Your 2023 Guide to Hiring a Virtual Marketing Assistant

Whether you are an entrepreneur, a small business owner, or a marketing leader, a suboptimal digital marketing strategy can be your Achilles’ heel. According to the B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, 86% of marketers have increased their brand awareness by leveraging one or more digital marketing channels. 

However, when you are just starting out or cash-strapped, the prospect of recruiting an army of marketing mavericks can seem daunting. In these circumstances, hiring a talented virtual marketing assistant to manage your end-to-end online marketing needs can be your best bet.

In this blog, we spill the tea on how to hire the best virtual marketing assistant for your company and leverage them to scale your business. 

A virtual marketing assistant is a remote professional who can shoulder the burden of your complete digital marketing requirements. These professionals have expertise across multiple facets of digital marketing- be it website management, SEO, or content creation. You can hire them at subsidized rates and they are available to work your schedule. 

But the first step is to determine if you really need a marketing virtual assistant. Let’s find out!

Creating your brand identity from scratch is an uphill battle. With a laundry list of critical marketing priorities, trying to do it all can often have a catastrophic impact on your bottom line.

Like most functions, digital marketing runs on incessant coordination between various internal and external stakeholders. Although crucial and unavoidable, the daily grind can leave you too exhausted to focus on mission-critical tasks.

According to the latest research, companies who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to experience a YoY increase in ROI. However, the creative process demands frequent periods of downtime. Digital marketers often struggle with ever-growing to-do lists that can block the creative flow.

Today’s dynamic marketing trends and social media algorithms can keep you on your toes. To stay relevant, you must keep pace with the latest marketing tools and technology. This creates the pressure to constantly upskill yourself whilst balancing everyday marketing commitments.

If you are struggling with any of these factors, you might want to start looking for a virtual marketing assistant.

From basic clerical work to optimizing your web experience,  a marketing virtual assistant can perform an array of tasks. When exploring hiring options, you can either look for someone adept at a few critical marketing skills or someone who can handle your end-to-end marketing needs.

Back-end chores are often the most repetitive and hence sought-after tasks you can outsource to marketing virtual assistants. Delegating these can help you get back hours in your day and find time for what’s more urgent.

• Prepare presentations, reports, templates, etc.
• Liaise with stakeholders like graphic designers, photo editors, and software developers
• Transcribe meetings and calls
• Data entry and management
• Document conversion
• CRM assistance
• Keep track of marketing deadlines 
• Manage email responses and calendar
• Schedule appointments and reminders
• Miscellaneous marketing support

It is not unusual to seek complete control over your marketing strategy and its execution. However, there are many ways a virtual assistant can help you conceptualize your plan and accomplish your goals faster.

• Competitive analysis
• Study industry trends
• Target market research
• Manage marketing budget
• Analyze ROI
• Track and implement the latest marketing tools

Content marketing has increasingly become the most crucial aspect of every digital marketer’s agenda. By 2026, global content marketing revenue is expected to reach USD 137 billion dollars, as illustrated in the graph below. 

Source: Statista

Virtual assistants with a background in content creation and marketing can help you with a series of tasks to stay ahead of the curve.

• Content research based on the target market and industry
• Plan content calendar
• Create and manage content for websites, blogs, ebooks, guides, newsletters, social media posts, videos, etc.
• Content editing and proofreading
• Manage CMS platforms

The race to the top of the SERPs is the biggest conundrum for any company with an online presence. This is mostly because ranking at the top for your target keywords is a tried and tested method to generate a steady stream of traffic and increase business visibility. 

Most qualified virtual SEO assistants can help you with the basics like keyword research, SEO fixes, pay-per-click management, and analyzing metrics like backlinks, page views, bounce rates, etc.

As of this year, there are 4.9 billion social media users worldwide and this number is projected to increase to 5.85 billion by 2027. This highlights how important it is to optimize your brand's social media presence.

But, building brand recognition and generating leads via social media channels involves a number of moving pieces. Hiring a social media marketing assistant will relieve you of the groundwork so you can focus more on nurturing client relationships. Your virtual assistant can help -

• Develop, edit, publish, and share content on various social channels
• Manage your social media calendar
• Managing and execute social media campaigns
• Build your social media visibility with page optimization techniques on various social media and search networks
• Research and configure various social media software and platforms
• Address customer queries on social platforms
• Track social media metrics

Also Read: What You Need to Know About Social Media Virtual Assistants

Regularly updating and optimizing your website is a sure shot way of converting those web visits into paying customers. Yet it requires detailed research and technical know-how which can be outsourced to a virtual marketing assistant.

• Website review and analysis
• Web hosting
• Website helpdesk
• Webpage tweaking
• Updating plugins
• Designing forms, landing pages, etc.

Demand generation relies on the symbiotic relationship between sales and marketing. A talented marketing virtual assistant can act as a crucial resource to help your sales team reach its quota.

• Nurture web visits into paying customers with targeted content 
• Optimize and manage email marketing campaigns
• Engage with relevant groups on LinkedIn
• Connect with Influencers for affiliate marketing

Now that we have clarified what to look for in your virtual marketing assistant, let’s explore the benefits of choosing a remote marketing assistant over an in-house employee.

Most business owners and marketing managers wear too many hats, often leading to burnout and decreased overall efficiency. A virtual marketing assistant can handle the most mundane and repetitive tasks. You now have more bandwidth to invest in marketing strategy, connecting with customers, and driving growth.

When running a small business, it becomes difficult to compete with the service quality offered by huge MNCs with larger teams, team leads, and quality analysts. However, when you plan to outsource your VA from a company like Office Beacon, you get team leads, QA support, IT support and HR Support. You also get regular updates n your VAs progress and chances to share feedback.

A competent digital marketer comes with in-depth domain knowledge like SEO expertise or familiarity with the latest marketing tools. If you opt for full-time marketing professionals with premium skill sets, you would end up shelling out big bucks. Reliable outsourcing partners like Office Beacon offer experienced virtual marketing assistants with domain expertise at affordable prices.

Working with virtual assistants ensures that your business does not face downtime, even during weekends or holidays. You can hire digital marketing assistants from around the world who can work based on your schedule. Moreover, allocating resources across multiple time zones comes in handy when catering to a global audience.

Along with hefty salaries, hiring a full-fledged in-house team incurs additional expenses. You end up paying for employee benefits, insurance coverage, transportation allowance, food coupons, office supplies, and so on. Whereas virtual assistants come at a flat fee and can be charged per project or by the number of hours.

A full-time digital marketing team imposes high costs and time commitments. On the other hand managing remote resources or freelancers located thousands of miles away comes with certain uncertainties. Partnering with legacy virtual assistant providers like Office Beacon eliminates the hassles of hiring, onboarding, and managing your remote staff.

In the last section, we took you through an exhaustive list of benefits a virtual marketing assistant can bring to the table. Curious about the process? Let’s break it down for you.

The first step is to conduct an audit and identify the daily time sinkers that prevent you from achieving your marketing KPIs. Analyze and create a list of -

• The most time-consuming tasks, like content writing and customer support
• Technical tasks that you don’t prefer or lack the skills for, such as SEO, graphic designing, web development, etc.
• Training material like video tutorials for navigating your CRM, customer response scripts, and so on.

Drafting an accurate job description is key to hiring the most suitable candidate for your virtual marketing needs. Include your company intro and information about your products/services, the level of education required, and a list of skills you want the marketing VA to possess. 

There are two predominant methods to find your virtual marketing assistant. You can go old school and post your requirement on an online job board or virtual assistant marketplace. You will get various options to choose from based on your VA’s experience, skills set, and charge sheet. You could also review some work samples to get a close look at their capabilities.

However, this entire process needs a certain level of time commitment from your end. You need to ensure you select someone with the right skills and work ethic, which usually requires a background check. As these professionals work remotely, you will need proper procedures in place to assign work and monitor their progress.

Another easier and more cost-effective option is to partner with trusted virtual assistant providers like Office Beacon. For a flat monthly rate, we source the perfect fit, handle the onboarding and training process and share regular updates on your virtual assistant’s progress. 

If you are used to doing it all on your own, letting go of the reins can be nerve-racking.  However, at some point, you need to choose between delegating or losing out on customers due to a high workload. Choose the first option.

What are your thoughts on choosing a virtual marketing assistant over an in-house resource? Let us know in the comments.