Not all B2B content marketing and SEO agencies are cut from the same cloth.
While at some level, good content is simply good content, a robust content strategy reveals many differences that really matter when it comes to B2B content. If you hire a content marketing agency that doesn’t understand this, good luck being relevant in this wild, constantly evolving digital ecosystem we’re all competing in.
Here, I’ll pick 7 B2B content marketing agencies that I think are great. There’s no single best content marketing agency, but it’s likely you’ll find the right agency for you on this list (and hopefully it’s Omniscient).
After giving you my picks, I’ll outline the 5 criteria you should look for when hiring a B2B content marketing agency. This will also include questions to ask during your sales calls so you can extract the right information for your decision.
The 7 Best B2B Content Marketing Agencies
- Omniscient Digital – Best for generative AI optimization (GEO)
- Grow and Convert – Best for content production
- Animalz – Best for thought leadership
- Foundation – Best for content promotion
- Siege Media – Best for content design
- Optimist – Best for PLG growth
- Growth Plays – Best for content strategy
1. Omniscient Digital
Hi, I’m Alex, and I co-founded Omniscient Digital. You’re looking at a biased article. Oh well – I’ve got the stage, so hear my pitch.
Why we’re different?
Strategy. Other agencies specialize in a type of *production* – high-scale SEO articles, contrarian thought leadership, even technical content.
My background, and that of my two co-founders, is in business and growth marketing strategy.
We use tools like SWOT analyses, competitive intelligence, customer research, and growth modeling to build you a content roadmap that actually hits the goals you care about (and does so in a way that is defensible). We anchor on an agreed-upon North Star Metric (NSM) that corresponds to revenue, and then we map out a strategy designed to drive sustainable growth.
So instead of getting a bunch of generic traffic or pageviews, we’ll build our content growth model based on stuff like qualified leads from content (aiming at your target audience / ICP, not just the highest search volume junk keywords).
Obviously, we index heavily on content quality, too. Our co-founder, Allie, is a perfectionist and forever word nerd, so even if we wanted to skimp on quality to pad our margins, she couldn’t physically let herself do it. This, it so happens, also parlays into a robust moat that is insulated from technology shifts, like generative AI.
Which brings us to GEO – Generative Engine Optimization.
We were early on this. While others were writing takes on whether AI would kill search, we were already building Surround Sound SEO and Brand Gravity – frameworks designed to increase brand salience across human and machine discovery surfaces. Whether it’s Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or Perplexity, we help clients show up, get cited, and get chosen.
We do product-led content, SEO, and thought leadership/brand awareness content.
When it comes to distribution, we’ve got a full toolkit and team for link building and securing brand mentions, AI workflows and content engineering for social media promotion (to make you into the LinkedIn thought leader you deserve to be), and content optimization (where we increase the conversion rate of readers to qualified leads).
If you skip the marketing strategy step, you might still execute well, but you could be executing in a direction that isn’t helpful for your business. That’s why our content marketing services focus on a smart marketing strategy first.
Why shouldn’t you hire us?
If you’re on a tight budget, we’re probably not your partner. If you just want us to write a list of keywords, we’re also probably not for you. If you’re too early, AKA still figuring out your ICP, positioning, messaging, or if you have PMF (or if you need me to spell out that acronym), we’re also probably not a good fit.
The other thing people like about working with us is that we’re basically a part of your marketing team. Like, we’ll push and nudge you to get stuff done. We’ll work together to deliver, ship, and grow.
Meaning things are fluid and effortless, but you’ll also enjoy working with us. I’ve become great friends with many of our clients (I have even taken international coworking trips with them and attended their weddings).
2. Grow and Convert
The guys at Grow and Convert are friends, and I look up to the content that they’ve put out that has moved the industry forward.
I constantly use some of their coined terms, such as “pain point SEO.” Back to my criteria for hiring an agency (methodology), they’ve got good mental models for producing content that converts.
They index heavily on bottom funnel content – like us, often billing themselves as an agency that produces business results, not just vanity metrics or content creation for content’s sake. Rather, they focus on lead generation rather than just generic content creation and vanity marketing efforts.
I know they also have some unique practices with regard to content promotion – namely, they index quite heavily on getting initial traction for articles, often using paid advertising to give it an initial boost.
They’ve also done some killer webinars with Clearscope, which I loved.
3. Animalz
Animalz is a legendary content marketing agency that puts thought leadership at the center of everything they produce.
The Animalz brand has earned a reputation for setting the bar on editorial quality and contributing as a leading voice in content marketing’s evolution.
The team takes a holistic approach to content marketing, rooted in great product marketing and SEO strategy and built with distribution in mind (SEO and GEO, but also social media and beyond).
Animalz works with B2B brands across their growth journey, from tech companies and startups to enterprises and VC firms.
Notable clients include GoDaddy, Intercom, Wistia, Zuora, Clearbit
4. Foundation
Foundation is a full-service content marketing agency, but they’ve really made a name for themselves when it comes to content distribution and promotion.
Led by Ross Simmonds, a huge figure and influencer in the content marketing space, they have a great reputation for high integrity and high-quality content production and promotion.
I’ve learned a ton from Ross – seeing him speak at conferences and following him on Twitter – about leveraging niche communities, maximizing social media listening and engagement, identifying and working with influencer marketing, and building distribution into your content plan before you even create it.
I don’t believe they specialize in B2B, but they work with a ton of B2B businesses. If you’re looking for networks and leverage to build greater distribution into your content engine, this is the firm to look into.
5. Siege Media
Siege Media, led by Ross Hudgens, is one of the largest content marketing agencies out there.
Siege is a solid content marketing agency. Why? They index themselves differently from every other agency I know.
First off, they’re search engine optimization experts. They’re probably the most SEO-focused on this list, but they’re not just a keyword generating machine.
How they do SEO content is different. They’ve got a whole team of designers and heavily index on design as a competitive advantage. This is true of their own content and website, and they also use this to invoke trust and brand authority for the content they produce for clients.
For example, when it comes to link building, website design matters a lot. More so, you can pick up a ton of manual and passive backlinks by using tactics like infographics, which they do well.
While they primarily serve B2C clients, their approach also works well for B2B companies.
6. Optimist
Optimist is kind of an “anti-agency.” Or rather, they’re a different sort of model.
They’re a collective of sorts, gathering expert content marketers to operate under the Optimist brand and centralized approach. Pretty neat way to organize a business.
Methodology-wise, we have very similar approaches. Namely, the idea that “content should sell.” We also both take fluid approaches to the content marketing strategy for individual clients, taking into account their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and competition.
There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to content marketing, and I like that Optimist takes that approach with clients, and they’ve also done something creative with the structure of their own business.
7. Growth Plays
Growth Plays is the agency you call when you’re tired of traffic that looks good in GA but does nothing for the pipeline.
They specialize in building content and marketing programs that tie directly to revenue-mapping content to the buyer journey, not just a list of keywords.
They’ve worked with brands like Calendly, Lattice, and Merge, and they’re especially good with technical products, complex sales cycles, and website migrations that would give most SEOs a panic attack.
They bring a clear POV: content should drive business outcomes like pipeline, revenue, and retention – not just pageviews. Their approach spans organic search, AI Overviews, and social discovery, making sure your brand shows up wherever your buyers are looking.
If you want a strategy-first partner with strong opinions and solid attribution, put them on your list.
5 Criteria for Hiring a B2B Content Marketing Agency
First off, decide whether or not you need to hire an agency. You may suffice with a freelancer to start, or you may need to hire someone in-house. This is all context-dependent.
But if you’ve already decided to hire a content marketing agency, here are the criteria I’d look at if you’re a B2B (business-to-business) brand.
Cost
Obviously, you need to factor in how much the agency costs.
There are different tiers to this, but generally, agencies will fall on one of two sides of the spectrum: cheap or expensive.
Or as they’ll call it, “affordable” or “premium.”
Omniscient, for example, is premium pricing. You won’t find us taking deals to write hundreds of articles a month for a very low cost. If that’s your MO, you’re better off using a service like Express Writers or Verblio. Just know that you tend to get what you pay for, and you’ll have to fill in a ton of gaps in their work if you care about standout quality content.
When it comes to the premium tier, there will be slight deviations in pricing when you compare among top agencies, but generally speaking, it will all be in a pretty similar range. The only difference is that many agencies will have pricing minimums. We, for example, rarely take clients below $8,000 per month. I know of others who actually start their pricing at $20k per month.
So if you don’t hit this bar, don’t waste your time or the agency’s – just go look for someone in your price range.
Experience
The experience of the team and the agency itself matters, though not as much as you might think.
It’s kind of like hiring someone who graduated from Harvard. You can assume with a high degree of certainty they won’t be too bad at the job, but you can’t predict anything about the upside of their performance.
So one thing that prospects always like about talking to us is that all of the co-founders worked at HubSpot. I’ll tell you this honestly: sometimes that is relevant, and sometimes it’s not.
Obviously, we learned a lot about content and growth while working at HubSpot. But in 90%+ of cases, the approach we’ll take to your content program won’t resemble what works at HubSpot.
Additionally, like stock investing, past performance doesn’t always predict future results.
We’ve got some great case studies, and I like to think that they show the behind-the-scenes at our process and mindset (which is what you should really hire us for). But just because we got AppSumo something like a 10X ROI doesn’t mean we’ll do the same for you. It might be worse, it might be better – but it will likely be different (because you’re a different company!).
All I’m saying is case studies and past experience can be useful heuristics, but I wouldn’t base your entire decision on this aspect.
Additionally, look at what services your agency offers.
Many a digital marketing agency will offer content marketing services, but it’s not their specialty. I’d avoid these agencies.
You don’t want someone who specializes in email marketing or PPC trying to figure out your SEO or social media marketing as well.
Hire experts (and no agency is an expert in all marketing channels and types of marketing campaigns).
Work Samples
Work Samples are actually a pretty solid way to gauge the quality of your content marketing agency.
You likely have something specific in mind – long-form thought leadership, quick answer SEO content, whitepapers, etc. Agencies can be a bit flexible (i.e. we can do thought leadership and SEO), but you’ll not want to stray too far from the agency’s speciality.
And if they’ve done it before and can show you the proof, this is a good indication of what kind of quality you can expect from your prospective agency.
Always ask for a few pieces they’ve published in the past from other clients.
Methodology
Arguably, the most important criteria you can use to pick your content agency is the methodology and approach they take with content marketing.
Some will just take your list of keywords and write content.
Some have robust strategy frameworks like the Barbell Strategy, content economics, and decentralized content marketing, using these to generate data-driven insights that fit specific marketing solutions to your context (*cough* Omniscient *cough*).
And if they can’t explain how they get measurable results or how their content strategies drive growth? Pass on ‘em.
Every successful agency founder creates an agency because they feel like they’ve got an edge that others don’t. They’ve typically learned how to get repeatable results and have built their business on this framework or mindset.
If they don’t have this or don’t have it articulated, it doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t give you quality content and articles, but I don’t think they’re going to be a great long-term partner.
Accountability
How does your B2B marketing agency make themselves accountable?
There are very few pay-for-performance agencies (I’d also be careful with this model for many reasons, too many for this article). Most of the time, you’ll get accountability on a deliverable basis: we’ll produce X articles for Y cost.
That’s fine if you want a production engine. But if you want a strategic partner, they should spend the vast majority of their discovery and sales calls talking about you and your goals.
Many content programs are based on illusory success metrics and KPIs that don’t translate to business results. Ideally, the agency you work with maps backwards from your business goals and metrics and comes up with a content plan that facilitates that goal (whether it’s leads, freemium signups, demos, or email signups for you).
Frequently Asked Questions
How long are typical B2B content marketing agency contracts?
Most agencies ask for 6–12 month commitments upfront. It’s a fair window to prove results without locking you in forever. Some offer 3-month pilots, but meaningful traction takes time. Great agencies keep things flexible after proving value – long-term handcuffs usually mean they’re not confident in the work.
What information and access does a content marketing agency need from my company?
At minimum: your brand guidelines, ICP details, and platform access (think Google Analytics, Search Console, and your CRM). Bonus points for past performance data, sales decks, and internal SMEs, and key stakeholders willing to hop on a call. The more context they have, the sharper the strategy – and the faster you’ll see results.
Should I hire a content marketing agency or multiple freelancers?
Freelancers give you flexibility and lower costs. Agencies give you a built-in team with project management, strategy, and editorial oversight. If you’ve got bandwidth to manage writers, freelancers work. If you want a plug-and-play content engine? An agency is worth the cost.
How often should I expect to communicate with my content marketing agency?
Monthly or biweekly calls are the norm, plus quick-turn comms via Slack or email for reviews and approvals. Monthly reporting keeps the strategy aligned, and quarterly check-ins are where bigger shifts happen. If the only time you talk is when something breaks, that’s not a partnership – it’s a transaction.
Do I need to be local to the agency, or can I work with a remote team?
You don’t need to share a time zone, let alone a ZIP code. Most great agencies are fully remote and global. What matters is domain expertise, process, and communication – not coffee shop proximity. Geography is irrelevant if they can build content that connects and converts.
Conclusion
There are a million content agencies, but only a few of them are of excellent caliber. I’m sure I missed a few on this list (if so, ping me), but these are my favorite seven content agencies focused on B2B clients.
Obviously, I think you should hire Omniscient Digital. We set out to build the smartest content agency in the world, one that wins not by brute force and reliance on old playbooks, but one that wins by the competitive edge of creative thinking, innovation, and a smarter work ethic.
We’ve built massively successful content programs for our B2B and SaaS clients – AppSumo, Jasper, Wunderkind, HotJar, Madison Logic, Asana, SAP, Loom, Adobe, and many more we can’t even mention due to pesky NDAs.
You should reach out to us before your competitor does 😉
