Thanks to Amazon, expectations are lofty for getting what we want, when we want it. We’re all scrambling to stay on-trend and hyper-relevant despite dwindling budgets, headcount freezes, and noisy, crowded platforms. The good news is, you’re not alone, and we can help! We’ve curated some tricks and tips to help you thrive, not just survive!
What Happens When Marketing Teams Outpace Design Teams?
When marketing teams move so fast (because they need to) and creative teams can’t keep up, things can get out of hand, quickly. Some of the sacrifices your team might be making if they are stuck in this pickle include:
- Sacrificing total volume of assets for any given campaign due to bandwidth and resource constraints
- Reducing the complexity of the assets, avoiding more demanding asset types like motion graphics and video despite how high-performing those assets can be
- Pushing launch deadlines and moving the delivery target, sacrificing revenue/dollars for every day of delay
- In order to hit a deadline, you may outsource some designs, and end up paying rush charges
- Assets are rushed, mistakes, typos and low-quality assets get delivered as final
There are a lot of reasons marketing teams can end up accidentally outpacing their creative teams. Rather than ask your marketing team to slow down, why not focus on speeding up your creative team? In addition to meeting the needs of your marketing team, creative teams who can produce designs at scale can make a significant impact on revenue in other ways! Check out some of these very common digital media challenges that can only be solved with a fast, efficient creative process, team and solution!
Common Digital Media Pain Points That Demand Faster Creative Solutions
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Social media posts have a “shelf life” or lifespan of approximately 48 hours.
- The problem: Depending on the platform, that means after 48 hours have passed, your content has probably seen its peak engagement and impressions.
- The solution: As a brand, that means you have to produce a lot of content to stay in front of your audience.We recommend a flat rate design subscription to help you keep costs flat while you produce even more content.Plus, you can request templated custom assets help you reduce the total number of creative requests. Templates help you produce faster and more efficiently. Get even more design independence when you get Canva file delivery from Design Pickle, so your custom templates are ready for you to tweak in Canva in a flash!
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Waiting for design takes forever! Like weeks, not days.
- The problem: Most traditional creative processes and sourcing require at least a business week, sometimes closer to 3-4 weeks, especially if you’re working with freelancers or agencies and the complexity of the assets are more difficult.
- The solution: Design Pickle can turn around some assets SAME DAY, with an average of 2-3 days for most asset types. (Variables like asset complexity, type, and length contribute to turnaround time.) That way you’ll never miss the trend and can stay agile with your creative!
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The Content Indexing Machines Need to be Fed.
- The problem: Search engines loooove fresh, quality content, and now more than ever are prioritizing fresh, rich elements like images, GIFs, and videos. Producing new, relevant content is important for overall SEO health and for content marketing success.
- The solution: Regularly posting key image-heavy content can increase indexation rates by up to 434% month over month! Be sure to consistently post demand pages, blogs and other amazing web content that includes images with proper naming and tagging to capitalize on relevant search traffic! One piece of well-written and optimized content full of relevant and optimized images is better than several copy-only pieces.
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Fresh, New Content is Costly & Time Consuming.
- The problem: Search engines also love a good face lift. Old content that is still relevant or evergreen can reach new audiences without having to hire another copywriter! Producing new content is extremely costly and search engines are still indexing old content!
- The solution: Running through an audit of your old content will help you find opportunities to add/update new images that are optimized and on-brand so you can capitalize on fresh eyes without re-inventing the wheel (or writing a new post).
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Escape the Endless Feedback & Revision Loops.
- The problem: Let’s face it. V1 is rarely ever marked final. You have feedback, your designer makes those changes, and then you see something else (or the plan changes). It’s (unfortunately) pretty standard for assets to require multiple passes, which delays time to market.
- The solution: Canva-ready file delivery is the speed boost teams are raving about. Our top users of this new feature are social media teams, paid media teams, and product marketers. Request a design from your Design Pickle designer, and the file gets delivered in a Canva-ready format, enabling you to take those final tweaks into your own hands and launch your assets sooner!
If you’re ready to take your creative team up a notch, and you’re not sure how fast you should be expecting assets to be ready, take a look at the following guide we’ve compiled to help you gauge your creative turnaround time. This data is based on 2023 industry averages across various types of creative models (agencies, freelancers, and other resources). If your team is already delivering this fast or faster, great! Time to celebrate! If you’re not currently getting these types of turnaround times, we can help.
Are your creative assets being delivered faster than industry average?
Take a look at some of the industry average turnaround times, compared to Design Pickle average design turnaround times. Of course, all estimates are based on complexity and a lot of other factors, and are truly estimates only. Chat with one of our experts to get a more specific time based on your exact brand needs (complexity, types of designs, etc.).
| Graphics, Pro, & Premium | Industry Average Turnaround Times Based on various external source’s reports online |
Estimate for Design Pickle customers (with the lowest tier plans) |
| Graphic Design: Digital
Web Banners, Digital Ads, Social Media Ads & Graphics, Posters, Email Signature Graphics, Blog Headers, Photo Editing, E-commerce Graphics, Logos, etc. |
2-8 days depending on the design (Source) | About 1 business day per 1-2 designs |
| Graphic Design: Printed
Signage, Packaging Labels, Stickers, Flyers/Posters, etc. |
3-8 days depending on the design and color setup for printing (Source) | About 1 business day per 1-2 designs |
| Graphic Design: Multipage (Digital or Printed) or Text Heavy
Brochures, Menus, Booklets, E-books, Infographics, Web Mockups, etc. |
3-10 days depending on the length (Source) | About 1-2 business days per 1-8 pages |
| Graphic Design: Merchandise
T-Shirt Design, Mug Design, Packaging Design, Pattern Design, etc. |
2-8 days depending on the design (Source) | About 1-2 business days per 1-3 designs |
| Graphic Design: Any of the above that are of higher complexity, bulk, or both | Add 3-20 days for complex vector art, custom illustrations, etc. There is a huge range for complex and bulk design. | More than 1 business day
You may ask your designer for an estimate of the project’s completion if you’d like a more accurate or specific estimate. |
| Custom Illustrations:
Depends on illustration style & complexity |
4-12 weeks depending on complexity and scale (Source) | First Draft Delivery: 1-2 business days*
Completed Illustration: (after approval of the draft) 1-2 business days or more, based on complexity *A draft will always be delivered first (in order to confirm the direction of the illustration) before your creative proceeds to render and finalize the request. |
| Presentation Design:
Depends on the number of slides & complexity |
(Source) |
For new, non-templated designs:
About 1-2 business days* per 10 new slide designs For templated slides with a master design ready: About 1-2 business days* for up to 30 slides *Complexity will increase this estimate. Complex presentations requiring customized assets or a high volume of slides (whether new or templated) will increase turnaround time. These will be delivered in batches. |
| Motion Graphics:
Depends on complexity & length |
For 60-90 seconds, animation can take 4-10 weeks. (Source)
For longer, more complex animations, it could take 2-5 months to produce. (Source) |
About 1-5 business days or more
Motion graphics requests usually take 2-7 business days to complete, but more complex videos may require additional time. To ensure we meet your deadlines, submit complex requests with ample lead time and communicate actively with the creative working on your request to establish an accurate final delivery date. The amount of graphics, moving parts, revisions, and overall project complexity can affect the turnaround time, so maintaining an open line of communication with your designer is crucial. |
Is Your Creative Keeping Up?
If the above chart made you sigh with relief, hooray! Your team is speedy and rolling with the times. (Make sure to send them this article with kudos!)
If, on the other hand, you’re left wondering why your deliverables are moving slower than average, or you want to enjoy the speed of delivery that Design Pickle averages for brands of all sizes, talk to one of our experts to learn how we can help you get a smarter and faster creative process! We want to know: what are the slowest areas in your creative process?
We’ve got a lot of tricks up our sleeves to help you move faster! Book a chat today.
