|
| 1. Website Design |
In today's competitive marketplace, having a professional website is expected in most lines of business and not having one will more often than not negatively impact your company.
Website Design is one of the most outsourced tasks. Why would you want to spend endless hours trying to learn how to create a website yourself? Why not focus on your business instead and let an expert provider create a professionally-made website that meets your needs?
Once you review the quotes (bids) and accept one, you could have a new website up and running in weeks and sometimes in days! Always ask to see samples of previous work from the provider to ensure that you are happy with their skills and style. |
|
|
Get a professionally-designed website >> |
Back to top |
|
| 2. E-commerce Website |
In recent years, online purchasing (e-commerce) has been increasing at a very steep rate and is projected to continue to do so in the years to come. With e-commerce you can even reach customers internationally while significantly reducing your costs.
Depending on the level of complexity you require, providers can do anything from installing shopping cart tools and setting up online payments (e.g. credit cards or PayPal) to more complex back-end solutions like inventory tracking and order management systems. |
|
|
Start selling your products/services online >> |
Back to top |
|
| 3. Search Engine Optimisation & Search Engine Marketing |
Simply having a website is not enough to attract new customers. Being able to rank high in search engines is a critical success factor for your website. The field and techniques of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) are evolving all the time and if you want your website to have high rankings in competitive search engines like Google you will need the services of an SEO specialist.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is also a highly-specialised area and can prove very time-consuming and costly if you do not have the necessary skills. SEM experts can help you create effective affiliate programmes, manage your Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, find sites for you to place your banners on and ensure that your visitors are converting into sales. |
|
|
Get an SEO/SEM specialist to assist you with web marketing >> |
Back to top |
|
| 4. Database Development |
Databases can be a great asset to your business, if set-up correctly. Good databases can effectively manage your data, allow different permissions to different users (e.g. you and your customers) and let you create real-time reports to provide you with insights and key performance metrics about your business.
A database expect can advise you on what type of database you need for your current and future business needs and can set up the database in the right way to ensure that your data is correctly captured and organised. |
|
|
Develop a database to manage your data >> |
Back to top |
|
| 5. Flash |
Flash is a great tool that allows you to make your website more engaging by adding motion, sound and interactive features. If used effectively, it can really help your website get your message across to prospective buyers/clients and promote your products and services in innovative ways.
Flash designers can create product demonstrations, interactive presentations, animated banner ads and other innovative applications (e.g. viral games) to help boost your business. |
|
|
Make your website more interactive and engaging >> |
Back to top |
|
| 6. Blogs |
Creating a customized blog can really help you engage and expand your audience, keep them updated with your latest company news and make them come back to your site more often.
There are plenty of free blogging applications out there, but an expert can help you create a customized blog with all the features you need with your corporate identity and style. Blogging experts can also set up permalinks for you so that your blog is easier to find on search engines, create contact forms, sitemaps and install any other features you might need.
Apart from the technical elements, you might also want to employ the services of an expert blogger that can write captivating, quality content for your blog; content quality is obviously very important and will ultimately determine how many people subscribe to your blog. |
|
|
Get a custom-designed blog >> |
Back to top |
|
| 7. Simple Website |
The type of business you run will ultimately determine how complex your website should be, but even the simple-looking websites can be tricky to set up correctly.
Small businesses often make the mistake of trying to create a website in-house or asking a friend or relative with basic skills to do it which results in unprofessional and amateur-looking websites.
Projecting such an image will undoubtedly reflect badly on your products or services; why not leave the web design to a skilled provider that can create a professional, well-designed yet simple site for your company at a very reasonable cost?
If you have an old website, you might always benefit from commissioning an expert to re-vamp the design of the site and create a strong online presence for your business. |
|
|
Design a new website or revamp your existing website >> |
Back to top |
|
| 8. Enterprise Systems |
Enterprise Systems enable companies of all sizes to effectively share data across the different business functions (e.g. sales, marketing etc) and integrate their business processes on a single technology platform.
Implementing and managing an effective Enterprise System requires a very specific set of skills and experience that normally come at a high cost. By outsourcing this work to be done remotely by an experienced provider you can manage your Enterprise Systems at a fraction of the cost. |
|
|
Customise and Manage your Enterprise System >> |
Back to top |
|
| 9. Social Networking Applications |
| Social Networking Applications can drive visitors to your website and promote your products/services to large international audiences. Sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn (to name a few) can become effective marketing avenues for your business by implementing the right applications and tools. |
|
|
Develop a social networking application >> |
Back to top |
|
| 10. Software Design |
Need a custom software application for your business, tailored to fit your needs? Have a great idea but not the skills to implement it?
An experienced programmer will develop a custom, bespoke application according to your specifications/needs and even make sure that it works with any other existing applications that you might be using already. |
|
|
Design a custom software application >> |
Back to top |
|
| 11. HTML Emails |
Are you still sending text emails to your clients? Consider hiring a designer to create an email template so that you can send HTML emails to your clients/leads with your own branding, text and images that can even link to different pages of your website.
With HTML emails you can even include banners with motion in your emails to advertise your products and services. |
|
|
Send professionally-designed, branded emails >> |
Back to top |
|
|
| 12. Logo Design |
Having a professionally-designed logo that portrays the essence of your business need not cost much. Simply outsource the task to a designer that specialises in logo design and your new logo can be ready within a few days.
Don't forget to ask to see examples of previous logo designs done and agree on how many initial concepts the designer will provide for you to choose from. You might also want to ask/agree how many iterations of your chosen design he/she is willing to make to the chosen design and what formats he will deliver the logo in. You should at least have print and web versions of your logo.
Don't compromise on your logo – it represents your company and you should make sure you are happy with it! |
|
|
Create professionally-designed logos >> |
Back to top |
|
| 13. Business Cards & Stationery |
Want to ensure that you portray a professional image for your business, products and services? Have your business card and stationery designed by an expert – you will be surprised to find out that if you outsource this task it will not cost much and your business will greatly benefit from it.
Like logo designs, don't forget to ask in advance to see previous samples of similar work done to ensure that you like the designer's style before appointing them. |
|
|
Design your business cards and stationery >> |
Back to top |
|
| 14. Product Catalogues |
| Designing an effective product catalogue might sound an easy-enough task, but it can easily prove a very time-consuming exercise for someone without relevant skills. Catalogues must be organised well so that readers can quickly find the products they are looking for and your products must be professionally displayed and described in order to maximise sales. |
|
|
Design your product catalogue >> |
Back to top |
|
| 15. Graphic Design |
Graphic Design is one of the most outsourced areas of work since it requires strong design skills and experience and is often a one-off task, so employing someone in-house is not really an option.
Be it Book Design, Package Design for your products or artwork for your website and/or brochures, outsourcing to a skilled provider will help your business and products stand out. |
|
|
Find an expert Graphic Designer >> |
Back to top |
|
| 16. Photography & Image Editing |
Are you planning on publishing photos on your website, product catalogue or marketing brochures? Need to modify photographs, either to enhance them or to restore them (especially if it's an old damaged photograph)? Want to edit your photos to make them look great and give them that extra 'something'?
Photo-editing is best left to the experts; they will do a far better job than you in a lot less time. Skilled providers will also have excellent knowledge of professional software like Photoshop and will be able to manipulate your images in almost any imaginable way.
And if you require images from other countries/locations, you can even request a photographer based near those locations to take photos for you and send them over so that you don't have to travel there! |
|
|
Have professional photos taken or edit/enhance your existing photos and images >> |
Back to top |
|
| 17. 3D Graphics |
Need to create a realistic, 3 dimensional graphic that can be viewed from every angle? 3D graphics can be extremely convincing and it is often hard to tell whether they are actual photographs or not.
3D graphics can be very effective when trying to depict products online or on brochures and similarly buildings or rooms? They are used extensively by architects and estate agents, as well as anyone who is creating or selling products.
3D graphics are almost always outsourced; they require expert skills, experience and expensive and complex software. Luckily, by outsourcing to a 3D graphic designer you do not have to worry about all that!
|
|
|
Create a realistic 3D graphic >> |
Back to top |
|
| 18. Animation |
Bring your website, presentation, advert or product demo to life by creating an effective animation. Animations can be either in 2D or 3D (although you will find that more often than not 3D animations will be pricier) and sky is really the limit on what can be achieved.
Experienced animators have excellent modelling skills and use specialised software to create the animation sequences that you require. If your message can be better conveyed by movement, consider commissioning an expert to create an animation to make it more interesting and effective. |
|
|
Bring your content to life with motion >> |
Back to top |
|
| 19. Banners |
Advertising your products and services on other websites by using banners can drive a large number of leads to your website and build your brand.
Banner ad design is both an art and a science. Different sites will have different banner specifications (both in format and in dimensions) and banners have to be able to quickly grab the attention of the user and convey the key messages, with a strong call to action.
Outsourcing banner design to an experienced professional will save you money – more effective banners will mean a higher click-through rate and more sales for your business. |
|
|
Get effective web banners >> |
Back to top |
|
| 20. Illustrations |
| Need creative illustrations to make your product catalogues, marketing brochures or website stand out? A provider with artistic/drawing skills can create outstanding illustrations/cartoons based on your ideas, photos or products and add character to your print or web materials. |
|
|
Get creative illustrations or cartoons >> |
Back to top |
|
|
| 21. Telesales & Telemarketing |
While contacting customers by phone to sell products or services might be effective in your line of business, setting up a call centre is not an easy or cheap task. An experienced telemarketer can help you create calling scripts, track leads, source contact data and maximize sales by adapting the scripts accordingly.
Outsourcing to freelance telemarketers is a cost-effective way of selling by phone and you can even commission different people in different countries, if you require them to speak different languages. Furthermore, most telemarketers will accept to work on a commission basis, thus minimizing your risk. |
|
|
Set up a telesales/telemarketing campaign >> |
Back to top |
|
| 22. Lead Generation |
| Every business needs to find new prospective clients; there is no single way of generating leads for your business. A skilled marketer/sales provider will be able to determine which methods will work best for you to find valid leads for your business: researching your industry, using affiliates to drive traffic to your site, using different micro-sites to collect data or even buying data from appropriate sources. |
|
|
Generate business leads for your business >> |
Back to top |
|
| 23. Public Relations (PR) |
Public Relations (PR) can be one of the most quick and effective ways of making your business known. Unlike advertising, a good PR campaign can reach thousands of prospective customers for no cost!
PR professionals can help you formulate your media strategy, write effective press releases, use distribution tools to send your press releases to journalists, arrange media interviews and prepare you for them and help you get your business featured in newspaper/magazine articles. |
|
|
Create an effective PR campaign >> |
Back to top |
|
| 24. Sales Materials |
Do you have the necessary skills to produce clear, concise sales materials that instantly grab the attention of the reader? Are you brochures, letters and landing pages as effective as they can be?
One of the most common mistakes behind poor sales is to have non-engaging sales materials which do not do a good job at explaining the product/service benefits. Other mistakes include no clear call to action and dull text that does not resonate well with the reader.
Hiring a skilled writer with sales experience is the way forward, especially if you are not sure about your writing skills – it's definitely an investment that will pay for itself! |
|
|
Get engaging sales materials written >> |
Back to top |
|
| 25. Bulk Mailing |
In some lines of business, direct mailing campaigns can be still a very effective form of marketing. Direct mailing is generally considered a relatively expensive form of marketing, so it's important to get it right.
An expert provider with the necessary skills/experience can help you track the results, refine your materials, find the right data and even use expensive, specialized mailing equipment to automate the process; all of which can be done remotely.
Surely there are more beneficial ways of spending your valuable time at work than folding 1000s of letters and sealing envelopes! |
|
|
Start an efficient bulk mailing campaign >> |
Back to top |
|
|
| 26. Bookkeeping |
Most efficient small businesses outsource their bookkeeping so that they can focus on their core business; and it can even all be done remotely!
Finding an experienced bookkeeper to outsource to will save you both time and money and at the same time, will use the right tools to ensure that all your bookkeeping operations (invoices, sales, debtors, creditors) are stored and organised in the proper way.
Any with today's web-based tools, you will be able to access your financial reports, transactions and data from anywhere. |
|
|
Outsource your bookkeeping to an expert >> |
Back to top |
|
| 27. Accounting |
Accounting is almost always an outsourced function in a small business. An experienced/qualified accountant will ensure that your financials are kept in order and will be able to offer advice and guidance on any financial/accounting matters.
Using an accountant is also essential, if you need to produce audited accounts each year; having messy accounts will make the audit an expensive process since the auditors will need to spend a lot more time trying to find their ways through the financials. |
|
|
Get a professional accountant >> |
Back to top |
|
| 28. Data Entry |
Do you have large amounts of data to enter into a spreadsheet, document or system? Old customer paper records, customer surveys that need to be typed in; the list is endless.
Data entry can be extremely time-consuming, especially if you are not a fast typist. Data entry clerks can take care of your requirements efficiently and complete your project very fast, so that you and your staff do not have to spend valuable time typing. |
|
|
Outsource my data entry to an expert >> |
Back to top |
|
| 29. Market Research |
Thinking of launching a new product or service? Before jumping in it's important to understand the market; who your future customers will be, any competitors that exist and where the gap in the market lies.
Market research (as well as other types of research) require specific skills and can be very time-consuming, especially in sectors where information is not readily available and needs to be compiled from a variety of sources.
Why not outsource the task to an expert provider who will research your market and provide you with the data you need in order to make key strategic decisions about your business? |
|
|
Research your target market >> |
Back to top |
|
| 30. Transcription |
Transcriptions are a very commonly outsourced task. Just send your audio or video file (or tape!) of an interview, meeting, performance, speech or even call to a transcriber and they will turn in into text by typing it into a Word (or other) document and email it right back to you.
Transcriptions are commonly used when you need to archive information or even sometimes when you simply cannot make out everything in a low quality recording.
Transcriptions can even be combined with translations, meaning that you can have a recording in a different language transcribed to your language. |
|
|
Get an audio/video recording transcribed >> |
Back to top |
|
| 31. Virtual Assistance |
Administrative tasks can take up a big part of your day and unfortunately, they only tend to get more as your business grows bigger. It soon becomes clear that in order to be able to focus on growing your business, you will need some help to deal with your administrative workload.
Why start hiring employees, when you can easily outsource your admin work to a virtual assistant? You will only need to pay for the hours you need and will most probably be able to hire a more experienced assistant that you could afford to employ fulltime. |
|
|
Reduce your admin workload >> |
Back to top |
|
| 32. Answering services |
Wish you would never miss a call from a prospective client? Or that you would not waste time answering cold calls? Outsourcing call answering to a remote provider will ensure that your business never misses a call and you
Forwarding your calls to a provider that offers an answering service is easy and does not cost much. Your calls will simply be answered by the remote operator who will answer the phone as per your instructions, take messages, forward important calls to you or even answer common, basic questions on your behalf.
Answering services are more often than not coupled with virtual assistance – why not have the same person that answer the phone for you also schedule your appointments, send/receive emails or faxes and even process orders for you. |
|
|
Never miss another call >> |
Back to top |
|
| 33. Legal |
For most business, employing a lawyer is not an option and the fees of large law firms are simply prohibitive. Fortunately, outsourcing legal work on a 'need-to' basis to specialists can solve most legal problems of small business at a very reasonable cost.
Legal experts can provider advice and services around commercial agreements, contracts, copyrights and trademarks, non-disclosure agreements, company incorporations and even general business and tax advice.
If you are in doubt, don't take a chance – hire a legal expert to provide advice and make sure your interests and business assets are properly protected. Just remember that legislation can vary from country to country so make sure to hire an appropriately-qualified person for your region. |
|
|
Get legal help >> |
Back to top |
|
| 34. Tax Returns |
Preparing tax returns is a great example of a service that can be outsourced and be done remotely, at a significantly lower cost than your local accountant.
Virtual providers can handle your business tax returns (and even your personal ones) and can provide the same level of service and tax advice than a local provider could. |
|
|
Get your tax returns done >> |
Back to top |
|
|
| 35. Article Writing |
Well-written articles can do wonders for your website/business. Putting up professionally written articles with great content on your website will not only keep your site visitors engaged and informed but will also help boost your search engine rankings significantly. 'Content is king' as many put it today!
Once your articles are written, you can even upload them on free article distribution websites and attract a much bigger audience of potential customers.
Freelance writers can write articles according to your brief, using engaging style and language to ensure maximum effect and benefit for your business. Writers usually are also specialists in certain fields, so even if you don't have all the facts they can write high-quality articles on the topic you are interested in.
Just make sure you have an agreement in place to ensure that you own the copyright for the work and can use/publish freely (even under your name!). |
|
|
Create engaging articles for your website/business >> |
Back to top |
|
| 36. Copywriting |
Producing effective, powerful messages is a real skill; get it right, and your business will reap the benefits!
A skilled copywriter can increase the effectiveness of your written communication with your customers; website content, direct mail, product catalogues, promotional emails, print ads, taglines – the list is endless!
Improving your marketing and sales material will have a direct effect to your bottom line, so commissioning an expert copywriter is money well-spent! |
|
|
Create effective written communications >> |
Back to top |
|
| 37. Translation |
Want to sell your products and services in new markets? To be successful, you will almost certainly need to have your marketing materials translated in the local language.
Translating documents, websites, marketing brochures and other materials to another language can be an easy and inexpensive process and unless you are an expert, a skilled provider will almost certainly do a better job than. There are skilled providers globally available that can translate your documents to and from any language and even providers specialising in various types of technical translation. |
|
|
Get your documents translated >> |
Back to top |
|
| 38. Press Releases |
Press releases can result in great, free coverage for your products or services. This is certainly no secret, and journalists get bombarded daily with 1000s of press releases about new products, services and other significant company news.
Press releases need to be written in the right style in order to stand a chance of being chosen by any major media. Poorly written press releases will be quickly discarded and your business will be off the radar of the journalists you are trying to reach.
Outsourcing the writing of your press releases to a skilled, experienced writer can work wonders for your PR campaign and give you the publicity you are after. |
|
|
Get your press releases written >> |
Back to top |
|
| 39. Web Content |
There is nothing more disappointing than a website or company blog with poorly-written, non-engaging content. Actually there is – a website with hardly any content! Either mistake will portray a poor image of your business and will certainly hurt your sales.
If you have a website or blog, you need to have the right content on written in engaging language and style. Adding content like relevant articles to your site will boost your website's search engine results (giving you free exposure) while having professionally written product descriptions will boost your sales.
The better the content on your website, the more potential customers it will attract and you will not look back on getting that skilled writer to produce your content. |
|
|
Create engaging web content and boost your sales >> |
Back to top |
|
| 40. Journalism |
Looking to come up with new angles to promote your business? Need ideas for boosting your PR campaign? Need help in producing a newsworthy story, article or even a video documentary?
A skilled freelance journalist can help you with all the above and more. Even if you just need advice on your PR campaign, journalists can provide useful insights and 'insider's knowledge' and can also have the right connections in the industry to help your business. |
|
|
Find a journalist to boost your PR campaign >> |
Back to top |
|