Today, more than 3 in 4 businesses are investing in content marketing. Marketers are working tirelessly to pump out content that is not only SEO friendly and valuable to the customer but also highly visual and beautifully designed.

Take a moment to scroll through your Twitter feed, Facebook timeline or favourite blog, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Each is probably all full of image-rich content.

The reason? Content marketing is proven to generate three times as many leads as traditional marketing, while visual posts result in 650% more engagement than the text-only alternative. While this is good for your inbound marketing strategy, these demands also create more work and place a premium on producing this professional content.

And if you are working for a growing business, chances are you don’t have a marketing executive or a big budget to take care of your company’s creatives needs. You may even be trying to find the time to do this yourself while running the rest of the business.

The good news is there’s an alternative. Enlisting freelance experts to take care of creating top-notch visual content for you will free up your time and keep the inbound leads flooding in. So if you’re facing any of the following limitations, perhaps it’s time to think outside the office.

1. You’re strapped for resources

Your company is growing fast, and there’s consistently too much work for your in-house design team to handle. Or you may not have an in-house design team at all. In either scenario, delegating projects to professionals outside of your in-house team will keep things moving without detracting your full-time staff’s attention from their main work.

It also means you can increase capacity exponentially at a moment’s notice – perfect for when you need to meet a tight deadline on short notice.

2. You’re suffering from skills gaps

In need of specialised skills you don’t have in house such as video production, infographic design or 3D animation? Talented freelancers can take on some of your design work, offering a fresh perspective and the exact skills you need on a flexible basis. On average, it only takes three days to find and engage a freelancer online so adding valuable new skills to your team won’t take the traditional weeks and/or months.

3. You’re working to a tight budget

Sometimes it’s not feasible to hire a full-time designer. Working with a freelance designer to supplement your core team is a great alternative. Embracing the hybrid team model will allow you to tap into skills as needed for specific projects without the overhead costs of a traditional employee.

To learn more about when and how to delegate your design needs as well as how to manage a freelance team, download The Fast Lane to Great Design: The Modern Marketer’s Guide to Hiring Freelance Designers, a free ebook from Upwork and HubSpot.