8 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Presentation Design Agency
Have you realized that you need some help designing your presentations? Is your in-house team no longer able to prepare all the slides you require without sacrificing quality?
As you may already know, the list of potential design partners is extensive. However, before selecting one, you must first thoroughly understand your business’s design requirements.
Briana Ripas, Design Manager at 24Slides, highlights 8 crucial aspects you should analyze about your company before outsourcing your design workload. Make sure to take notes!
1. Who is our target audience?
As a first step before contacting a creative presentation agency, you need to define your audience profile clearly.
If you haven’t identified this profile, you should consider:
- Demographics: What is their age, profession, and gender?
- Lifestyle or workstyle: What are their interests and habits?
- Pain Points: What challenges does your audience face, and how can you help them?
It’s important to consider that designing slides is not only about the aesthetics, but also involves communicating a message. Therefore, identifying the main characteristics of your audience will allow you to achieve a greater impact.
2. What are the goals of this project?
Have you ever executed a project without first formulating the objectives? If so, you likely know that way is not the most convenient route to get good results.
In the world of presentation decks, one goal might be to create dynamic presentations that capture and hold your audience's attention. This can be achieved by adding animations, high-quality photos, or improving the slide contrast, to name a few examples.
An important aspect of creating objectives is making them measurable. To do so, you can follow the SMART methodology. Take a look and thank us later!
3. What are our design preferences?
Every company has a visual identity that distinguishes it from other brands in the market. In this regard, your brand book will serve as a guideline for your future design partner.
We recommend being as specific as possible about the design requirements you want for the project. That way, you’ll avoid extra coordination or meetings in the future (saving a lot of time!).
Remember that graphic design can be a powerful marketing tool for your company. To achieve this, ensure that every piece of content you create reflects your brand’s essence. This goes from a post on social media to a presentation deck for investors.
4. What types of projects are we in charge of?
Slides are versatile tools that can be adapted for various purposes, including:
- Internal company communication
- Quarterly reports
- Investor pitches
- Conference presentations
- New employee training
As you may notice, each kind of project requires a different approach, which your design partner will take into consideration.
5. Do we have any design challenges?
If you want to hire a presentation design service, it’s probably because you have noticed that your in-house design team can’t handle your design workload anymore.
Identifying your design challenges or weak points is crucial in order to choose the best presentation partner for you. These challenges include not finding a photographic style that completely convinces you or the most appropriate content distribution on your slides.
Keep in mind that these challenges can involve non-graphic elements, such as the written content of your presentation. If you can relate to this, consider agencies that offer proofreading or rewriting services.
6. What work methodology do we follow?
Understanding your work methodology is a crucial step before hiring a presentation design service. This generally refers to the workflow and dynamics that your team manages.
Don’t know how to evaluate this aspect of your company? Here are some questions that will inspire you:
- Creative approach: How much creative freedom do we have for this project?
- Team skills: What skills does my team possess, and which ones are we lacking?
- Workflow: How do we ensure quality, and how flexible are we with deadlines?
- Deliverable formats: What design software do we typically use?
- Communication channels: What communication channels does my team prefer?
- Confidentiality: Do we need special measures to ensure the confidentiality of our data?
7. What work modality suits our needs?
A great advantage of hiring an external design service is that you can choose the modality that best suits your team.
Nowadays, some of the work modalities available in the creative market are:
- Dedicated team: A dedicated team is a design team that is trained in your brand book. Ideally, they fit really well with large companies that have a constant design workload.
- Agency service: Design agencies offer a wide range of services that evolve with new trends. You should try their services for temporary projects that require specific specialists or multidisciplinary teams.
- Studio service: A design studio has a similar dynamic as an agency, but they usually have cheaper rates, and the service is more personalized. It’s also common for them to subcontract other specialists if they need additional skills to complete a project.
- Freelancer service: Freelance designers are an excellent choice for small and temporary projects. If you already work with a reliable freelancer, we recommend continuing the partnership to save time and maintain consistency.
Not sure how to make the final decision? Check our final review here.
8. What is our budget, and what human resources are available for this project?
Finally, if you want to hire a presentation design service (or any design service), you must plan a budget and set expected timelines for the collaboration.
Additionally, designating a representative who will act as the connection between the design partner and your internal team will ensure a more efficient process. Keep in mind that this delegate’s time is part of the budget.
After answering each question thoroughly, you’ll be ready to build a great outsourcing experience. Let’s review them once more:
We suggest addressing all these doubts–and any new ones that come up–using an interdisciplinary approach. This strategy will help you gather a diverse range of insights and build comprehensive design requirements.
If you are ready to take the next step and start searching for your perfect partner, review our list of the 15 best presentation design agencies. You will find prices and relevant data to make an informed decision!
And as always, you’re welcome to try our design skills for only $1 (one US dollar).
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