AI Does a Podcast Style Deep Dive into N&C And It’s Business Creative Services
Using our AI skills to create an audio podcast with two AI hosts doing a deep dive on our company.
In our business, we offer clients the opportunity to utilize our entire skillset within a retainer agreement, and we are frequently asked “what are the benefits of doing this instead of just hiring someone in-house”. We believe our team can bring a significantly greater set of skills to the table than hiring one, two, three, or even more in-house marketing people, however we do feel a key marketing contact at the organization is optimal for coordination. That said, this article offers a number reasons to consider a retainer.
Managing ongoing marketing projects can be a real challenge. A single project can require a copywriter, coder, graphic designer and more. Also, you are likely juggling more than one project at a time. Does your in-house team have the appropriate experience in every skillset needed for the project?
Unpredictable workloads can fluctuate, leaving your team underworked or overworked at any given time. Do you have the ability to scale your staff up or down based on the amount of work in front of you?
Sound Familiar? If so, it is worth considering outsourcing some or all of your creative and technical talent. Let’s compare some of the deciding factors:
Experts estimate the cost of retaining an employee at around 1.4 times that of an employee’s salary.This is based on factors like the cost of matching taxes, unemployment, health insurance, human resources, workspace expenses, vacation time, sick days, equipment, software, etc. That means that a $40,000 entry-level creative services employee could truly cost you closer to $56,000 each year.
Let’s be honest, it is not possible for any employee to be 100% efficient 100% of the time. So,assuming a more-realistic 60% efficiency rate, your $56,000 investment could easily result in only1,200 hours of efficiency during a typical 2,000-hour annual cycle. That comes out to about$46.67/hr. of actual work.
Did you know that a senior-level creative services employee can complete a project 3 to 5 times faster and more accurately than an entry-level employee? The limited experience of that employee also means he or she probably has a relatively narrow skillset. Even an experienced copywriter, designer, developer or web marketer does not often possess a high level of aptitude across all of these skillsets.
Fluctuating workloads present their own problems. Even if you have a solid in-house team of expert employees with expertise across the marketing spectrum, it is not unusual to experience periods of time during which you can’t keep them busy or alternatively, they can’t keep up with the flow of incoming work. Scaling and in-house team up and down to reflect business cycles is a common conundrum.
You demand quality and results from your marketing efforts, and that usually requires expert support in multiple areas. Even the best in-house teams can identify a hole or two when it comes to expertise. The best print and web marketing agencies are the ones that attract and nurture top talent in all of the areas they serve. When you engage a retainer with a boutique agency like Nelson & Co, you gain access to a deep bench of industry knowledge, each member of the team a top-notch specialist in his or her area of expertise.
With a monthly retainer, you pay a flat rate for a bank of hours each month for access to all of the agency’s creative and technical skillsets, advanced industry knowledge, depth of experience, strategy, mentorship and oversight. Retainer time is logged only while the person is in work mode, so you pay for only productive hours. You are not responsible for lunch breaks, vacations, sick days, insurance, taxes or down time.
Though retainers are for an extended period of time, some agencies allow clients to scale retainer packages up and down to coincide with business cycles. With as little as a 30-day notice, N&C helps companies respond to cyclical pressures by allowing them to adjust their contracted hours.
If any of this resonates with you, now is the time to contact Nelson & Co to explore a monthly retainer agreement. We’ll work with you to determine the best way to supplement your in-house team with predictable, scalable, expert marketing support for a flat, predictable monthly fee.
Using our AI skills to create an audio podcast with two AI hosts doing a deep dive on our company.