by Karen Petrauskas | Nov 24, 2017
Any time of year is a busy time for a small business or a budding entrepreneur. With the run up to Christmas it could prove to be an extremely busier time.
A virtual assistant is a perfect pair of helping hands to provide your business an extra aid in times like these.
There are many things a virtual assistant could do for you but it’s best to work out tasks or projects take up your most valuable time and at the same time are tasks that could be passed to someone else to ease the pressure from you.
What could a virtual assistant do for you?
- Emails
- Social media management
- Diary management
- Follow ups and bookings
- Newsletters and email marketing
Check your emails and inbox
How much time do you spend checking back to your inbox and then getting drawn into reading junk mail or responding a bulk of emails that actually all asked the same question?
How much time is taken up by you checking and responding to emails that could be used much more wisely and adding value to your business?
Having a virtual assistant check your emails throughout the day will ease this pressure from you. They can alert and forward you emails that they are unable to respond to without your guidance (perhaps in time they will be able to know how you like your emails done) and send them to you at set intervals during the day, as to not disturb you.
If you spend a little time at the beginning with your virtual assistant, they can set up some template responses so they know how to respond to certain types of emails and not have to bother you.
Social media management
This is often a very time-consuming task for one small business owner, and a task that gets forgotten or left behind when there’s not much time to allocate. This can be detrimental to your business growth as online marketing is a definite necessity if you’re wanting to see your business grown and fit with competition.
If you’re worried about someone taking on this task as you believe that you have the business ‘voice’ and are unsure on the tone that a VA would use, spend time with them initially making notes on how you’d like it to run. A virtual assistant who specialises in social media management is a very valuable tool as they would have gained the knowledge and kept up to date with trends and the latest news…. Social media moves very quickly as is an ever growing market.
You could agree on a schedule that happens daily, agree on the platforms that are to be used and ensure that you’re happy with the content that is being used… But learn to let go and let an expert take this task from you.
You will be amazed at how much time is given back to you by not having this task to think about!
Diary Management
Imagine the scenario – you’ve come to work Monday morning and you know you’ve got a busy week ahead. A quick call or email with your virtual assistant and they could give you a running of order how you are seeing, what calls you’ve got to make and how your day is looking. Simple. No need for you to route through your emails trying to find the address of where you’re meeting for lunch. No need to spend time sifting through text messages to find the number of the new contact you’ve got to ring at 2pm… it’s all there in an email for you.
This process could be done on a daily or weekly basis if you had a VA to hand.
Follow ups and Bookings
Following on from the many emails and calls you get on a weekly basis, your virtual assistant could be scheduling new meetings or following up on enquiries that you’ve received. If you’re a small business owner, you won’t have time for everything. Small tasks like this are easy to pass over. You have the control when all details are passed back to you and you can see what meetings have been booked or who needs an extra phonecall to keep them sweet. But having that first step of the process taken away from you will free up a lot of time.
Email / marketing newsletters
You have a list of customers and potential customers, you have a list of people that have contacted you through social media or general enquirers … So use this list to reach out to deliver more sales.
You know it’s a task that should be done regularly and one that often shows good results – but not having the time pushes this important task to one side. Time for a VA to step in and manage this for you!
Newsletters can be designed, templates made for ongoing communications and then various content added on a monthly or quarterly basis to engage with those potential new sales.
You could ask a VA to set up a sales funnel for you so when someone makes an enquiry, an automatic email is sent to them which is then followed by further emails down the line to keep their interest.
Don’t’ try and do everything yourself. Small businesses or entrepreneurs often struggle with time management and become stressed or worn out from trying to do too much themselves.
All these tasks are jobs that a virtual assistant could do for you.
Here at KJP Creative we offer structured packages to make the process swift, easy and affordable. Pay for the time you need an assistant – that’s all!
If you’d like to find our more, get in touch for a free consultation.
by Karen Petrauskas | Nov 10, 2017
Whatever type of industry you are in, a large majority of your customers are going to be on social media – so that’s where you need to be too if you are wanting to grow your business.
Many businesses set up Facebook pages or open a Twitter account but are then not sure of how to move forward in using these effectively for their business. This is where the help of a social media manager or agency comes in.
As with any part of your business, for it to be successful, it needs to be done correctly. Skipping parts of a project to make it easier often comes with a price. This is just the same for your marketing budget and strategy and online marketing is an important part of this.
How can social media benefit your business?
A huge amount of people use one or more social media networks.
- Facebook: 2.07 billion users
- Twitter: 330 million users
- Instagram: 100 million users
- LinkedIn: 500 million users
These figures speak for themselves and can’t be ignored when it comes to your marketing strategy! Social media has so many benefits when reaching out to potential clients and creating solutions for the problems they are trying to solve, for reaching out to people who are looking for YOUR product, for reaching out to people who want YOUR services. Your business needs to be put in the forefront of people’s minds and with the fast-paced environment that we live in, being online is the best way to achieve that.
Which social media platforms should you be using for your business?
Each social media platform has its benefits and are effective in different ways. We believe that being competent in one or two platforms is much more effective than spreading yourself thin and trying to manage too may all in one go. If you’re not sure on what you’re doing you may well end up giving a bad impression of your business rather than the positive vibe that you intended to, meaning that your efforts have a negative effect on your business growth.
Facebook
Facebook is a great way to be able to offer excellent customer service along with personalised 1-2-1 interaction with your customers or potential clients in a professional manner. You’re able to show the human behind the online screen where engagement can take place and people can ask questions or know that you are interested in what they are looking for.
With Facebook being the biggest social media network, with over 2 billion users worldwide, it certainly is not a platform that you want to miss! People are searching and researching their chosen products all day long and often they will seek out a Facebook page to see what kind of service you are offering and if it is engaging for them.
There are over 50 million businesses who have a Facebook business page and nearly one third of Facebook users engage with brands regularly. That’s a large number of people that could be engaging with your business if you gave it the proper chances!
Twitter
Twitter is used more for informational purposes and to give opinions and share views. It moves very quickly and to be effective on Twitter you must keep up with the pace. You could place the same 5 posts throughout a day and reach a different audience each time. People want ‘now’ when it comes to Twitter and like to jump on top of trends and find the latest news or happenings.
Businesses use Twitter to inform people about their services which then links the reader to their website or product. The business needs to capture a reader with only a few characters and therefore copy writing needs to be a skill to make it engaging.
With visuals being a big part of social media – the more visuals you use, the better. GIFs and short videos are becoming even more popular and this is definitely something that you should consider if you’re looking to stand out from the crowd.
Instagram
Businesses are presented with a real opportunity when it comes to Instagram to be able to market their product to a more targeted and unique audience. Instagram is a way to get creative. Focus on what your branding is about rather than your actual products. You are able to create an image that highlights your business in a different light and use hashtags and keywords to attract the exact audience you want to engage with.
Choose hashtags that relate to your niche and your location. You don’t want to go mad with hashtags but you want your images to be noticed. Choose one that is unique to your business which people can use when they mention your product or company. If you’re running a campaign, create a hashtag that you can use throughout this time and will get noticed across the board.
Use the Instagram Stories function to be able to show a human side of the business. These stories will be visible for 24 hours and then disappear! (although you can save them so you can use them again at a later date). These stores can capture behind-the-scenes content. You can use these to experiment and try out new ideas – knowing they can be deleted or that they will disappear anyway.
Tag in other accounts for people to notice you, i.e. if you’re looking to work with influencer marketing. Not everyone monitors the hashtags on social media so tagging a collaborator is a good way to get noticed.
Conclusion
Whichever platform you decide to work with, ensure that they are presented well and are appealing for the audience you are targeting. Another tip is to ensure that all your company information and bios are up to date and are clearly branded to show continuity from your website through to your social media networks.
KJP Creative is here to help at the click of a button for anyone wanting any further advice or would like to move forward in working with a social media manager. Knowing that your social media is in good hands is one weight taken away from you. If you want to grow your business, focus on the parts of your business that you enjoy doing – and leave the rest to the experts!
Get in touch today for your FREE consultation.
