In the modern-day age, every business venture is in need of having quality content. This drives companies and corporate organizations into launching new projects and products that would feed the needs of their audiences. This decision is crucial as it involves putting the company’s product on the market or advertising services and would determine the immediate and future success of the business.
While most companies have in-house designers who work on their content, working with a differently skilled person in the name of a freelancer or a creative agency becomes crucial eventually.
Freelancer vs Creative Agency
A freelancer is a self-employed individual who offers professional services to clients (individuals or corporates). In the age of the internet, freelancers are common and are offering close to all types of services such as graphic design, marketing, web development, coding, etc.
A creative agency on the other hand is a company that has skills overarching different disciplines i.e. marketing, development and web design. Creative agencies, therefore, give an all-around solution to businesses and companies.
Companies and businesses should be guided by their brand style when making decisions in the course of advancing themselves in the marketplace. As to whether to hire a freelancer or a creative agency, looking at what the business need to succeed through the lenses of content creation, web development, marketing, graphic design etc. should be the informing factor.
The following factors will help guide whether one goes for a freelancer or a creative agency.
Budget or Cost
Any project to be undertaken will have a budget and most managers or corporates organizations look at cutting extra costs at some point. It is indisputable that freelancers are usually affordable to work with. This is largely because most work alone and exhibit flexibility when it comes to payment, for instance, agreeing to be paid based on time i.e. hourly or per one project to another.
Depending on the magnitude of the project or work, it is affordable to work with freelancers for instance, when in need of small design work or wanting to offload some work off the company.
Creative agencies on the other hand cost more than freelancers. Unlike freelancers who work alone, creative agencies have staff, office space, and equipment among other things to pay for.
Working with creative agencies is based on a contract and payment is made per individual project or monthly hence costing more than the freelancer. Better still, it costs less working with either creative agencies or freelancers compared with in-house designers since there is no paying of overhead costs, taxes, insurances or making leave arrangements.
Quality of Work
Most freelancers have other projects they are working on that are bringing them cash due to their flexibility. As such, some freelancers may not be as passionate or involved about the quality of the output of the work.
The end goal for most freelancers is to complete the job. This may mean the work is done hurriedly, redoing the work or call for multiple revisions of the projects. Some may quit in the middle of the project. This costs time and money to pay for someone else to redo the work.
Creative agencies have their reputation to guard and uphold and therefore will seek credibility to sustain long-term relationships and add new clients. Quitting projects tarnishes their reputation and therefore through their teams and manager, they will focus on seeing a completed project and a satisfied customer.
Further, creative agencies will exhibit professionalism in their way of working such as project planning and management, testing, quality control and emergency response. Due to their many completed projects and understanding of market competition, their quality standard will be top-notch.
Management and Accountability
Besides costs, managing and ensuring control of the project is crucial in obtaining optimal results. Since freelancers are independent, sometimes their reliability is questionable. Some freelancers may miss working on projects especially when working on multiple projects for different clients.
Additionally, having many projects may mean rushing over some in the quest of meeting deadlines which may lead to poorly done projects or performance.
Freelancers don’t get to have managers or supervisors, thus there is no one to hold them accountable or anyone to complain to. It is important to note that as humans, they may fall sick or have unexpected happenings that may cause them not to work. In such eventualities, there is the slow progress of work since there is no one to delegate the work to.
Creative agencies have a duty to set objectives and goals, plan and manage their teams. They give priority to work and give rapid solutions, manage the projects or offer alternatives should there be challenges on the projects. As such, the client need not follow up directly or bear the burden of managing the entire project.
Further, working with agencies requires legal security and therefore, it gives the impression that the agencies are concerned about your rights and know what is at stake should they not deliver.
Time Factor
Hiring a freelancer takes time due to unfamiliarity and trust issues with the freelancer. Unless referred to by a trusted person, the process of vetting freelancers to determine whether they’ll meet deliverables is tedious. Some recruitment platforms for hiring freelancers don’t give their reviews thus it takes time to narrow down on the right freelancer.
On the contrary, agencies have set in place professionals to take care of projects. With well-laid structures or departments and individuals with multiple skill-set, they save business and corporates time of hassling to find the right individuals for the work and assurance for delivery. This gives time to focus on the project and make informed decisions on what works and what doesn’t.
Conclusion
Your goal as a corporation is to market and build your brand. Working with freelancers or creative agencies is key in this pursuit and the above gives the pros and cons for both.
At the end of the day, know that you get what you pay for. Choose wisely!!
