(fun techno music)
- So you know you need great visual content
but you don't know who to hire to execute it.
This is the age old debate.
Do you hire a freelancer, an agency,
or do you bring somebody in-house?
The fact is all three of these
will yield very different experiences.
Let's talk about a freelancer first.
A good freelancer is still going to be
your most affordable option.
A good freelancer will be able to work for you
on nights and weekends
so they can move much faster for you as well.
Now some of the cons with a freelancer,
if they're very affordable,
it might mean that they have a day job
which means you won't be able to get a hold of them
during normal business hours
and you might have to shift your own schedule
to work with them.
Additionally, not all freelancers are reliable
so look for a freelancer that can give you
some good customer reviews as well
because what you don't want is to pay that freelancer
and two weeks later find out they never started the work.
The only other issue you might find with a freelancer
is simply that you're on different sides of the country.
That can happen from time to time
and if you prefer communication face-to-face,
a freelancer isn't the right choice for you.
Now let's talk about hiring an agency.
An agency is going to be your highest priced decision
but that's because an agency has the most overhead.
A good agency will have their entire team in-house
under one roof
versus outsourcing their own work to freelancers.
So look for an agency that has everybody in-house
because the last thing you want to do is hire somebody
who's just going to go do what you would have done
with the freelancer in the first place.
If you're going to be spending agency rates,
you have to ensure that you've got the right team
at your disposal.
Now with a good agency, you get to sit back and relax.
That agency will be the project manager for you,
the art director for you,
the content writer, the designer, the animator,
the developer and so on
as opposed to you having to take a lot of those things on
while a freelancer just executes.
When you're working with a good agency,
they're going to bring strategy to the mix as well
along with years of experience working with major brands.
Now if you're planning to do quite a lot of design,
you might want to consider investing in an in-house designer.
An in-house designer gets to work directly for you,
will know your brand better than anybody else,
and will get really skilled
at executing on a codified brand language for you.
What you don't want to do with an in-house designer
is stagnate them.
You want to keep giving them creative curve balls
so they can flex their creative muscles,
that way they stay with you for years to come.
A great brand hires all three.
Hire a freelancer for the quick churn needs that you have
where you have a low budget.
Hire an agency for the really important content
that you know is going to take
a little bit more time to produce
but that you need more strategy behind.
And hire an in-house designer
to execute on your daily needs,
somebody who can also work with that agency
and work with that freelancer
so you can focus on the more important things.
(fun techno music)