By Jennifer Hauschild, Allison McKenna, Teri Williams, and Carrie Largent
To design in-house or not to design in-house? That is the question!
This question is very Shakespearian, yet easily answered. Yes, work with an external agency! May we recommend LKF Marketing?
Deciding against in-house design will help you achieve better results, knock your boss’ socks off, and just plain make your life easier!
Are we biased? Did Hamlet have family drama? Yes, and yes.
Without adding monologues in the style of ‘Ol Willy S., here are the top 10 advantages of using an agency with a dedicated group of design professionals for your marketing needs:
- The salary you would otherwise dedicate to one in-house graphic designer can be used to access an entire design team with a variety of experiences including a Creative Director, Art Director, Production Specialist, Digital Media Designer, UX Designer, Video Editor, and more. Our Creative Team brings a wide variety of skills and background experience that would be impossible for one individual to have. Once we know your brand, business goals, customer pain points, the competition, and market conditions, we become an extension of your internal marketing team. Plus, we can pivot quickly and respond to unexpected needs.
- We can scale our manpower to your needs. Do you have a small project, but not the time to properly attend to it? You only use the talent you need. Is there a large, complex project that you are unsure you have the skills to execute? Use a larger team to collaborate and deliver.
- Having a dedicated team to preserve your brand equity frees you up to do big thinking and planning with our strategic account-side partners. We’ve got your back, and you can count on us to keep your brand consistent across all your marketing channels.
- We are trained to empathize with challenges from many points of view and bring solutions rooted in industry best practices. We have the bandwidth to keep up with current trends in an ever-changing environment.
- We come pre-loaded (so to speak) with all the design tools that make your project a success. We specialize in Design Thinking, typography, color theory, and asset management as well as brand development and management, concept creation, and production best practices.
- Our software expertise means you don’t have to invest in the cost of software, training, technical issues, or equipment management. Wouldn’t that be nice!
- You don’t have to worry about understanding the print industry. We know how to design printed pieces to maximize your print spend and make your marketing budget go farther. We understand print vendors’ capabilities, production management, and proper file preparation to avoid unexpected printing upcharges. We can also vet the best printers suited for your project.
- Thinking of a mass mailer but boggled by the USPS? We work with trusted partners to expertly identify the best cost and optimizations for your mailing lists. We understand mail piece design and how to get your message delivered to the right people in a timely manner.
- Does your in-house person understand design for web and electronic media? These are totally different disciplines from print design. What dpi is needed for digital images for your website or email campaign? How do you know your color contrast passes accessibility rules? What file types are best for websites and online ads? How do you size artwork for retina-ready applications? How do you keep the image file size small enough to pass page load speed requirements to increase your Google rank yet still render well? What the heck is WebP? Why stress? Let us do it for you.
- Finally, we LOVE video projects! From small-scale social media segments to full-blown commercials, our creative team provides many of the skills and products that a video company offers at a fraction of the cost.
We could write you long-winded sonnets about all the other ways our design assistance can benefit your business and workflow. Instead, we’ll leave you with one final Shakespearean nudge; partnering with LKF for creative services will help you weather any inspiration tempest, tame the vendor chaos, dream up marketing materials, and deliver our expertise when and as you like it!
Contact us to discuss your marketing needs and, perhaps, your favorite tragic hero.
