Level Up Marketing Design at Your Creative Agency with Unlimited Design Services

Looking to scale your agency fast, without breaking the bank? You’ve come to the right place. Discover how delegating marketing design to a subscription-based service can help you boost sales and impress new clients.

When people think of creative agencies, they usually also think of design.

But does marketing involve graphic design for every agency? Yes and no. Graphic design is always a part of marketing, but not every type of agency offers graphic design services. These agencies are missing out on securing clients and growing their revenue.

On the other hand, agencies that offer marketing graphic design often struggle with an overload of work in the run-up to massive campaigns. So, they often end up hiring externally to resolve overhead issues.

In this piece, you’ll learn why subscription-based services make the ultimate marketing design partner for any agency.

Before we dive into how an on-demand design service can help you, let’s quickly explain how it works:

1. You pay a flat monthly fee and can request unlimited designs & revisions.
2. Your requests are assigned to a designer with the best skill set.
3. You manage your design requests in one place (usually a custom app).

The main advantages of this model are speed, versatility, and lower costs. In the last section, we’ll talk in more detail about the specific benefits. But first, let’s dive right into some great ideas for what types of marketing design your agency can get from a subscription-based design service.

6 Ideas for using unlimited graphic design services to grow your agency

Want to get the most out of a graphic design subscription? Here are some tips on how to grow your agency with unlimited design!

Test more options

Any marketer knows that the key to a successful campaign is testing. And we’re not just talking about audience segmentation. A marketing design alteration as simple as changing a button from green to red can yield significantly different results.

One area in which trying out options can be especially effective is ad design. Testing different designs with different ad placements can help you determine the most effective direction for your ad campaigns.

Partnering up with an unlimited design service means you can get additional options for ad design at any time, without any unexpected costs. Having multiple designers at your fingertips means that you can create ads in diverse styles. From corporate-looking banners to playful ads fit for modern SaaS businesses, you can cater to any client!

Offer freebies to clients

Who doesn’t love a freebie? Free samples have been known to boost sales by up to 2000%. Although things may seem a bit different for service providers, the logic definitely applies.

You may be wondering: what type of free samples could I even offer my clients that make sense? Here are a few ideas:

• Campaign overview presentation: Most agencies determine their rates based on the scope and length of a project. In most cases, they do some (free) initial work on market research and present a few ideas to their clients. If you want to take it up a notch, you can create a striking pitch deck that will show clients your professional side. No need to do any extra work yourself!
• Stationery: If you’re not doing a branding campaign, it’s something you might not think of. But custom stationery is pretty quick and easy to create for a professional designer, and it can be a wonderful extra something for your clients. We even have some free templates which you might want to adapt!
• Stickers: Stickers are rarely necessary for a marketing campaign, but they’re usually pretty cute and versatile! Whether it’s custom digital stickers or a physical freebie that clients can use and share, this is a fantastic way to show you care.

Improve your social media presence

We know this scenario well. A creative design agency gets so wrapped up in developing clients’ work that they don’t have time to grow their own online presence.

You know better than anyone how critical social media design is. Still, here are a few valuable reminders:

• Facebook posts with visuals get twice as much engagement than those without (BuzzSumo).
• Tweets with images are 150% more likely to be retweeted (Buffer).
• Around 44% of Instagram users shop for products on this platform (Instagram).

With subscription-based design services, you can stay on top of your social media game at all times. You can request social media post templates that your team can quickly and easily adapt as you go. Expanding your presence to different channels is also not a problem. Our designers can provide you with anything from eye-catching YouTube thumbnails to glorious email banners.

Create an incredible lead generation campaign

Lead generation campaigns are like fitness. They take time to develop and show results, but once you’re on the right track, they keep you moving forward.

More importantly, if you dabble in marketing and design consulting, you probably have a ton of insights to share that people would find extremely valuable. Whether you want to create an ebook or a webinar, positioning yourself as a thought leader can help draw clients to your agency and inspire trust.

Of course, a successful lead generation campaign is a pretty hefty task. Here are some of the things you might need to create/develop:

• Lead generation magnet
• Landing page
• Ads
• Lead generation forms

More often than not, we hear of marketers writing entire books of tips and insights that nobody downloads or bothers to read. The reason? Poor design. If people aren’t compelled to download your lead magnets and use them, it’s unlikely any subsequent lead nurturing will yield results.

How often have you downloaded something for free, opened the document, saw it was just a ton of text, and never gave it a second look? How long did it take until you hit “unsubscribe” from the incessant emails from the company?

So, how to do it right?

Start from a well-designed landing page utilizing the keywords and applying fundamental graphic design principles. Move on to an eye-catching lead gen form that uses design and copy to urge them to download your lead magnet. Finally, make sure that the lead magnet (especially ones in written form) is digestible and allows skim reading. Use design to highlight critical data (graphs, charts) and present complex processes (infographics).

Don’t have time or capacity to do this? An unlimited design service can take care of it all.

Spruce up (your) web design

People need just 50 milliseconds to get an impression of a website, and 75% will judge a business’s credibility based on it. More importantly, 38% of people will stop engaging with a website that looks unattractive.

But these are probably stats you’re aware of: 77% of agencies believe a poor website experience is a weakness for their clients.

So, how are you addressing the matter on your end? So many agencies claim “their work speaks for itself.” But let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a potential client for a second. Imagine landing on an agency website that looks bland. Will you even bother to check out their “our work” section, or will you write them off over a lack of creativity?

Websites incorporate some of the most challenging and complex types of design, so it’s naturally an area where anyone can benefit from a little extra help.

Take it from a client of ours, a content production company called Codeless. Knowing how web design impacts content marketing, this service also creates landing and web pages for their clients in addition to written long-form content.

Before ManyPixels, they tried outsourcing a portion of the work to freelancers. But, this regularly raised issues of quality and reliability.

Since switching to ManyPixels, they’ve sped up the production process with mockups and concepts provided by our design team. Thanks to our affordable website and landing page design solution, they’ve also seen a substantial ROI.

Boost your content efforts

If you’re wondering how web design impacts content marketing, here’s a quick reminder: design directly affects SEO.

Slow-loading and non-responsive websites increase bounce rates, negatively affecting your search engine rankings. A professional designer will make sure that all graphics are optimized for web use and make everything look good on mobile (this is imperative, by the way). Moreover, don’t forget that images also rank in Google.

What about content marketing? Blogging is an integral part of most agencies’ marketing strategies, but web articles with images receive a staggering 94% more views. So, how can you take your content efforts to the next level with better design? Here are a few ideas:

Infographics

Did you know that infographics are 30 times more likely to be read in their entirety than blog posts? In addition to that, they’re liked and shared more than any other type of content on social media.

Blog posts are the definitive SEO tactic and a way to show you’re an authority in marketing and design consulting. But, infographics are the most effective way to share vital information.

Lead magnets

We’ve already talked about lead generation campaigns. However, repurposing your high-performing blog posts into a lead magnet is a fantastic tactic to tap into. With a designer on hand, you can compile the text and images and let them transform them into an attractive lead magnet like an ebook or downloadable infographics.

Sharable content

The secret ingredient to a stellar content marketing strategy? Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose.

Hubspot is known as the marketer’s bible, and it’s safe to say their informative blog gives them enough traffic and visibility. However, you’ll still find them promoting their content on social media with the help of eye-catching and branded visuals like this one:

Why do agencies use subscription-based services?

If you’re on the fence about partnering with an external agency or freelancer - don’t be. According to the latest Cella marketing and design industry report, 90% of agencies plan to partner with contractors/freelancers, and 82% are already partnering with external agencies.

A much smaller number (18%) uses offsite services for creative tasks, notably graphic design and digital design. However, most agencies that use this kind of service are satisfied with them (61%).

Still, hiring a freelance graphic designer takes a lot of time and effort. With dozens of awesome freelancing platforms, you can absolutely find a top-notch designer for any project. And yet, there are some more issues you need to consider:

• Costs can accumulate fast: A one-off project is usually quite affordable. But if you need design regularly, as is the case with most businesses, paying hourly or on a per-project basis (and don’t forget about additional revisions) can make budgeting a nightmare, and become a very expensive solution in the long run.
• Freelancers are unpredictable: They work with multiple clients, so there’s no guarantees a quality freelancer will always be available when you need them. If this happens, all the time you’ve spent finding the right person, and helping them understand your brand just goes to waste.
• One person can’t do everything: No good freelancer will ever claim they’re proficient at all types of design. So, if you want to ensure high-quality work, you’ll need to find and hire freelancers for each specific project (web design, branding, UI/UX design, etc.). And you can imagine how much time and money this can cost!

Luckily, unlimited graphic design services are a fantastic design outsourcing alternative. Let’s discuss some of the ways your agency can seriously benefit from purchasing a design subscription.

Additional dedicated resources

Around 42% of agencies claim they are not adequately staffed, and 49% expect to increase their capabilities in digital design (Cella).

If we look beyond the numbers, this is something most creative agencies have experienced. Offering marketing and design consulting services and taking on the entire production of marketing design and other aspects of a campaign can be a gigantic task. In theory, only a vast creative agency could take on something like this.

That’s why partnering with freelancers or other agencies/companies allows smaller teams to tap into the design market, take on bigger projects and focus on developing refined marketing strategies.

Reduced costs

When you look at the numbers we’re about to present, you might be surprised why outsourcing graphic design isn’t even bigger than it already is.

Let’s compare, shall we?

• The average monthly salary of a US-based graphic designer is around $5,000.
• The average hourly rate of a graphic designer is around $25, so adding up to $1,000 per month.
• The average cost of subscription-based design services is around $550 per month.

Although partnering with someone externally might sound like a waste of time (and therefore money), in reality, it’s a proven money-saving tactic.

The reason why we suggest subscription-based services are the best option in the design market isn’t just because the monthly rates are significantly lower. Instead, this option gives you the reliability of an in-house employee (year-round coverage and professional results). Furthermore, it eliminates the time-consuming aspect of working with freelancers: assessing portfolios, conducting interviews, and screening candidates.

More hours of support

Nothing beats having a full-time employee at your disposal at all times, right? Wrong!

Consider holidays, sick leave, and time spent on tasks other than designing (meetings, professional development, team building, etc.). In comparison, subscription-based design services offer year-round support. Since they employ a team of designers, there’s always someone to take over in case of (un)expected absences.

Thanks to flat-monthly rates, you also don’t have to worry about paying for overtime or additional revisions (as is the case with freelancers). We keep working on a project until you’re 100% satisfied with it: five days a week, through the whole year.

Specialized skill sets

Last but definitely not least. Many agencies work with freelancers or other services on the design market to access specialized skills.

No matter how big your design team might be (if you have one), there will always be an area of design where you lack confidence or expertise. Outsourcing ensures the results will be high-quality and often produced much faster.

There are many fabulous freelancers, but finding one with the perfect skills, style, and experience can be time-consuming. Partnering with a subscription-based design service removes this element as it gives you access to a whole team of quality designers.

Our service at ManyPixels also provides a dedicated project manager who helps alleviate any miscommunication and misunderstandings between you and the designer. If you believe things aren’t working out with a designer, you can try working with a different one from our pool of over 50 vetted talents.

Final thoughts

Does marketing involve graphic design? Always. Is your agency using marketing design to its fullest potential? We hope our tips put you on the right track!

Can ManyPixels become your agency MVP? Discover how we help agencies like yours, or book a 1:1 consultation for a chat on how our service can meet your specific needs.

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