Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Writing Planner

🎯 Role Definition

A Writing Planner (also called Content Planner or Editorial Planner) is responsible for designing, executing, and optimizing an organization’s content roadmap. This role centers on building and maintaining editorial calendars, producing SEO-informed content briefs, coordinating multi-channel publishing, and collaborating with writers, designers, product teams, and marketing to deliver consistent, on-brand content that drives user engagement and business outcomes. The Writing Planner balances strategic thinking with operational execution: researching audience needs, defining content priorities, writing or commissioning briefs, scheduling production, and tracking KPIs to iterate on messaging and formats.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Content Writer / Copywriter with proven content planning or editorial experience
Junior Content Strategist or Editorial Assistant with exposure to calendar management
Social Media or Marketing Coordinator familiar with content operations and publishing

Advancement To:

Senior Content Planner / Content Manager
Content Strategy Lead or Editorial Lead
Head of Content / Director of Content Marketing
VP of Content or Chief Content Officer (for large organizations)

Lateral Moves:

UX Writer / Product Content Manager
Content Operations Manager
Campaign Manager or Content Marketing Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop, own, and maintain a rolling editorial calendar that maps content production and publishing schedules across blog, social, email, product, and paid channels, ensuring alignment with product launches, seasonal initiatives, and business objectives.
Create detailed, SEO-driven content briefs that include target keywords, search intent, audience personas, content structure (headlines, H2s/H3s), internal linking recommendations, meta titles/descriptions, and measurable success criteria.
Conduct regular keyword research and opportunity gap analyses using tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz to prioritize topics that increase organic traffic, conversions, and domain authority.
Collaborate with SEO, analytics, and paid media teams to translate data insights into content priorities, update briefs based on performance trends, and recommend content refreshes for high-value pages.
Commission and manage freelance and in-house writers, editors, and designers—creating clear scopes of work, setting deadlines, reviewing deliverables, and ensuring brand and editorial quality standards are met.
Define and enforce editorial standards, style guides, tone of voice, and accessibility requirements; provide copyediting and fact-checking to maintain accuracy, readability, and consistency across all content assets.
Lead cross-functional content planning sessions with product, PR, demand gen, customer success, and sales to gather input, secure subject matter expertise, and align content output with customer needs and sales enablement goals.
Execute content audits and inventories to catalog assets, identify duplication, prioritize consolidations or retirements, and develop evergreen content roadmaps to maximize ROI.
Design and manage content workflows and production pipelines using project management tools (Asana, Trello, Notion, Jira, or Monday.com), including task assignment, deadlines, status tracking, and bottleneck resolution.
Implement and maintain CMS workflows (WordPress, Drupal, Contentful, Sanity) including templates, taxonomy, metadata, and publishing permissions, ensuring correct implementation of schema and tagging for SEO.
Track content performance using analytics platforms (Google Analytics / GA4, Adobe Analytics) to measure organic traffic, engagement metrics, conversion rates, and lifecycle metrics; present results and actionable recommendations to stakeholders.
Plan and coordinate content repurposing across formats (blog → newsletter → social → webinar → whitepaper), increasing asset lifetime value and ensuring consistent messaging across channels.
Advise on and coordinate A/B testing or content experiments (headlines, CTAs, formats) in partnership with CRO teams to optimize on-page engagement and conversion funnels.
Maintain a prioritized backlog of content projects, balancing quick wins and strategic long-term initiatives to ensure steady delivery and measurable impact on business goals.
Serve as the bridge between technical teams and content creators to ensure implementations (canonical tags, redirects, hreflang, lazy loading, mobile-first templates) do not degrade content discoverability or UX.
Create and deliver editorial reports and executive summaries that translate content KPIs into business outcomes and budget recommendations, including recommendations for resourcing and tooling.
Onboard and train content contributors and stakeholders on best practices for SEO, brief consumption, CMS usage, and compliance with legal/regulatory guidance.
Manage vendor relationships and budgets for content agencies, freelance rosters, localization partners, and editorial tools; negotiate scopes, SLAs, and performance metrics.
Plan and manage multi-week or multi-month content campaigns—defining timelines, milestones, creative briefs, distribution plans, and measurement frameworks to support demand generation and product adoption goals.
Ensure compliance with copyright, privacy, and regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) in content creation and publishing processes, and coordinate with legal when necessary.
Build and maintain audience personas and customer journey maps to inform content topic selection, tone, and CTAs that align to acquisition, activation, retention, and advocacy metrics.
Lead localization or internationalization efforts by coordinating translation workflows, localization budgets, and region-specific editorial guidelines to maintain global brand consistency.
Monitor content trends, competitor content strategies, and industry developments; propose new formats, channels, or content experiments to keep the brand relevant and discoverable.
Develop governance for evergreen content maintenance including scheduled reviews, performance thresholds for refresh vs. archive, and ownership assignments for long-lived pages.
Mentor junior planners, editorial assistants, and contractors—providing feedback on briefs, copy, and planning processes and promoting continuous improvement across the team.
Act as an editor-of-record for high-impact deliverables such as white papers, cornerstone content, thought leadership pieces, and product documentation.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc editorial data requests and exploratory content performance analysis to inform short-term campaign pivots.
Assist in developing the organization's broader content strategy and roadmap, contributing subject matter expertise on planning, production, and distribution.
Translate stakeholder input and business requirements into clear content engineering tickets and CMS specifications for technical teams.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies when content work is integrated into broader product development cycles.
Coordinate with customer support and product teams to triage content needs arising from customer feedback, product updates, or knowledge base gaps.
Represent the content function in cross-departmental working groups focused on brand, product launches, or regulatory change management.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

SEO strategy and on-page SEO execution (keyword research, SERP intent, metadata, schema)
Proficiency with analytics and reporting tools (Google Analytics / GA4, Google Search Console, Adobe Analytics)
Experience with keyword and competitive research tools (Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz)
Strong CMS experience (WordPress, Drupal, Contentful, Sanity or similar), including templates, taxonomies, and publishing workflows
Content brief creation and technical copywriting skills with solid understanding of UX writing principles
Familiarity with editorial and project management tools (Asana, Trello, Jira, CoSchedule, Notion, Monday.com)
Basic HTML/CSS knowledge for content formatting and troubleshooting
Experience with content audits, content inventories, and information architecture
A/B testing and CRO fundamentals, including working with testing tools (Optimizely, VWO, Google Optimize)
Localization and translation workflow management experience
Competence with design and collaboration tools (Figma, Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Workspace, Microsoft Office)
Experience managing freelance rosters, external agencies, and vendor relationships
Data literacy — ability to read performance reports and translate metrics into content decisions

Soft Skills

Exceptional written and verbal communication skills for briefing writers and presenting results
Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration skills
Excellent prioritization and time-management; ability to manage multiple projects under tight deadlines
Attention to detail and strong editorial judgment for tone, accuracy, and brand consistency
Strategic thinking with a bias for measurable outcomes and continuous improvement
Problem solving and adaptability in fast-changing environments
Coaching and mentoring ability to scale content capabilities across teams
Influencing skills to align stakeholders to editorial priorities and resource allocation
Creative ideation and curiosity about new content formats and channels

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in English, Journalism, Communications, Marketing, Digital Media, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor's plus certifications in SEO, content marketing, or project management; Master's in Communications, Marketing, or Business is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Journalism
English / Creative Writing
Communications
Marketing / Digital Marketing
Information Architecture / UX Design

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of progressive content, editorial, or content strategy experience with demonstrated ownership of editorial calendars and content planning.

Preferred:

5+ years in content planning, editorial strategy, or content operations at agencies, startups, or enterprise teams.
Proven track record of producing SEO-driven content that measurably increased organic traffic, lead generation, or product adoption.
Experience managing cross-functional stakeholders and coordinating multi-channel campaigns from ideation through measurement.
Demonstrated experience with CMS administration, content governance, and running content audits or migrations.