Running Into Problems Working With Freelancers?

Congratulations! You just signed that big new client, nearly doubling your top line overnight. When all the champagne flutes are empty, you start seriously considering the logistics of fulfilling this exciting new contract. You consider your options – hiring additional fulltime staff is an expensive and time-consuming proposition. You have to list the positions, go about sifting through resumes and cover letters, schedule and perform interview after interview, reject and finally hire new employees. Once that’s finished you have to actually train them, another time consuming and costly endeavor. Then someone suggest freelancers. “We would have to pay each new PPC specialists $50,000 a year – and that’s just in salary. By the time we factor in benefits and other costs, we’ll be shelling out at least $62,500 a year! Why not just hire freelancers?” Yes! What a novel idea. What could possibly go wrong?

Freelancers may provide flexibility in the short term, but there are also a number of risks associated with relying on them – especially in regards to consistency and quality. Many businesses are turning to freelancers to meet their digital marketing fulfillment needs, to invariably mixed results.

Are freelancers really a more affordable solution? You can find bargain bin freelance pricing, but you’re going to get bargain bin results. How much do good freelancers cost ?

• Programmers and Coders: Up to $1,000/hr
  
• WordPress Developer: Up to $5,000/month
  
• Content Marketers: Up to $5,000/month
  
• Copywriters: Up to $250/hr
  
• Graphic Designers: Up to $85/hr
  

Quality is a huge concern when working with freelancers, and it’s far too often a mixed bag, especially when you utilize a freelance network. If a job you post receives dozens of low bids, proceed with caution. If the price seems too good to be true it likely is. If you want consistent, high-quality results from a freelancer, expect to pay premium prices. There’s also the lack of personal investment and motivation. Your employees or long-term business partners are invested in your success. For freelancers, it’s just another job to finish as quickly as possible and collect a check. There are likely many freelancers out there who legitimately give it their all, but chances are high that they are the minority.

You may find one particular freelancer who provides exceptional performance each time you use them. The problem is everyone else who uses that particular freelancer likely gets the same result, driving up demand for their time. This phenomenon can also lead to missed deadlines. Your company may not even be their biggest or most lucrative customer for a skilled freelancer, meaning your job isn’t their highest priority. If they miss a deadline the worst that would happen is you’d no longer utilize their services, but if they’re time is in high demand chances are good losing your business isn’t a game-changing motivator. Freelancers may have other life obligations as well. Whether it’ a wedding they have to attend or a case of the flu, freelancers can be gone or unavailable and you don’t really have any tools to hold them accountable or disincentivize absences.

It’s hard to quantify the value of face-to-face communication. People have a tendency to be more agreeable and better understand notes and direction when you’re sitting in the same room. When questions arise, they can be easily asked and addressed on the spot instead of playing a game of email or message tag. Chances are high that the freelancer you hire isn’t speaking English as their first language, which can further complicate communication. According to a 2018 Payoneer Freelance Income Survey , very few freelancers are even from this continent:

• Europe: 35.5 percent
  
• Asia: 28 percent
  
• Latin America: 29.2 percent
  
• Africa: 10.1 percent
  
• North America: 4.1 percent
  

Institutional knowledge and experience also shouldn’t be discounted when weighing the pros and cons of utilizing freelancers. Working with a partner who has been in your industry or particular line of work for years is going to result in higher quality than hiring a freelancer who is being introduced to your profession for the first time. For example, a copywriter creating a blog or website content about storm damaged roof repair won’t understand the variety of concerns a homeowner who needs those services may have nearly as well as a writer who has written hundreds of blogs for contractors in the roofing industry. The same can be said for PPC and SEO specialists in the home services, legal or medical verticals. Digital marketing experts who have executed countless campaigns in these verticals are going to have an in-depth understanding of effective paid search and keyword strategies compared with a specialist who is just working in that particular field for the first time.

You may find the perfect copywriter. They put out thousands of words for half as much as the bid from the person with twice the experience. Better yet, their work is really good! Then you check the content through Grammarly or Quetext’s plagiarism checker and learn the blog you just paid hundreds of dollars for was lifted directly from Wikipedia. Too late, they’ve already been paid and made a new account on Upwork or Freelancer.com. If you have a new process or business idea and want to hire freelancers to help implement them or fulfill on a big project you’re likely going to share a lot of information with them. There’s nothing to stop the freelancer from taking that knowledge for themselves or bringing it to a competitor. In some situations you may be able to get intellectual property lawyers involved, but that also takes time and money.

One of the big value propositions of working with REV77 as a digital marketing partner is our strict adherence to process and years of experience in a variety of common SMB verticals. We even boast significant experience in more uncommon professions, like machining and additive manufacturing, and seasonal campaigns such as politics and events. We also emphasize communication and accountability. Our partners rely on us to provide a truly seamless experience for their clients. We aim to provide a smooth transition of services so the expertise we offer blends naturally into your specialties. We’re also confident that the solutions we offer can be more cost effective in the long term than corralling freelancers. Our content marketing services may not be priced at the rock bottom rates you can get by hiring third-world writers, but we’re confident the quality of the optimized content we provide will pay off in results, upsells and client retention. The goal of REV77 is to make your company look good. We want your clients to rest easy knowing they hired a company who backs up their talk with tangible results, meaning more leads and dollars in their pockets. If you’d like to learn more about the many digital marketing services we provide or how we can seamlessly blend our product offerings and processes in with your own, we encourage you to contact us.