Agency vs freelance vs in-house

The downsides to agencies?

Sometimes clients can be frustrated by the discovery and onboarding phase, which you wouldn’t have from using an internal team.

Gaining continuous support means that the agency team get under the skin of your business; they know how you work, if the discovery is done correctly they will strategically spot business challenges that need resolving, be on the pulse of what the market and competitors are doing, and they know what your stakeholders need to see to gain sign off. This reduces the time you’ll need to spend on the briefing, which you likely found heavy at the beginning, and the day-to-day projects are managed by the agency rather than by you.

On top of this, they can become your brand guardians, so you can guarantee a strong end-customer experience no matter the channel.

Fees vary from agency to agency, but generally, this will be your highest-cost option, and there is a risk that you could invest and that the agency won’t get the results you need if you don’t hire the right one. Make sure you reference check with some of their prior clients to avoid this risk.

Are freelancers right for your business branding project?

Freelancers have a reputation for being very flexible. Being self-employed, freelancers are able to dictate their own working hours, which can work to your benefit as they often are at hand to respond to your late-night edit requests, but also a challenge – for example, they have a holiday booked, and there is no one to cover the work. However, it’s not guaranteed as every individual works differently, so you must check their terms in advance.

One of the most common reasons why businesses would hire freelancers is cost-related. As independent operators, freelancers offer a much lower-cost option than hiring a design firm or perhaps maintaining an internal team.

What are the common challenges with Freelancers?

It’s sometimes harder to trust an individual than it is to trust a collective. However, as long as you approach it diligently, there is no reason this should be the case. When looking for a freelancer, ask around to see if you can get a recommendation, check out their portfolio and ensure you request references. Even agencies require freelance support at busy periods or to call on a particular expertise so its common for them to build a network of trusted partners.

One single freelancer working on a large, multi-faceted job will take a lot longer than a whole team can as they can’t split tasks to work in parallel. Yes, the cost is cheaper, but you must be more patient to see the project through. We’ve found that businesses get the best results when it’s a task that needs doing, for example, roll-out collateral or where the business has more time to complete a specific task.

Is building an internal design team in-house right for your business?

For many businesses, having a strong in-house team is the perfect solution for them. A permanent team knows your business and brand inside and out and is often up to date on what your customers want and are looking for. Trust is a key benefit for using the in-house team and there is real transparency of who is working on what and when which is a distinct advantage when you need to move quickly.

Running your own in-house team can be really beneficial in giving a lower cost per project rate and allows tighter creative control of the Head of Brand or CMO to ensure continuity. If you don’t have a team already in place, deciding on the right skill set to bring in-house can be tricky, but a good recruiter should be able to help.

Are there limitations to solely using in-house designers?

Internal teams are often great at implementation and at keeping marketing output high. There can be challenges around rebranding work where a new perspective needs to be considered, often internal teams already know instinctively what will get approved, and this can limit distinctive ideas that would give market cut through.

If your business has a smaller team, there can be a limit to what is possible to achieve, and a large volume of work can overwhelm, whereas an agency can normally flex more easily. An in-house team can sometimes struggle with a lack of outside perspective (please note this largely depends on past experience of the team you have hired) and structures need to be in place to keep pace with the rest of the industry. Since the teams strategies and ideas are not shared with a third party, the idea’s efficacy is limited to the perspectives available within your internal team.

Making the choice

Just like everything in life – there is no set answer as to which option will work best for your business – it depends on the particular project, the expertise required, the results expected, the budget available, and whether or not your team has the capacity to project manage the job themselves.

It is possible to have a hybrid approach. You can build an in-house design team that can handle swift response activities, often requests from the marketing team on day-to-day brand activities and activations and also employ an agency to take care of tasks that require greater expertise or more strategic thinking. In this way, the teams complement each other.

Your in-house team can also work in sync with an external agency on the same project. Instead of acting as separate teams, your in-house team and agency become two parts of one big design and marketing team.

For example, the agency takes on the strategy of a project and creative ideation of bringing this route to life visually is done collaboratively. To implement this hybrid approach effectively, firstly, you need to make sure that the agency has the right culture of collaboration, and you must set clear roles and expectations for each team. This way, both your in-house team and the agency fully know what they are responsible for.

Confused by what is right for you?

We would recommend detailing out the requirements for the project not from a deliverable perspective but from a results perspective.

• What does good look like?
• Who are you targeting?
• And what results do you need to see?

Then work backwards; what are the areas of specialism you need to achieve those? And what they would deliver? This approach will help you clarify what support you need and what will get the most value for your business.

If you are a large global business trying to turn the ship, it might be worth commissioning an audit research piece to get under the hood of your business and give you the information you need; once everything has been considered, you should be in a solid position to make the best decision for your business.

If you want any support with this get in contact. We’ve been doing this successfully for over 15 years.