Every company is reliant on their consumer base, as well as expanding that base with new clients. Certain industries, such as advertising, public relations and marketing, often focus on growing their services to entice new customers, as well as build and strengthen their relationship with current clients.

An additional service many public relations, marketing and advertising agencies work to add is graphic design, which is becoming a growing need among the clients these industries serve. In-house graphic design teams, however, can be time-consuming or cost-prohibitive for certain agencies, which is why many are partnering with graphic design agencies to expand their services and boost their profits.

Partnerships with graphic design firms are more than outsourcing projects. They’re a collaborative effort between your company and your design agency partner, which translates to an equal investment among both parties to deliver a project that meets and achieves your clients’ needs.

Check out the three ways graphic design agencies can expand your service offerings, and benefit your company, below.

  1. One-Stop Shopping

One of the biggest benefits of working with a graphic design agency is that you’re able to expand your menu of services, which provides a one-stop shop for your existing and potential clients.

Think about your personal shopping habits. Why visit the pharmacy and grocery store if you can go to one place and get everything you need? It’s the same principle with offering both graphic design and your company’s other services at the same location. Your client gets everything they want in one convenient spot while working with staff that’s familiar with their business needs and goals.

All-in-one service also makes you stand out from your competitors by giving you an edge in the marketplace. Through a design agency partnership, you can provide services like these:

  • Logo design
  • Company stationery design
  • Product catalogs
  • Website redesigns
  • Graphic illustrations
  • And more!

While other marketing firms, for example, are unable to provide a client with a website or catalog redesign, you can through your partnership with a graphic design agency.

Customers in today’s marketplace are also shifting away from firms that do not provide full service, which is why lots of companies now offer a catalog of services that meets the growing needs of consumers in the marketplace. Failing to expand and round-out your company’s offerings can cause:

  • Decreased growth
  • Reduced profits
  • Loss of existing clients
  • Failure to sign new customers

If you already offer full service to clients but are struggling to handle the number of graphic design requests, a design firm can also provide aid during select time frames or situations, such as:

  • Seasons with an increased number of graphic design orders
  • Large orders from newly signed clients
  • Periods of decreased staff or department sizes

The benefit of this arrangement is that it’s on-demand and you’re only paying for the services you need, without a retainer fee. Partnering with a graphic design agency is essential if your company wants to grow in a marketplace that now asks for one-stop services.

Manage Workflow Without Stress

Advertising, marketing and public relations firms with an in-house graphic design team may find that the influx of clients to their one-stop shop is becoming overwhelming for their existing staff, yet not enough to justify expanding their design team.

Work overload, however, leads to stress. More than half of workplace stress is tied to inadequate staffing, making it the second leading cause of stress in the workplace. Stress among employees, especially within a team, can cause:

  • Decreased productivity
  • Reduced morale among team members
  • Loss of staff
  • Raised rate of absences
  • Increased level of disengagement
  • Diminished quality of work

A drop in project quality can cause clients to reconsider their relationship with your company. And while your team may appreciate the reduced workload due to an account loss, the severed relationship influences your company’s profits and can lead to less-than-favorable reviews or recommendations of your business to potential clients.

Partnerships with graphic design agencies benefit both your client accounts and your employees. Design firms are always available to accept new work, which means your in-house graphic design team handles only the accounts they’re able to manage, while the design firm handles the rest.

The finished projects are then delivered on time by both your design firm partner and your in-house team. The balance between the two ensures the items provided are of high quality, which leaves your customer satisfied and your company in good standing with them.

Your firm may also be in a situation where, instead of accepting all potential accounts and incoming requests, they’re turning away prospective clients and jobs to maintain a healthy level of work for their in-house design team. In this scenario, a graphic design agency allows you to accept those jobs and increase your number of accounts without causing stress or unrest among your in-house team.

Graphic design firms are also available on-call, so you can work with them during busy seasons or periods of high stress to ensure projects are completed on time and meet every client’s needs. Your firm then avoids the task of hiring, housing and equipping contractors to work with your team throughout these high-demand periods.

Managing your workflow efficiently with the assistance of a graphic design agency allows you to raise your company’s profit, ensure your employee’s level of happiness and increase your client base without going through the hiring process to expand your in-house design team. It’s an expedited technique that saves you and your company time and money.

Tap Into New Talent On-Demand

The difference between graphic design agencies and marketing, public relations or advertising firms with in-house design teams is that graphic design companies focus their expertise on one area: graphic design. As these agencies grow, so do their set of graphic designers, offering you access to an experienced group of individuals.

As a design firm’s partner, you can select graphic designers with different skill sets and experiences ranging from:

  • Logo design
  • Website design
  • Stationery design
  • Print design
  • Packaging design
  • Illustration design

If you have in-house design professionals, a design firm’s team is an excellent way to compensate for your team’s unfamiliarity with certain project types, which ensures your submitted project satisfies a client’s wishes. An experienced designer in an area such as logo design, for example, can finish the project faster, which saves your design team time and allows them to focus their skills on other pending projects.

Partnerships with graphic design agencies also give your team a fresh perspective. It’s easy for design teams to fall into patterns — especially if they’re always creating for one client — which can result in project submissions that work for customers but are uninspired. An outsourced graphic designer, however, can provide valuable input and insight by creating new designs that can inspire and reignite your in-house team’s design efforts.

Using graphic design agencies instead of starting or expanding a graphic design department also allows you to work with an experienced and professional team that is already staffed, versus your company going through the hiring and training of new employees.

The cost of hiring a new team member for businesses with 20 to 49 employees is more than $40,000. For smaller companies, that cost increases by more than $10,000. That’s a substantial amount your business can save and use to invest in other endeavors, such as software or work improvement processes.

The funds can also be used towards your graphic design agency partnership, which gives you access to multiple experienced graphic designers instead of one. Your company also doesn’t have to worry about expanding its real estate or purchasing new equipment, as the graphic design team works from the agency’s location.

Design agency partnerships also generally cost less than the continued cost of staff, which includes:

  • Health insurance
  • Sick pay
  • Disability insurance
  • Vacation pay
  • Social Security payments

Tapping into new talent on-demand is an immense benefit of partnerships with graphic design agencies. Your company can save time and money, both now and in the long-term, while receiving quality work that wows your client and boosts your firm’s profile as a one-stop shop for companies seeking advertising, public relations or marketing services.

Partner With a Proven Graphic Design Agency

Graphic design agencies are a proven solution to serving and expanding your company’s clientele, as more and more businesses become interested in one-stop shopping, with graphic design becoming an increasingly common request. Partnerships are also a solution to reducing your in-house graphic design team’s workload so your company to take on additional clients and project requests.

Adapt to your client’s or company’s needs by partnering with a proven graphic design agency. At The NetMen Corp, we’ve partnered with businesses of all sizes to help them expand their service offerings and strengthen their relationships with clients, as well as increase their profitability and level of service.

Contact us to learn more about our graphic design agency partnerships today!

About The Author:

 is CEO of The Netmen Corp.