Struggling to keep up with the demand for quality content across diverse markets due to limited internal resources? The challenge of consistently delivering fresh, engaging content on multiple platforms can feel overwhelming, especially for small businesses. 

But there’s a solution to scale your content creation efforts without the need for new team members. Consider teaming up with a specialized global content marketing agency.

Keep reading for insights on how to scale content creation without hiring more in-house employees.

How to scale content creation using internal vs. external resources

Scaling content creation requires investing in additional resources—either internal or external. 

When opting for internal resources, you’ll either need to restructure your current team or hire additional employees to meet the increased demand for content. This could involve assigning dedicated roles for content creation, implementing training programs to improve skills or cross-functional collaboration to ensure a holistic approach to content generation.

Hiring additional employees offers the advantage of expanding content creation capabilities, with the potential for these new hires to deeply understand and align with your brand. Hiring local, native-speaking employees who can bring targeted insights into the new markets is important when scaling for new regions. 

While it may seem like the most convenient option, there are a few downsides to relying on internal resources, including:

• Limited scalability: Expanding content creation efforts requires hiring and training, which can be time-consuming.
• Resource constraints: Internal teams may face capacity issues, leading to burnout and decreased productivity.
• Narrow skill set: Relying solely on internal resources may limit the variety and creativity of content produced.

See also: Hiring a global marketing manager vs. an agency: How to decide

Alternatively, you can lean on external resources

In this case, you’d usually appoint a global marketing manager to manage the relationship with the content creation agency. This manager can choose to either manage the content strategy internally, collaborating with the agency for execution, or outsource the entire content strategy to the agency, using their expertise.

Collaboration often includes a hybrid approach, where internal teams create primary language content (for example, all English content), and the agency handles localization for other regions. Many of our clients choose this method, including B2B marketplace Visable. 

We provide content creation and localization services for Visable with the goal of optimizing their blogs, including Visable 360, Inside Business and EUROPAGES. We normally receive German articles that must be localized into their four main European languages: English, French, Italian and Spanish.

The original articles are usually very oriented to a German audience, with references to institutions, figures, statistics, etc., that are only relevant in Germany. We, therefore, need to rewrite large parts of the articles to make them appealing to the new target audiences. This requires a lot of research, time and market knowledge. 

We localize between five to ten articles monthly into four languages—so 20 to 40 in total. Such a large volume becomes much more manageable with the help of external experts in each language. 

“It can be challenging to find the right linguists for this type of task because you need a great linguist to translate technical content and a writer curious enough to research a topic in their market and produce text from scratch. This is where VeraContent provides unique value thanks to our pool of vetted linguists.”

– Fernando Wierna, project manager at VeraContent

There are different ways to collaborate with content creation agencies, with many offering tailored approaches based on evolving needs. You can start off slowly, gradually increasing volume or market reach as you become more comfortable with the processes.

Benefits of partnering with an agency to scale your content production

While internal scaling may require structural adjustments, external partnerships offer flexibility, scalability and expertise, ensuring a dynamic and effective content production strategy.

Here are a few more benefits to partnering with an agency instead of hiring new team members in your scalability efforts. 

Cost vs. scalability

Partnering with an agency offers cost-effective scalability. While not always cheaper per piece, agencies provide flexibility, allowing businesses to easily scale content production up or down without the complexities and costs associated with hiring and training new internal team members.

“Hiring an agency is a lot more scalable than hiring an in-house team. You can easily ramp up the services when you need more content for more markets.”

– Shaheen Samavati, CEO of VeraContent

Streamlined content creation processes

Agencies bring established processes for talent selection, quality assurance and consistency. This ensures a streamlined content creation pipeline, reducing the time and effort required to produce high-quality content consistently.

“Having super clear processes and instructions in place for writers and having the criteria for what type of writers you need for each project is essential for creating content at scale.”

– Shaheen Samavati, CEO of VeraContent

Diverse skill sets

Different types of content require different skill sets—which you may not have internally. Agencies offer a range of skills, including writing, translation, graphic design and video production, providing businesses access to diverse capabilities.

Here’s an example:

We work with mobile-based access control provider SALTO Systems on various tasks—including copywriting, editing and translation. One specific skill set we provide is script writing, including repurposing blog posts into five-minute podcast episodes. We work on the script, and SALTO records them with AI tools. Check out the first example below:

We also work on specific content types for the brand, including business cases, news articles, press releases, brochures, etc.

“SALTO Systems frequently brings us on board for big projects related to launching new solutions or acquisitions. They’re looking for expert writers to articulate their vision and craft compelling stories from their strategies. Our creative touch sets us apart—we go beyond editing drafts or using provided information. Instead, we conduct additional research to optimize each piece of content, ensuring it’s the absolute best version it can be!”

– Aurelie Berson, project manager at VeraContent

Access to advanced tools and technologies 

An overwhelming amount of tools are available to incorporate into the content creation process. Do you need them all? Probably not. But it takes time and effort to determine which will benefit you most. 

That’s where agencies come in. They’ve already done the heavy graft of testing and figuring out how to get the most out of each tool—and you get to benefit from their experience. Plus, they already invest in the latest tools and partnering with them grants you access to these resources without needing individual investments.

See also: 25 AI marketing tools to transform your workflow right now

Reduced workload for internal teams

By outsourcing the content creation process, businesses essentially adopt a “divide and conquer” strategy. Internal teams can channel their expertise into strategic planning, innovation and other critical aspects of their operations, confident that the content creation domain is in capable hands.

This streamlined approach maximizes efficiency and ensures that each team operates at peak performance within their specialized areas. It’s the epitome of teamwork—internal teams focus on what they do best while external partners handle the content creation heavy lifting.

Long-term partnerships

Establishing long-term partnerships with agencies is the best way to go. It allows the agency to develop a deep understanding of the brand. 

At VeraContent, we invest a great deal of time and energy into learning as much as we can about each brand from the beginning of each partnership. But, some things come with time—from ironing out processes to understanding the nuances of each brand and building strong relationships.

“A possible disadvantage of hiring an agency is that they don’t have as much insider knowledge about what your company does as an in-house team would. That’s why working with a long-term partner that works closely with your team is important to truly understand your brand.”

– Shaheen Samavati, CEO of VeraContent

Check out our client story with IE University, one of our many long-term clients.

Scale your content production without growing your internal team

Teaming up with a specialized content marketing agency is the secret to successful scaling. You get to benefit from streamlined processes, expert resources, quality assurance and maintained consistency. 

While it might not always be cheaper than having an in-house team, the scalability is incomparable—especially when expanding into multiple new markets. 

So, what are you waiting for? Contact our team and find out if you qualify for a free content consultation.