Let's Talk About Design and Marketing Agencies
Eva Maganja
6 replies
Hey everyone! I wanted to start a discussion on your experiences with design and marketing agencies.
When searching for one, every single one of them charged me per hour some of them even per word! For startups, this could be very stressful if you have a limited budget.
And when it comes to marketing agencies, 70% of them said I need to put in $10k for them to run ads to see if I have a good product. And to get the ''system'' learn about my product. And the portfolio of their work looked like something from Canva pre-made designs.
And on top of that, they charge +8k per month!
Share your horror story with design/marketing agencies.
I am currently working on a solution for this 'I hope' and would love to hear all the pain points of the modern agencies.
Replies
Eva Maganja@evamaganja
My friend, needed some branding and packaging done. She found an agency - that charges per hour, shockingly. And they went quiet for 1 week. after one week they present her with their work. It was totally off and didn't match her wishes and references at all. And then they were ''fixing'' the design for 2 more weeks. Again lack of communication ( because they have so many other clients) the deliverables feel like they spent 2 hours on it, let alone 2 weeks. In the end, she had to pay for 2 weeks of work for something she didn't like.
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One personal story: My startup hired one agency to do illustrations and logos. They didn't let us communicate with the designer but only with their manager( who was not in the artistic field). So everything that we tell him, a few days later the deliverable was totally different from what we discussed on the call. And because of hourly rates, I became very stressed and just wanted to be over with because I couldn't afford to pay for the product if I didn't like it. In the end, I become like their manager instead of focusing on the design that I wanted, which left a very bad experience personally.
Agencies are overcharging by 100X never go with them. World is full of freelancers who are more talented than agency of 50 people.
@vladimir_zivkovic This! I guess my problem is finding those freelancers, most of them are booked, and some of them even charge more than the agencies.
@evamaganja Yeah it's not easy finding those creative freelancers on your own but there are some great startups which have the network of vetted designers and with lower cost, especially from eastern countries and Asia.
I might be able to help you, i could do some design stuff, I have actually studied architecture which has taught me some kind of eye for the pleasing design and the necessary skills to bring ideas to paper. Maybe we can work together?