Getting a brand, product, or service to be front-and-center in a given industry can be an intensive, time-consuming task. Creative process outsourcing (CPO) emerged as a solution to the marketing and advertising challenges that many companies face.
It provides a flexible, one-stop solution—handling anything from simple tasks to entire creative processes—for companies looking to improve their brands’ standings.
In its practice, CPO functions much like typical business and knowledge process outsourcing setups, with certain tasks or processes contracted to an external provider. The main difference is in the sort of services provided: CPOs specialize in marketing-related and creative work, such as graphic design, web and app development, content marketing, and running campaigns on various digital platforms, including social media.
As with any outsourcing setup, CPO is an attractive choice because of the competitive advantages it offers. It reduces costs by eliminating many of the costs of recruiting and maintaining in-house employees. In cases of offshore outsourcing, marketing processes can often be carried out for less than half of what they’d usually cost. CPO also lets companies save on another valuable resource: time. By putting an external provider in charge of carrying out marketing processes, companies can focus on core processes. Those that retain in-house marketing teams even while outsourcing can have those teams focus on strategy while outsourcing the execution.
And execution is, of course, of utmost importance. The benefits of CPO are always evaluated alongside the results it produces. A good CPO provider brings their expertise to the table, as well as an outsider’s perspective, which can be especially useful in creative work—and should, therefore, guarantee efficient work that consistently meets standards of quality.
To paint a clearer picture of what your company can do better with CPO, let’s take a look at some specific tasks and processes that can be left to an outsourced provider:
Graphic Design
It’s easier for customers to recall brands with consistent, distinctive visual identities. With CPO, you can contract an external team to turn your ideas into images, whether these are designs for the web, templates for slide decks, or layouts for printable marketing collaterals.
Content Writing
Writing web copy, blogs, and other marketing publications can take time and resources. Outsourced content development might include full editorial services from planning to publishing, or you could go with outsourcing writers to state your ideas more persuasively.
Web and App Design
When you outsource web design and app development, you can get more than just a one-off project. You can also get maintenance, troubleshooting, and constant improvement.
As a further incentive, outsourcing web design as part of a larger CPO engagement gives you the opportunity to have a website built to match the rest of your marketing strategy—a website focused on attracting audiences, generating leads, and selling your products or services.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You might call SEO a supplement to web design and content marketing—but it is, perhaps, more accurate to treat it as an essential. With SEO putting your web pages high up on the search results rankings, you effectively multiply the returns you get from your other marketing efforts.
Social Media Marketing
With the vast majority of internet users active on social media, it’s the perfect platform for meeting your target customers where they are. With social media outsourcing, you can get social publishing, social monitoring, community management, and optimized platform-specific ad campaigns. It’s an excellent, low-cost way to boost brand visibility and encourage customer loyalty.
A good CPO partner acts as an extension office for your agency. Depending on your agreement, they can take over some of the processes in your agency to reduce costs and human resources. Think of them as a second, digital creative team, albeit working from halfway around the world, that can provide insights and expertise in serving your clients at a fraction of the cost.
Want to learn more about Creative Process Outsourcing and how to get started? Click the button below to get a copy of StraightArrow’s free eBook: A Practical Guide To Creative Process Outsourcing.
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