales Sandbox for Topic Tracking: Utilise a shared space where sales and marketing can contribute insights on customer interests and content performance and use this regularly in the team
- Leading Revenue Team Meetings: Have your content manager take charge of discussions on content’s role in generating revenue. Here’s a guide on Revenue Teams and how to run these discussions in your team
- Facilitating Big 5 Brainstorming Sessions: You should hold regular Content Brainstorming Sessions around the Big 5 topics. You can learn more about the Big 5 topics here
- Strengthening SME Relationships: Your Content Manager should develop rapport with Subject Matter Experts by holding regular interviews with SMEs to drive content authenticity and depth
- Conducting Keyword and Intent Research: Use this research to inform the SEO strategy and ensure content aligns with what your audience is searching for. During the tail end of the 2–6
–month period you’ll want to start publishing more articles on your website that focus on high search volume and ranking opportunities - Achieving a 3-Article-Per-Week Publication Rate: Your Content Manager, during this period, should be publishing 3 articles every week. Here’s a guide explaining why 3 articles per week is necessary
- Developing Conversion Funnel Assets: During this period, you should start creating compelling calls-to-action, offers, and landing pages that guide readers toward becoming leads or customers. For example, on the RedPandas Learning Centre, we use a ‘Subscribe to Our Newsletter’ form in various places to increase conversion opportunities
- Implementing SEO Fundamentals: Your Content Manager should be applying SEO best practices consistently across all content to improve visibility and search ranking. Here’s a guide on how to optimise your blog articles for SEO
- Leveraging Tools like SEMrush and Grammarly: Use SEMrush for SEO and keyword insights and Grammarly for ensuring clean, concise content
- Grasping Basic Analytics: Your content manager should by this stage understand content performance metrics and use these metrics to improve website traffic and leads
- Implementation of AI: Your Content Manager should have integrated AI into their work process. Here’s a guide on how they can get started with AI
The focus during these months is to transform content from mere output to a strategic asset that drives customer engagement and contributes to the sales pipeline.
Month #6 Onwards
After half a year, you will expect your content marketing efforts to shift from laying the groundwork to enhancing and scaling your strategy.
Here are the steps to focus on during this phase:
- Establish a Content Style Guide: Create a comprehensive guide that ensures consistency in tone, style, and quality across all content
- Incorporate Advanced SEO: Beyond basic SEO practices, start to integrate more advanced techniques into your content strategy to further improve search visibility. Here’s a guide on how to start incorporating more advanced SEO strategies into your gameplan
- Content Repurposing: This is where your Content Manager should start looking at repurposing content. For example, transforming one blog article into multiple short form social media posts. Here’s a guide showing you how we repurpose content to publish over 65 pieces of content per week
- Historical Blog Optimisation: Update older blog content based on current data to either improve search rankings, increase user time spent on the blog article, or increase conversions
- Pillar Page Development: Construct pillar pages that provide comprehensive information on core topics, around which cluster content can be built. For example, if you produce several articles around the topic of Solar Panel Installations, you should probably build a Pillar Page that acts as a one stop shop for all information related to this topic. In a way, it’s like you’re combining all your articles on one topic into one big informative article (called a pillar page)
- Website Optimisation: Your Content Manager should start to move away from focusing solely on blog article production and should instead also focus on optimising the website. This can be done by optimising copy on the website to ensure it’s designed to engage and convert visitors, as well as ensuring the structure of the website works in tandem with your broader content strategy
- Master Advanced Analytics: Your Content Manager should be using more sophisticated analytics to gain deeper insights into content performance and user behaviour. This may involve using Google Search Console, Ga4 and your CRM / Marketing Software data (like HubSpot for example) in combination. There also should be regular content reporting in place
- Content Wins: Your Content Manager should have a cadence for sharing content updates and wins with the broader team
- Content Revenue Attribution: A big focus should be establishing systems to track the return on investment for your content marketing efforts, to tie content directly to revenue generation
The aim after the 6-month period is to not only maintain a robust content marketing approach but also to ensure it remains dynamic and responsive to the changing landscape and business goals.
What Else Do You Need to Know?
As your journey with a content manager evolves, the true value of strategic content marketing becomes clear.
Your content manager is not just a creator but a strategist, shaping the narrative that aligns with your business’s growth and vision.
By the six-month mark, you should see a solid foundation built with a content strategy that delivers results and insight into your ROI.
To summarise, an effective content marketing timeline when hiring a content manager encompasses:
- Initial Setup and Strategy Alignment: In the first month, it’s about establishing a rhythm, setting up processes, and aligning with the sales team
- Building and Implementing the Strategy: From month two to six, it’s about tracking ideas, leading team brainstorming, and starting to publish and map content consistently while building SEO foundations
- Scaling and Optimising: Post six months, the focus shifts to refinement, advanced SEO, content repurposing, and analytics to ensure content drives revenue
Remember, content marketing is not a sprint but a marathon. Patience and consistency with your content manager will prepare your business for a future where content is a key driver of growth and customer engagement.
Here’s a resource you might find helpful next: I just hired a content manager: How can I tell they’re doing the right things?