How to Outsource Web and Graphic Design: 3 Effective Methods
Outsourcing web and graphic design will not only save you money and office space! From an increase in the quality of the result to growing your business tenfold, the method of outsourcing offers dozens of benefits.
The tactic is blooming in the new age of remote work and niche professionals. Why hire your own designer team if you can cooperate with agencies that provide:
- High level of expertise;
- Ready teams of specialists who work together like a clock;
- People with fresh ideas;
- Up-to-date design software, and much more?
The main question is now “Why?” but “How?”. We’re ready to answer the question and give you a full guide on the technique, as well as a bonus section of other tasks you may want to outsource. This will allow you to focus on the core business and care about sales and control rather than implementing all those difficult workflows on the way to the dream goal.
How to Outsource Web and Graphic Design Wisely and Effectively: 3 Tactics
There are three most effective ways to outsource web and graphic design.
💻1. Outsourcing Yourself
If you have a very young company with a limited budget, chances are you’re responsible for everything. If you have sufficient knowledge of web and graphic design to be able to detect high-quality work, look for freelancers yourself.
This approach:
⬆️Takes less money;
⬇️Takes more time and expertise.
There are many proper freelance platforms where you can find allies perfect for your project. Consider their:
- Portfolio;
- Experience;
- Reviews of other customers;
- Personal traits.
Keep in mind that you will be in charge of the quality checks unless you outsource a professional who will take up this task as well. Also, if there’s no time to manually look for people, create a contest where they will bid and present themselves for you to choose the best candidates.
💻2. Hiring a Supervisor
Instead of hiring a team or looking for designers yourself, take one manager fluent in the most modern design decisions. Let them find people to collaborate with, brief them on the needs of the business, build relationships, and handle the work.
This person will be in charge of quality control, which will make you more free time to focus on what’s the most important for the company at the moment.
This approach:
⬆️Takes less time and expertise;
⬇️Takes more money to pay the supervisor and the web/graphic designer team.
Make sure they find experts who:
- Work officially and pay taxes;
- Fit the demands and needs of your business;
- Bring fresh ideas;
- Complete tasks according to deadlines.
💻3. Collaborating with an Outsourcing Agency
Gladly, there’s a service for anything nowadays. Outsourcing agencies study your needs and requirements and look for a team or a single designer to perform the tasks. They are in charge of the quality, while you can peek anytime and assess the workflow just to make sure. Keep in mind that filling your site with media content plays an important role. Therefore, there are special outsourcing agencies for photo retouching only.
This approach:
⬆️Takes adequate investment as you’re paying to the agency;
⬇️Takes little to no time and expertise.
In this case, look for an agency that:
- Has good reviews from other companies of your niche and/or scale;
- Can provide you with a quote beforehand;
- Can handle misunderstandings and do damage control;
- Will check the quality of work and provide you with the end result;
- Is ready to negotiate terms to suit your schedule and staff requirements.
What Else Should I Outsource?
If your goal is to grow the business, there are a few more tasks to outsource before you grow enough financially and corporate-wise to hire permanent teams:
- SEO and link-building.
Building domain authority requires search engine optimization and proper backlink strategies. Choose link building partners wisely, and you will see high-quality mentions of your website every month. Gradually and wisely, you’ll take over competitors with spotless SEO tactics and mid to high-rank donors for backlinks. - IT.
It’s impossible to be in charge of everything, especially if it includes IT. And let’s face it, every industry has a powerful tech niche responsible for voice search, AI, and other IoT aspects no business can prevail without. - Marketing.
Your marketing campaigns have to be perfect, up-to-date, and very creative to cater to the picky customers of this new age. People take more time to research nowadays because they need the best ratio of value and price. Outsourcing digital marketing to professional freelancers will shoot your business to the roof.
Why Outsource Important Tasks to People I Don’t Know?
This section is for people who are new to outsourcing and need a bit more persuasion and facts.
One thing to know: Apple outsources. One of the largest corporations in the whole world chooses to focus on giving birth to new ideas and tech solutions. Yet, many other aspects are trusted to other enterprises.
While Apple needs to put all efforts into keeping their business decisions fresh and afloat, small businesses do the same thing but with another purpose. They need to make a statement and find their niche in the world. Besides, most companies are trying to upscale and bring more value to the market.
This is an enormous thought process, and you can’t be fully focused on it if web and graphic design, SEO, marketing, etc. are on your mind as well.
Here are some benefits of outsourcing as opposed to hiring your own team:
- It saves time.
Clearly, finding an agency or hiring one person to manage freelancers will take less time. - It saves money in upfront payments.
Outsourcing a team is a better idea because they do what you need and when you need it. They pay their own taxes and cover healthcare. - It brings niche specialists.
Say, you need graphic or web design in a certain style or for a certain product. There’s a freelancer (a truly professional one) for every narrow niche task. - More tasks in less time.
Hire 3 teams or specialists for 3 different projects 3 various clients have ordered. Now, you can deliver all of them at the same time instead of making customers wait. That’s 3 times more revenue. - The approach brings fresh ideas.
Having your own style is like a signature, it’s great. However, it has to be embedded in creative, original works. People who have worked for dozens of companies have such stacks of ideas and approaches to implementation that you can become one of the most diverse businesses in the industry. - Adapting to your workflow.
Freelancers are known for their adaptability. Do you need an urgent revision? Is there a small chunk of work to complete? Do you want a web designer to analyze your products and make something similar or to write something out of the ordinary? They can do that.
Back in 2019, the global outsourcing market was worth over $92 billion. Nowadays, the share is even larger, and it’s not going to significantly drop anytime soon. With the increase in remote working due to the pandemic, worldwide enterprises, as well as small local businesses, understand the importance of cooperation with freelancers.
Don’t get behind, find your partners, and start upscaling while other companies stagnate in doubt and suspicion to this seemingly new approach. Outsourcing has been there for years, creating a separate industry which gives jobs to thousands of people and millions of dollars in savings for businesses.
Author: Diana Adjadj