Maintaining a professional appearance as a business involves having a great graphic designer. It’s essential that you have a consistent look and on-brand images.
While large companies usually have someone in-house, that’s not always feasible for the 28 million small businesses that often have to operate with a few employees.
Does hiring a professional graphic designer seem like it’s out of your budget? Feel like you can’t even imagine adding another person to your team?
Believe it or not, it’s quite affordable to outsource graphic design. We’re going to show you the top 9 reasons why outsourcing this crucial skill is completely within your means and your budget.
1. Outsourcing Saves Money
Let’s cut to the chase and get to the most important issue that’s on your mind – saving money.
On average, a graphic designer pulls in around $49,000 per year. That’s a major expense and you have every right to balk at the cost.
That’s the beauty of outsourcing your graphic design needs. You can bring in your graphic designer only as needed.
Because it’s a project-based expense, you’ll only pay for what you need at the moment instead of keeping extra staff on hand.
Think about what you can do with this extra cash. You can reinvest it in your company, use it to develop your own products further, or take a draw and enjoy a well-deserved vacation.
2. Gain A Unique Perspective
You know how having a fresh set of eyes on a project can improve the quality of the work? The same thing happens when you outsource design-based work.
When you’ve got your nose to the grindstone day-in and day-out, you might miss the forest for the trees. You can get stuck on a singular vision and your brand can grow stale. This is especially true if you don’t come from a design background.
Bringing in an outside designer will breathe new life into your project. Not only can they freshen up your ideas, they can point you in new directions.
Besides, being distinct is what’s going to help you stay competitive. Having memorable graphics will help you stand out from your competitors.
The way you present yourself and what you do is crucial to staying visible and attracting new customers. Get a leg up on the competition by keeping your look fresh.
3. Saves Office Space
Microsoft. Google. Disney. Apple. They’re titans of industry today but that wasn’t always the case.
A lot of the big guys had humble beginnings. Many of America’s biggest companies were born in garages, barns, or even bedrooms.
If you’re at the beginning of your journey, you might not have the office space to bring on a new employee. That’s the beauty of hiring a freelance designer.
You won’t have to find a place for them to work. There’s no desk, no office furniture, and no computer set up you need to worry about.
All of your transactions will happen online. You can stay connected to the Internet and not have to worry about how to fit them into your already-cramped office – especially if that office is just your kitchen table.
Even when you expand, having a freelance graphic designer helps keeps costs low. Why mess with something that works so well?
4. Bring In Great Expertise
Are you a graphic designer? If so, that’s great – but you most likely don’t have the time to keep on top of all of your projects and run your business.
If not, this next tip is for you.
When you outsource graphic design, you’re bringing in someone with the expertise you need to get the job done right.
Sure, it might seem easy at first. You can cobble together a few graphics in a program like Photoshop or Canva. But for consistent, reliable work, you need to bring in someone who claims this as their specialty.
There’s nothing wrong with bringing in help. They’ll provide the support you need for your business. You can’t be everyone and everything in your company. Why add extra stress and strain when outsourcing is so easy?
5. On-Call Graphic Design
Everyone loves going out for a nice meal. A great restaurant experience is what sets one establishment apart from the rest.
You go in, sit down, order your meal. Each course comes out exactly as you need it when you need it. When you hire freelancers, you can have the same experience for your business.
When you’ve got an in-house graphic designer, you might be paying for unused time. When you run a small business, you might not have a lot of graphic design projects going at all time.
This is like having a continuous order of steaks and dessert brought to your table whether you’re hungry or not. Wouldn’t it be better to have what you need when you need it?
When you hire a freelance graphic designer, you’ll get a la carte service. You hire them, have your project completed, and then move on.
One of the best parts about outsourcing? You have the option to hire the same person for each project, or make use of a different designer each time. However it works best for you, you can make it happen.
6. Budget-Based Hiring
We talked about having an in-house graphic designer and how expensive they can be. While they’re worth every penny, they’re not always in your budget.
As a small business, it’s important that every penny is accounted for. That way you can funnel your funds back into your business and keep growing.
Outsourcing is much easier on your budget.
Can’t afford a huge campaign? Find a graphic designer who will do small tasks.
Have a lot of cash saved up for a certain campaign? You can find a graphic designer who will know how to best allocate your funds.
When you don’t have the budget for a graphic designer, it’s okay because they’re not on your payroll. They’re there when you need them and waiting in the wings when you don’t.
Don’t strain your budget any further than it already is. Keep in mind what’s important and outsource your graphic design as needed.
7. Saves Time
You’ve heard that old saying “time is money”, right?
Not only does hiring an outside professional graphic designer save money, it saves time as well.
Think about all that goes into finding an in-house graphic designer.
You’ve got to go through the entire hiring process. You have to onboard them. You’ll have to go through tons of paperwork and follow many procedures.
Thinking about taking a quick class and getting some graphic design basics under your belt to try to cut costs? Think again.
That’s more time and money sunk into something that you can find someone to help you with.
Even after taking all those classes, when would you find the time to tackle these projects? You’re already busy trying to run a business!
Good business owners delegate where needed. This is no exception.
8. Conserves Resources
Do you have the money to purchase computers that can handle the memory-sucking applications that graphic design work demands?
What about all the expensive software you’ll need? Programs like Photoshop don’t come cheap.
Next, you’ll have to pay to maintain all this expensive equipment. If the employee you hire doesn’t know how to deal with technical difficulties, you’ll need to have an IT team on board too.
On top of hiring a full-time employee, having space for them, and finding room in your budget for their salary, you need to have resources for them to create their graphic design work.
That’s all well and good if you’re a large company but if you’re small or even medium-sized, that won’t do.
Unless you’ve got free-flowing capital to spend on all this, you’re better off directing your resources in another direction.
Conserve what you’ve got and let someone else do the heavy lifting.
9. Get Higher Quality Work
When you hire a freelance graphic designer, they tend to focus on your work alone. They’re motivated by getting good reviews because that leads to more work.
If you’re looking for someone to take over your graphic design work, a freelancer has plenty of benefits over an in-house designer. They usually produce higher quality work because getting great reviews is their bread and butter.
Of course, having a reliable person in your workforce is the most ideal situation. We all want to have that superstar employee that hits it out of the ballpark every time.
But if you go through the stress and strain of adding a new member of your team and they don’t work out, you have to start all over again. That’s a lot of pressure and wasted time, money, and energy.
If you don’t like the work your freelancer has done, you will be out of the money they’re owed (unless you can successfully prove they sabotaged your work, you’ll have to pay them). But you can always move on.
You can cherry pick new designers to handle whatever new projects you’ve got coming down the pike. Who knows? You might find that one designer works best for your logos, another works best for your email graphics.
Having tons of options is liberating!
Outsource Graphic Design & Make Life Easier
At the end of the day, if you don’t have the time and money to spend hiring a dedicated member of your team, freelancing is the way to go.
You’ve already got enough stress and strain trying to run your company. After reading our list of nine reasons to outsource your graphic design, it’s hard to argue against hiring a professional graphic designer.
Even if you want to work with someone local, you have that option. Just because you’re hiring online, doesn’t mean that you can’t find someone in your area.
You might be able to find a cheaper rate if you go with someone in a different part of the world, but that’s the beauty of it – you have options.
Boost Your Small Business With Boonle
Are you ready to outsource graphic design needs? There’s a whole world of resources out there ready for you to take advantage of it!
That’s where Boonle comes in. We help connect businesses with graphic designers.
There’s plenty of student designers with varying skill sets. We’ve even got advice for hiring freelance web designers.
What are you waiting for? Get started on your project right now.