If you’re looking for high quality content, working with a creative agency can seem like a brilliant plan. You’ve got a whole team at your beck and call, working to make your content the best it can possibly be…Well, that’s what the agencies will tell you at least. The reality can be quite different. Between inexperienced staff, limited creative control and pre-paid contracts, that promised “superior content quality” can end up pretty lacklustre.

But what’s the alternative? Where can you turn for guaranteed quality?

Enter Twine. We promise you high quality content every time, without the hassle and bureaucracy of working with an agency. So buckle up, and we’ll tell you exactly how we do it.

High Quality Content: Agencies vs Twine

Why can agencies fail to deliver high quality content?

Agency fees are expensive and are often paid upfront

Agencies often have a complex fee structure with lots of different costs thrown into the mix. Consultancy fees, retainer fees, iteration fees…The list goes on. What’s more, these are often paid upfront and before any work has been started. The end result is that all these fees quickly rack up, or you are locked in to a % fee regardless, sending a small fortune the agency’s way. But for you, there’s no guarantee of quality. Retainer fees are particularly bad for this. Although they technically guarantee the agency’s work over a set period, there’s no real incentive for them to be proactive or efficient – the money will come in either way, in the time designated.

Which creative will be working on your project?

Although you might think that having a big team is useful for a creative project, it can ultimately slow things down. Bureaucracy can run riot with levels of management involved and a lot more meetings the larger an agency gets. As they say, too many cooks spoil the broth! You’ll get a lot of conflicting opinions all jostling for prime position on your project & this lack of a consistent creative vision could seriously impact the quality of the end result, as well as the time taken & number of iterations to get there.

On top of this, you get a huge range of different experience levels working at an agency. This means you could end up with someone a lot less experienced as the main person working on your project – for instance, a content assistant won’t have had a great deal of experience on creative work. You don’t know the full credentials, and that could mean the end result simply doesn’t meet the promise of high quality content, and to get there that means yet more iterations, meetings…

Limited creative control

You know exactly what you want – but when working with an agency, you might not get it. Once they’ve settled on an idea, you just become another dissenting voice throw into the mix if you’re not so keen. Agencies will often assume full creative control, and communication will be limited. If you don’t like the direction they’ve gone in, you’ll have to pay an iteration fee to change it. Again, these are costs that quickly mount up.

The end result is that you get an end product warped beyond recognition from the original brief. And changing it will get very expensive, very fast. This can leave a pretty bitter taste in the mouth.

So, how does Twine deliver high quality content?

Clear fee structure, an agreed price & you don’t pay until you are happy!

We don’t have all those pesky agency fees. You agree a budget with your freelancer, and at the end we take 20% commission. Simple. You won’t be locked into a long-term contract either. You can just get the work you want, when you need it.

Plus, we don’t take payment until you’re 100% satisfied with the quality of the work you’ve received. When you and your freelancer have agreed on files, you’ll pay and then your files will be released to you. This gives you a lot more control, and a lot more scope to make suggestions so that you’re happy with the end result. And if you’re just not happy, you’re covered by our money-back guarantee (but we doubt you’ll need it).

You know exactly who you’re hiring

With Twine, you’ve got loads of ways to make sure you’re hiring a quality freelancer. We offer a professional portfolio that lets you see the full scope of a creative’s work, as well as testimonials and ratings to see how a creative has done on projects in the past. You can handpick the perfect creative for your project, and you know they’ll be the one working on it.

Of course, you’ve probably heard the horror stories about some of the bad work on other freelance marketplaces. But that won’t happen on Twine. We manually vet every pitch that goes through our platform, so that you don’t have to deal with a flood of unsuitable pitches. No empty portfolios, no terrible pitches. Just high quality content from great freelancers, every day.

We also offer a full concierge service. From writing your brief to finding the right freelancer, we can help you get that important project moving. And in the unlikely event you do run into problems with your freelancer, we’re on hand to help out straight away.

Full creative control

With our full suite of project management tools, it’s easy to make your opinion count during a Twine project. Your Manage Briefs page tells you exactly what stage your project’s at, and what your next steps are.

And don’t worry about that important message getting lost with the wrong person forevermore at an agency. Twine’s inbuilt messaging system gives you a direct line of communication with your creative, whilst our file uploader helps you keep track of different versions.

All this means is you can give feedback as you go, meaning you won’t have to pay a million iteration fees to get an end result you’re happy with. You’ve got creative control, and you’ll be listened to by your Twine freelancer.