Why outsource your web development? It’s a question that many agencies and businesses are starting to ask Blueshoon, so we thought we’d share a couple of our favorite reasons why outsourcing your web development needs is a smart choice.
Most of the companies we talk to hire a web developer to complete a specific project and then part ways with that company when the project is complete. Or, they recruit and hire an in-house web developer (or multiple team members) to manage existing projects. But, there’s another way! Outsourcing!
For the last six years, Blueshoon has been the outsourced web development team for Playboy. We’ve maintained numerous websites across Playboy’s extensive brand, redeveloped as needed, troubleshooted (troubleshot?) consistently, and built micro-sites whenever they were needed. Our client list has grown to include additional firms who have discovered the flexibility and benefits of hiring an external web development agency as a long-term partner.
Our clients outsource their web development to us because they want a responsive, affordable team with a wide knowledge base. Instead of relying on a single in-house developer, they get a whole team of developers, which gives them access to a wider range of skills and expertise.The team of web developers that you get access to has a wider range of skills allowing your projects to excel, regardless of the expertise needed. For most of our clients, outsourcing their web development has allowed them to eliminate an expensive in-house position. For others, they’ve made the leap from no web development capabilities to an on-call team to take care of their needs.
For example, one of our clients has regular ongoing marketing efforts tied to their websites in addition to re-development needs (they own multiple restaurant chains). Each month we assist their marketing department with rotating promotions to sell gift cards. Each gift card promo has a landing page built to track visitor traffic and purchases. Recently, in addition to their regular marketing efforts and ongoing website maintenance, we also completed a new website design and development for one of their sites.
The partnerships that we develop with our long-term clients are our favorite part of being their web developers. Our other favorite part is the challenge of keeping up with all of the creative, marketing professionals we work with. The depth and breadth of web development projects that we have created over the years keeps us constantly excited about the next project.
These partnerships also allow us to transfer knowledge from client to client. For example, work we did with Playboy to build their gamified model search website, Playboy’s Miss Social, became working knowledge when we later worked with social marketing agency, Social House, to create Pepsi’s #LiveForNow campaign, a microsite that went live in January. Our work history is full of examples of this type of project-to-project knowledge transfer, and each instance allows us to deliver your website more efficiently. It’s a win-win!
