Marketing is a crucial component of business success because it helps you find and build an audience for your products and services. For the past decade, more businesses have been outsourcing their marketing programs in order to streamline budgets without compromising effectiveness. One option you should consider is to expand your market reach using virtual assistants.
Marketing has evolved over the last several decades. There are many tools, techniques and processes that you can use to market and promote your business. But these tools will not yield productive results if you don’t have the experience and knowledge to optimize their full capabilities correctly.
You can easily find virtual assistants who have spent years honing their skills in the marketing field. Some have managed projects that needed digital marketing services. Some have run social media marketing campaigns for different businesses. Some have received certification or advanced training in specialized services such as SEO, website design and content marketing.
As the business owner, your approach should be to capitalize on their experience and expertise on designing, planning and implementing marketing campaigns. In other words, leave it to the experts!
Here are 8 ways on how virtual assistants can expand your market reach:
- Design a Marketing Campaign
You cannot expect your marketing program to reap success if it has no form, structure or strategy. A smart Virtual Assistant with digital marketing experience can help design a marketing campaign that fits your business.
The campaign will be based on your branding strategy. Do you have an idea of what your brand is all about? If not, get working on it right away with the VA.
Your brand will get the ball rolling. It will determine your value proposition, design elements, messaging, content and every other component that will be used for your campaign.
- Build a Mobile Responsive Website
Does your business have a website? If yes, is it mobile responsive? If no, then you should look for a VA who can build a mobile responsive website for you.
At a time where mobile technology has asserted the greatest influence on consumers and business, having a website is no longer an option. A website is an absolute necessity if you want your business to remain competitive and relevant in the industry.
There are virtual assistants who can build websites that are mobile responsive, fast and easy to download, accessible by multi- browsers, functional and of course, aesthetically pleasing to visitors.
- Optimize Your Pages
If you want your Internet marketing strategies to bring more people to your website, you must optimize its pages. This is where you will need a VA with a background in SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
A big part of SEO is the strategic use of keywords. These are words and phrases that are commonly used to launch a search query. If your Web Designer is not proficient in SEO, hire a VA who does.
Your SEO VA can work with the web designer to research keywords and have these integrated in the title, descriptive and meta tags. Keywords should also be used to create web copy.
- Create Engaging Content
We now spend 6 hours a day online. 77% of the time online is spent reading content. So if you want more people to know about your business, you should frequently create and publish engaging content.
You can find virtual assistants who are great in producing relevant, usable and original content. They are not just wonderful and competent writers. They also know how to use the most popular keywords to help your content get found on the Internet.
Content is not limited to blogs and articles. You should also consider videos and podcasts. There are virtual assistants who can help you make videos, set up broadcast platforms and promote them in the Internet.
- Harness the Power of Social Media
With its high rate of activity and sheer volume of users, social media has become a powerful force in Internet marketing.
You can use social media to distribute content, gain followers, enhance your reputation as a valuable resource, develop your brand and generate leads for your website.
But effective social media marketing needs thoughtful planning, consistency in implementation and a strict adherence to a posting schedule. A Virtual Assistant can organize all the content for distribution and make sure these are all posted as scheduled.
- Reach Out and Expand Your Network
You should never stop networking. It is important for finding clients, influencers and prospective members of your value chain.
But networking takes time and planning. You shouldn’t just connect with anyone for the sake of expanding your community. You should connect with people who can help you grow your business.
LinkedIn is a great platform for making professional connections. A VA can set the search parameters and mine through the list of LinkedIn members. She can send a customized invitation to those who meet your qualifications.
- Utilize E-mail Marketing
In time, your Internet marketing efforts will build a considerable data base of leads with e-mail addresses.
E-mail marketing is a wonderful tool for establishing solid relationships with your followers. It is one of the most effective methods of converting leads into sales. In fact, it has a higher conversion rate than social media.
Your Virtual Assistant can distribute newsletters, video material and other types of content to all of these e-mail addresses on a monthly basis.
- Integrate Traditional Marketing Strategies
Although Internet marketing has been proven to be more effective than traditional marketing methods, you can still use some of its techniques to strengthen your campaign.
A VA can use your leads to create a data base of followers who live within your area. You can ask the VA to set you up for personalized meetings or to invite them to a conference or a presentation of your business.
A VA can also create a “Meet Up” event where you can personally connect with people in your industry to share ideas and establish stronger relationships.
Why You Should Outsource Marketing to Virtual Assistants
You always have the option of setting up your own in-house marketing team. This gives you the advantage of close collaboration. However, it is very expensive to maintain a marketing department.
You have to pay out salaries and benefits; incur additional expenses for Internet bandwidth, telephone bills and utilities. By outsourcing marketing to virtual assistants, you can significantly reduce the budget because you only pay for the hours worked and you are not obligated to pay benefits.
Virtual assistants, whether as individual contractors or agency- based, will not affect your monthly budget because they are responsible for their own costs of business. They are also well- experienced and highly proficient in using different marketing tools and strategies.
Lastly, by delegating your marketing to virtual assistants, you will have more time to focus on the key areas of your business. This will increase the level of productivity and improve the overall experience of incoming customers.