How Content Teams Can Partner with Agencies for Big Results – TopRank® Marketing

In-house content marketing teams have their hands full right now. Like all areas of marketing, they’re contending with constrained budgets and rising expectations. As with professionals of any stripe, they’re trying to navigate the AI revolution opportunistically yet responsibly. Meanwhile, the content discovery landscape is being flipped upside down.

These challenges aren’t unique, but as a function focused on creative production, content tends to feel the brunt of them. 

The struggle is real: Canto’s State of Digital Content 2025 survey found that only 19% of teams managed to increase content ROI last year.

Breaking through with standout results in this moment requires an edge. Marketing agencies specializing in content strategy, planning and creation can provide just that. But like any investment, hiring an agency needs to be scrutinized. You need to be confident in the firm you’re choosing, and that — as an external partner — they will be able to plug in seamlessly, helping your efforts rather than hindering them or slowing you down.

At TopRank Marketing, we’ve got plenty of experience joining forces with content teams from companies big and small. And we’ve proven we can help these teams take their game to the next level — our longtime clients at LinkedIn Ads, for example, were named Best In-House/Brand Team by The Drum Awards.

We know what it takes to build and sustain an agency-client engagement that delivers real value and impact for content marketing teams. These are the essential mainstays of a successful partnership.

Activate agencies to solve your biggest challenges.

In the latest enterprise content marketing benchmark research from CMI and MarketingProfs, these three challenges topped the list for content creation teams:

1. Communicating across organizational silos (61%)
2. Lack of resources (56%)
3. Measuring the results of our efforts (54%)

As it happens, these are three specific areas where agency partners can be most impactful!

Communicating across organizational silos.

This is a persistent point of friction in larger organizations, and it’s not hard to see why: different teams have their own focuses, and often their own disconnected goals to meet. However, lack of communication and cohesion across the organization often leads to inefficiency at best and counterproductivity at worst.

Agency partners that are accustomed to navigating enterprise dynamics as outsiders can be very helpful in spotting silos and uncovering opportunities for greater alignment. At TopRank, we often integrate directly with different business units in the same company (e.g. content and product, or content and IT) to help foster effective collaboration and coordination.

Lack of resources.

The advantage of working with an agency amid a resource crunch speaks for itself, providing your team with access to seasoned cross-functional talent so you can get things done on time without sacrificing quality or strategic oversight. 

Partnering with an agency opens your business up to a world of new resources, which can be vital if your team is running lean.

Measuring results across our efforts.

Measurement is one area where agencies tend to possess an especially high level of expertise. That’s because it’s essential to what we do — if we can’t help our clients show impact and results, then we’re not getting or staying hired.

Enlisting a content agency with advanced analytics and reporting capabilities can bring game-changing clarity and insight to your strategy at a time where attribution and ROI modeling represent existential dilemmas. You don’t have to go it alone.

Work with partners who help you stay organized and on track.

At a time where they need to keep moving and delivering on business needs, content teams can’t afford to be bogged down by added responsibilities and distractions. If one of your objections is, “I don’t need another thing to manage,” we completely get it.

At TopRank, we take pride in making life easier for the content teams we work with, not harder. We do this by:

• Guiding clients through smooth and seamless onboarding. 
• Managing and collaborating on deliverables through shared, real-time content trackers.
• Reporting regularly on content performance, both inside and outside the scope of our work together.
• Creating program highlights and executive summaries that are easy to share with leadership.

Build a foundation of strategic alignment, but keep it flexible.

One of the biggest misconceptions about working with an outside agency is that it requires rigid scopes and exhaustive upfront planning. In reality, the best partnerships are rooted in shared clarity around the goals that really matter, paired with the agility to shift when those goals inevitably evolve.

Strategic alignment should never feel like handcuffs. It’s about knowing what success looks like — and staying focused on it — even as business priorities shift, timelines compress, or a new opportunity emerges that’s too good to pass up.

We often say the best agency relationships are the ones that feel like an extension of your internal team. That means being able to move fast, adapt quickly and course-correct without friction. It also means having open communication and mutual trust, so we can collectively pivot with confidence when the road ahead changes. (We all know that never happens though, right?)

Take advantage of a fresh voice and fresh perspective.

Internal content teams know their brand better than anyone … but that closeness can sometimes cloud perspective. When you’re steeped in the same messaging and strategy day after day, it’s easy to lose sight of how it lands with outside audiences.

“Now and in my previous roles, having that third-party perspective is really important,” said Randi Berris, VP of Marketing and Communications at Business Leaders for Michigan, in PR Daily. “I think it’s very easy for us to assume everyone understands exactly what we’re talking about – how we’re saying it.”

“Having the third party,” Berris added, “helps balance us out and be able to push back when we’re getting too comfortable with language that some might see as jargon-y or bureaucratic. An agency is helpful in being that reality check.”

Lean on agency partners not only for their neutral outside vantage, but also their ability to keep you apprised of trends and changes in the marketing landscape. At TopRank, we make it a point to bring that insight into every engagement, along with tools like our “context companions” — short explainers that break down trends like AI Overviews or algorithm updates and how they impact your strategy.

Find your perfect content marketing agency partner

Working with the right content agency can do more than relieve your team’s burden — it can unlock new levels of performance and productivity from in-house talent. At a time where content strategies are highly demanding and need to stay versatile, an expert partner can infuse strategic sharpness, creative energy and measurable impact.

If your team could use support, perspective, or simply more bandwidth, we’d love to connect. Explore our content marketing services and see if TopRank is the right fit for your needs.

About the author

Nick Nelson is our friendly neighborhood writer-man. As the Associate Content Director at TopRank Marketing, he is on a mission to energize brand narratives with smart, fun, sharp wordplay. In his free time, Nick enjoys basking in the misery of Minnesota sports fandom, making cringeworthy puns, and smothering all types of food in buffalo sauce.