How outsourcing certain tasks can save your agency time and money
Free up studio resources that could be better spent elsewhere, and relieve the pressure on your team
When your team is overburdened and under strain, creativity suffers. In a climate where budgets are tightening and time is at a premium, it pays to focus your energy on the things that make the biggest difference.
On any given project, there are time-consuming tasks that need doing by someone. Cleaning up photo backgrounds in bulk, for instance, or resizing assets for every conceivable social platform. Cutting out hundreds of product images to populate an e-commerce site, or vector-tracing a folder full of low-res jpegs.
It may be hard to justify the budget for bringing in one of your usual freelancers for this kind of thing, or perhaps a one-day turnaround is needed at short-notice and they simply can’t accommodate it.
As a result, these tasks often naturally fall to the most junior members of your team. They may struggle to fit them in, or you may prefer them to spend their time honing their skills or providing support in other areas.
AnyTask provides an alternative route if you need to relieve pressure on the team for very quick turnarounds. If the need arises, you may also be able to fill short-term skills gaps on particular projects quickly and cheaply if there isn’t the time or budget available to commission your usual freelance contacts.
Because many of the freelancers on the AnyTask platform are based in Global South countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines, the price you pay relative to the quality of the work is much more affordable – and you can easily use varying time zones to your advantage when you’re up against it.
Launched by blockchain company Electroneum, AnyTask empowers its global community of over 10,000 freelancers by completely removing fees at the sellers’ end. Other freelancer platforms, by comparison, charge up to 20%.
Behind the scenes, AnyTask freelancers are paid using Electroneum’s own cryptocurrency (ETN). This unlocks a much broader source of talent in developing economies: people who may not have easy access to a bank account, or the means to pay currency conversion fees, can now become a valuable part of the global digital economy.
The site even handles translation between users, so that in theory no one need speak or understand English – provided, of course, they have the specific skills your agency needs at that moment in time.
Having purchased over 40 freelance tasks on AnyTask to date, London-based marketing expert Paul Homewood is a strong advocate of outsourcing specific tasks to remote talent around the world: “It’s great to know that while you sleep, somebody in a different time zone is working for you,” he says.
“It’s also an opportunity to give people work who wouldn’t otherwise have access to the global digital economy,” adds Homewood. “You can make a difference in the life of some very talented people.”
AnyTask’s freelancers advertise very specific tasks that they can provide, with rates ranging from as little as a dollar to a maximum of $100 per task. There’s also a 100% payment protection policy for the peace of mind of all parties.
Consider the kind of self-contained tasks that stretch your juniors to breaking point unnecessarily, draining time and resource that could be better spent elsewhere.
Outsourcing them as part of your usual creative workflow could save you time and hassle, freeing up your team to focus on the core of the project – and maximising the value you get from your existing network of freelance contacts.
Is there a sweet spot for your agency? For a limited time, AnyTask is offering Creative Review readers a $25 voucher to trial the service: click here for more details