How To Build A Simple Content Operations Plan
- sandravollrath
- Jun 4
- 3 min read
I talk a lot about content operations and people ask me quite rightly:"So how do I build a content ops plan?". So I thought, let's put the steps together - simple, straightforward, without the BS. This will work for any size business. In fact, if you are a large enterprise thinking about buying a content marketing platform, this is what I would take you back to initially to define your content processes. Only when this step is done properly, can you implement processes into your CMP effectively and make sure you get bank for your ££!
Start With The Why
You might say that it starts off sounding a bit like BS... but bear with me. The WHY is actually really important. You have to be clear on what you want your content to achieve. Whether it is growing the number of leads or more traffic to your website, you need the goal to be able to set a success indicator along with a timeframe. Here is an example: “I want to increase qualified leads by 10% in Q3 2025” or “I want to grow traffic to my blog by 50% in the next six months.”
Who Does What
Whether your team is one person or ten, spell out who’s responsible for:
Coming up with ideas
Writing or creating the content
Reviewing and approving
Publishing and promoting
Write it down, this will avoid crossed wires and misunderstandings later.
Build a Simple Content Operations Workflow
Get a whiteboard, or a piece of paper. Or if you want to be a bit more tech, use Mural or Miro. What you want to do is write down the basic steps each piece of content takes. Something like:
Brainstorm content idea
Decide on content to be created
Assign to {member_of_staff}
Draft / edit
Review draft
Approve
Yes - go to 7
No - go to 4
Publish
Promote
No need for complicated tools.
Create A Simple Calendar
Use a simple calendar or spreadsheet to map out:
Topics
Deadlines
Who’s doing what
Keeps the team focused and reduces last-minute stress.
Store Everything In One Place
Top tip: "one place" cannot be your laptop (unless you are the only person working on content in your business, incl approvals). Use SharePoint, Google Drive, Dropbox or similar. Make sure everyone knows where to find the latest version of everything: copy, images, templates, brand guidelines. This is far more crucial than you can imagine, it costs businesses and teams a ton of time every day to look for stuff that's sat on someone's laptop (even worse if that someone is on holiday).
Spread The Word
Decide where each piece of content goes, into a blog, onto social, in an email, elsewhere, and include that in your workflow from the start. Promotion helps your hard work get seen and makes the content work harder for you and your business.
Trends & Trials
Track what ties back to your goals: traffic, leads, shares. You can use Google Analytics to do this. Check in regularly and tweak what’s not working. A lot of content marketing can be trial and error, but it's also a skill to recognise trends and act on them. Have a look at these blogs to dig a little deeper into this particular topic: Use Google Analytics to Measure Content Success: https://www.analyticodigital.com/blog/google-analytics-4-for-content-marketers-to-measure-content-success Learning to Love Trial and Error in Marketing: https://www.misamessaging.com/blog/learning-to-love-trial-and-error-in-marketing
By doing this you will see that you can have lean but effective content operations. If a process starts getting messy, notice it and fix it early on. Add documentation where needed, this will help with training new team members on your processes and keep a level of governance. Be strict with sticking to the process that you have come up with, it will reduce errors and save you time, money and sanity.
Need some help embracing content operations? I'd love to help!
Email me at sandra@mops22.com
