Hiring a marketing agency is usually the most convenient marketing strategy to save time and effort. However, not all companies have enough budget to hire external agencies. Also, agencies whilst best suited for larger projects often times charge over $20,000 and may not be as cost-effective when it comes to smaller projects or long-term recurrent marketing needs. So, how can you come up with an effective marketing strategy that also stays within the budget?
Many have solved this by working with on-demand freelancers based on their marketing project needs. In fact, up to 84% of hiring managers in APAC currently outsource their work to freelancers (KellyOCG Report, Changing Face of Work, 2018).
You may have never hired a freelancer before or may still be considering between freelancers and agencies. Well, it is not too late to make your decision after reading this article. These are the 3 benefits of working with freelancers. Check them out and make the best decision for your company!
1. Bridge Knowledge Gaps and Work more Flexibly with expert freelancers
Unlike other jobs, marketing requires a diverse set of skills, knowledge, perspectives, and expertise. For instance, you need a video editor, director, set designer, makeup artist, director, camera operator, and more only for video marketing. As types of marketing vary depending on your purpose, budget, and message, it may be unsustainable to hire a full-time employee for in-house marketing in the short term. This is where freelancers can help ease your burden whilst staying affordable.
One of the benefits of working with freelancers is their professional knowledge and experience in the field that your company may not have. Such knowledge and experience may not be needed on a long-term basis within the organization and could be difficult to acquire for a full-time employee who has not had sufficient experience or any related background. For example, you cannot train one of your full-time employees to learn UI design in 2 weeks at a professional level. Therefore, it may be a more cost-effective strategy to hire a talented freelancer to do specialized tasks on-demand. This will not only save your time and budget training full-time employees but will also get a high-quality product from a specialist.
Another great benefit of working with freelancers is flexibility and affordability. Unlike a full-time employee, you may hire different talents for short-term, long-term, and project-specific usage. This gives much more flexibility in hiring, using the right talent for specific usage, and managing your marketing budget.
2) Work with the best talent globally
Let’s face it – remote work is now a new norm. Even if every employee resides in the same city, Zoom or Google meeting is our new normal way of communicating.
You may have naturally adapted to this new change. However, there is a great benefit you can take from this. The new norm also means you no longer have to pull your talent from a finite pool. You can now work with the best in their craft – without borders! In a global pool of talent, you benefit from working with a bunch of high-quality freelancers with specific specializations. This includes talent with some unique background like World Wrestling Entertainment or the dog insurance industry that may be difficult to find in your residing country. Moreover, you may gain perspectives that cannot be gained from employees residing in your city or even country. With diversity, you will be able to come up with a better marketing project that involves a wider range of audiences and viewpoints.
There are several global freelance platforms like Upwork or Fiverr that you can use to find global talent. These websites provide several thousands of freelancers worldwide. Just look into their portfolio and choose the talent who can best represent your company’s message! Some websites even offer an online system to track freelancer’s working hours for easier payment. Look into several freelance platforms, choose the one that fits your campaign, compare freelancers, schedule an interview, and get the right talent for your company!
A careful hiring process is a necessary step to get the best talent for your marketing project. However, some of you may not have time to compare, evaluate, schedule an interview, conduct an interview, and contact chosen freelancer about your project.
Independents
Well, then why not use services from Independents? Independents is a platform where they identify and match world-class creatives to each marketing project within 24 hours using an AI matching system. Moreover, Independents manage operational complexities by taking care of payroll, legal contract, project, and time management for you – so you only need to focus on assessing the work delivered!. Using Independents, you will be able to hire one of the best talents without a hassle!
3. Work with freelancers who are also experts in their local market
There are times when you have to plan a marketing project for an unfamiliar country or event. For instance, your company may expand to a new country or target a new segment of an audience using foreign national holidays like Hari Raya in Malaysia or Songkran in Thailand.
You may think you can learn about their culture or tradition by reading some books and articles. However, this is a dangerous presumption. It is almost impossible to fully understand the local audience’s lifestyle, personality, trend, culture, and tradition unless you’ve lived and worked with the local people for several years. The lack of understanding will make your marketing campaign ineffective and even considered rude to the local audience.
For those who consider expanding their company into international markets permanently, a full-time employee from the local country may be a good choice. However, it may be a costly choice for those who are thinking of a short-term marketing campaign for specific holidays or events. In this case, we recommend working with a marketing freelancer with a sufficient understanding of the country you plan to market. This will allow you to target the local audience much more effectively, using the right channel, message, and even avoid potential problems that may arise from misunderstanding.
Independents
You may find it difficult to look for the right talent with sufficient local understanding, experience, and skills. For example, you may find it difficult to evaluate their local certification, educational background, and work experience. In this case, Independents can help you! Independents have a special focus on talents in several regions – Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and more. Moreover, on average, our talent has over 7 years of experience in their respective fields of expertise. Therefore, Independents can help you get highly experienced talent with a deep understanding of local nuances to ensure a successful marketing campaign.
The 3 most popular types of freelancers for marketing
Have you made up your mind? Are you now considering hiring a freelance specialist? If you don’t know who to start with, the following are the 3 most popular and common types of freelancers for marketing. Check out if these are the ones you were looking for! Also don’t miss out on some tips to choose the right freelancers!
Graphic Designers
Most of the marketing projects require some kind of design and fortunately, there is a big pool of graphic designers. It is relatively easy to choose a graphic designer as each designer has their own style. For example, some are strong in designing cute icons while some are good at visualizing the client’s needs. To choose the most suitable designer, consider the purpose and target of the marketing project. Is it to target young customers using cute designs? Or is it to target housewives using friendly designs? Based on your target audience and purpose, carefully look into their portfolio. If you are not sure, consult your friends or colleagues to compare and assess how their design skills can synergize with your marketing project.
Writers
Writing is one of the most basic elements in any marketing project. However, writing requires time, effort, ideas, and not all employees have these. This is when a freelancer can help your company. Freelance writers can help your company to come up with regular content or high-quality articles for various marketing purposes. Similar to graphic designers, carefully review their portfolio to check if their writing style can embed the voice of your company. You may also ask them to do sample work to assess their writing style.
SEO freelancers
Google receives over 63,000 searches per second (Aleksandra, 2018). This shows the great market opportunity as well as extreme market competition on the Internet. There are some free tools like SEMRush to conduct free keyword or competitor research. However, it is often difficult for laypeople to do well. This is when an SEO specialist can help your company. By hiring SEO freelancers, you can improve your website more strategically and efficiently without spending so much time on learning and experimenting.
Unlike graphic designers or writers, there is one particular type of freelancer you should be aware of. Be aware of SEO freelancers who promise fast ranking results. Unlike writing or designing, the outcome of SEO is not only a matter of who does it. You do need a good SEO specialist to choose the most relevant keyword, links, and content. However, an actual ranking process depends on Google. Based on the algorithm and trend, a website requires some time for Google to respond to SEO strategies. This time is not predictable and often takes some time especially if a website is newly optimized. Therefore, if an SEO specialist promises to rank your website within a short period, reconsider hiring them. They may use inappropriate methods that can harm your website in the long term.
Tips
Assess past portfolio work and track record before hiring a freelancer
Sometimes, you might want to see one or two more work from freelancers. You can message or email them directly but if you don’t have time for that, google them! Many designers or writers own a blog, social media, or webpage to showcase their work. Therefore, you may be able to see some of their works by googling their name and basic information.
Introduce your company to a new freelancer
Many times, companies forget the importance of explaining their company’s value, core message, and goal. They often only explain the portion of work that freelancers are expected to complete. However, freelancers cannot implement the company’s voice without fully understanding the ultimate message that the company wants to deliver. Therefore, remember to give them a brief explanation of their work.
Review their work before publishing
Even though freelancers are experts in their areas, you should still review their work before publishing. Reviewing may take some time, but this is an important final step to ensure the quality and content of their production. For example, if you are reviewing an article, check the content and use tools like Grammarly to check spelling, grammatical errors, and plagiarism. This will not only ensure the quality of work but also help them do better in future tasks.
Use a platform that can help you hire the right quality talent
Despite the great benefits of working with freelancers, may simply not have enough time to look for the right quality talent on freelancer platforms like Fiverr or Upwork. To save your time and effort, use freelancer platforms like Get Craft, which vet their creatives.
If you don’t have time to even look and evaluate a list of high-quality freelancers, use a matching platform like Independents. Independents have their own list of world-class freelancers and AI matching systems to connect you with the right freelancers. This will save your time from searching, comparing, evaluating, scheduling, and interviewing for the right talent!
Are you still deciding whether you should hire a marketing agency or freelancer? There are unique benefits as well as limitations of working with either freelancers or marketing agencies. If you are interested to learn more about them, check out this article!
References
https://seotribunal.com/blog/google-stats-and-facts/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/hire-manage-freelance-writers-marketing-professionals/