Fast Facts
Penn Foster Group is seeking a creative and strategic Sr. Content Marketing Manager to lead their content marketing efforts, focusing on SEO and AI-optimized strategies to enhance brand engagement and conversion.
Responsibilities: Oversee the content strategy across multiple channels, manage a team of direct reports, and drive organic growth through SEO and insightful content frameworks.
Skills: 6-9 years of content marketing experience, strong SEO expertise, leadership skills, and analytical capabilities for optimizing content performance.
Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in a related field preferred, with significant experience in SEO strategy and management of high-performing marketing teams.
Location: United States
Compensation: Not provided by employer. Typical compensation ranges for this position are between $90,000 - $130,000.
Position Summary:
Penn Foster Group is seeking a strategic, highly creative, and performance-minded Sr. Content Marketing Manager to lead the Content Marketing team - the “voice” of the brand. In this role, you will set and drive a content vision that builds trust, expands reach, and moves prospective learners through the funnel with the right message at the right moment, grounded in a strong SEO and AI-optimized discoveryfoundation. Reporting to the Sr. Director of Consumer Marketing, you will lead a team and elevate how we use content across owned and earned channelsincluding web experiences, blog and resource hubs, video, social and community platforms, email/SMS journeys, and conversion-focused landing pagesto fuel growth. You will translate brand and product strategy into scalable content frameworks that improve relevance, personalization, and performance by audience and funnel stage. Success in this role is defined by measurable increases in organic visibility and traffic quality, stronger engagement and conversion by stage, and a more efficient, high-impact content engine through smart reuse and continuous optimization.
Essential Job Functions:
- Lead and execute the end-to-end content strategy across channels to drive trust, engagement, and conversion throughout the learner funnel.
- Own organic growth performance by setting and delivering a comprehensive SEO strategy (topic architecture, content clustering, optimization, and reporting)
- Drive AI-optimized discovery (AIO/GEO) by ensuring content is structured and written to perform in AI-powered search and answer engines.
- Build and maintain funnel-based content frameworks that map messaging to stages and enable personalization by audience segment
- Oversee the editorial ecosystem (calendar, workflow, prioritization, and quality standards) to ensure timely, on-brand, high-impact output.
- Scale content by using our Hero–Hub–Help framework as a repurposing engine, creating flagship hero content and systematically reformatting it into hub and help assets tailored for each platform and funnel stage
- Serve as the primary stakeholder for the content measurement dashboard, defining requirements, partnering with Analytics/BI to build and refine it, and using it to quantify content impact on funnel performance, organic growth, engagement, and conversion.
- Lead strategy and execution for major content pillars including web, videos, blogs / resources hubs, and lifecycle (email/SMS) content.
- Oversee proof-building content programs such as case studies, testimonials, UGC, and outcome-based storytellingincluding the end-to-end collection process (sourcing, intake, permissions, and validation), repository management, refresh cadence, and activation across channels to build trust and drive conversion.
- Oversee 3+ direct reports setting priorities, providing coaching, and ensuring high-quality delivery.
- Define and track success metrics for content by funnel stage, organic visibility, personalization adoption, reuse efficiency, and contribution to lead generation and conversion.
- Partner closely across Marketing, Product, and CX to ensure content is insight-led and performance-aligned.
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:
- 6-9+ years of content marketing experience, including ownership of multi-channel content strategy with measurable performance outcomes.
- 4+ years of people leadership experience, including managing and developing high-performing content teams
- Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Journalism, Business, or a related field preferred.
- Deep expertise in SEO strategy and execution, including technical SEO fundamentals, on-page optimization, content clustering, internal linking strategy, and performance-driven editorial planning.
- Strong working knowledge of AIO/GEO and content best practices for AI-driven discovery, including structured data/schema, entity-based content design, and optimization for zero-click/AI summaries.
- Experience with (or strong curiosity about) AI-enabled content tools, automation, and personalization platforms
- Proven ability to use search intent and audience data to guide funnel content strategy, topic prioritization, and personalization by stage.
- Strong editorial leadership skills with a proven ability to set voice standards, elevate quality, and maintain consistency across writers and channels.
- Exceptional storytelling and writing abilities, with comfort tailoring messaging by segment and funnel stage.
- Experience leading high-impact blog/SEO programs, video content, conversion-focused web copy, and lifecycle messaging.
- Comfort overseeingoverseeing partner/vendor workflows as needed.
- Highly analytical and confident using data to optimize content performance and prioritize investment.
- Strong project management skills with comfort operating in a fast-paced environment with multiple competing priorities.
- Collaborative, cross-functional mindset; able to influence outcomes across Brand, Growth, Market Strategy, Product, CX, and B2B teams.
About Us: At Penn Foster Group, we are transforming online learning to help learners by bringing together Penn Foster, CareerStep, Ashworth College, James Madison High School, the New York Institute of Photography, the New York Institute of Art and Design, and other education platforms. Together, we create an accelerated path to greater economic mobility through real-world skills and knowledge that enable learners to achieve long-term success in the workplaces of the future. Our history dates back to 1890 when our founder, Thomas Foster, pioneered distance education by offering training by mail for coal miners to get the necessary skills for safer jobs. Today, with the partners who use our education and training programs, we continue that mission of providing accessible training and education for in-demand skills and are building a workforce that’s prepared for the future job market.
Equal Employment Opportunity: We strive toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Penn Foster Group by intentionally building diverse teams – in identities, lived experiences, and ideas to create a culture where people feel connected to each other and have a sense of belonging. We value diversity, equity, and inclusion because it is the foundation that enables us to achieve what we set out to do as an organization – from maximizing the number of learners who can reach their goals while giving them the kinds of experiences we want them to have, to becoming the type of company we want to work in.
What We Offer:We offer a robust benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, flexible spending, generous paid time off, sponsored volunteer opportunities, a 401K with a company match, and free access to our online programs.
