In this rapidly changing world, businesses are transforming from ‘doing digital’ to ‘being digital’. Especially after the pandemic, every business is looking for virtual assistant services to help them with their tasks.

In recent years, virtual assistants have become very popular. Whether you are a busy professional or a business owner, you need virtual assistant services in your job to save money, time, and labor. In this way, you can be more productive and can focus on the main aspects of a business.

In this blog, you will explore what exactly is a virtual assistant and what main services they can provide to your business. You will get a complete guide on the benefits of virtual assistant services and how can you hire the best virtual assistant for you.

What is a virtual assistant?

From the word Virtual, the thing that first hits the mind is ‘remote’ which means conducting anything at a distance by means of technology. If we dive into the definition of a Virtual Assistant, It is defined as an associate who provides services remotely, without physically sitting in the client's office space, with the help of digital platforms.

You can think of a Virtual assistant as a jack-of-all-trades who can help you with creative, administrative, and technical work. As working from home is beneficial for both clients and virtual assistants, it is expected to increase the demand for virtual assistant services in the near future.

Virtual assistant services can vary for every business and client. As they can do various tasks so it depends on the agreement on what services you actually need from a virtual assistant. Let's have a look at the list of tasks a virtual assistant can do.

Relevant: Top 7 Trends of Virtual Assistants in 2024

What does a virtual assistant do?

1. Content Writing

Content writing is one of the creative services of virtual assistants. As content writers, they create informative content like blog posts, website content, product descriptions, proofreading, editing, and news articles that engage and nourish your target audience.

The most demanding virtual assistant service for content writers is SEO(search engine optimization). They ensure the use of SEO keywords and meta descriptions in their articles so that search engines can top-rank your business website. In this manner, you may have visitors and clients for your business. SEO experts bring organic traffic to your website and generate organic leads for your business without expecting you to spend money on paid search engine and social media ads.

Discover more in our blog: How to increase your organic reach?

2. Social Media Management

Nowadays social media is considered an important business marketing strategy. Virtual assistants can manage your social media business accounts. Post valuable content and engage with your target audience by replying to their comments and queries. They can do social media analytics and research what intrigues and interests your potential customers. It is a big digital world of marketing where you can communicate with your audience and generate high-quality inbound leads for your business.

Social media is also considered the source of customer services and communication between the audience and the brand. With the regular check of comments and accounts inboxes, virtual assistants can communicate at the right time to resolve any queries or problems to increase the credibility of your brand.

Discover more in our blog: Why should you outsource your social media marketing?

3. Copywriting

Copywriting is the writing of persuasive words that educate the audience about the benefits of products. Expert copywriter virtual assistants can urge the audience to take action through words by educating them about the benefits and problem-solving characteristics of your product. Copywriters are in the high-demand category of virtual assistants as they increase the number of conversions and sales on your website, social media platforms, and email communications.

Copywriter virtual assistants can help you by writing converting sales pages, landing pages, product descriptions, tag lines, outbound or inbound email campaigns, YouTube video scripts, and ad scripts for your brand.

4. Research

Research is a study or investigation of processes and materials to conclude anything. It is one of the crucial parts of any successful business. A wide range of research can be done by virtual assistants that will be beneficial for your business to stand in the relevant industry.

Virtual assistants can perform web searches, email searches, surveys, product market research, competitors pricing and analysis, reference materials research, and target websites research. They summarize the research material and make lists or reports for your business.

5. Customer Service

Customer service includes the assistance and services provided to the customers after their first contact with your brand. Long-lasting customer relationships can be built with the help of Virtual assistant customer service.

In this virtual assistant service, Virtual assistants perform tasks like resolving customers' issues, handling return and refund policies, and answering customer queries through messages and phone calls. Virtual assistants collect information on customers' interests and problems. Good customer service can result in increased customer retention and conversions thus resulting in increased business revenue.

6. Ad campaigns

Advertising through Ads is one of the creative and tested marketing services of virtual assistants. Google ads, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and YouTube ads are common these days, and with an effective ad campaign at the right time and place, you can pull traffic to your website and convert it into paying customers.

A virtual assistant makes ads with the help of the right content, keyword research, daily budget, and geographic location. Virtual assistants continuously monitor your ad campaigns and make reports of analysis. A successful ad campaign is profitable, stays within your budget, and pulls high-quality relevant traffic for your business.

If we start counting the tasks a virtual assistant can do, the list will go on. In addition, to providing services, Virtual assistants have many other benefits. Have a look at the key benefits of hiring a virtual assistant.

Learn more: Why should companies outsource their work in 2024?

7. Cold Emailing

Cold emailing is a type of outbound marketing that includes reaching out to your potential customers via Cold Email. Cold Emails are normally sent to an audience that had no prior interaction with you and in most cases they haven't even heard of your brand.

Cold emails require a lot of research and personalization. Sending one email to thousands of prospects doesn't work. Therefore, you must find prospects that could benefit from your product and reach out to them with a short message that only seeks whether they would be interested in learning more about your product or service.

Cold emails should never be intended to sell a product or service because it wouldn't work. Since the prospects you are reaching out to have no prior interaction, they would most likely not buy your service until they have been educated and shown some case studies indicating results. Therefore, effective cold email campaigns are targeted to book meetings, demos, or consultations only.

Cold emailing works best when you outsource it to a cold emailing expert who can handle your campaigns, find prospects, and book meetings for your business. We at Vaforus have worked with multiple clients in this niche and have been very successful with our campaigns too.

Discover more about our services: Cold Emails

Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant

1. Flexibility

One of the major benefits of Virtual assistant services is flexibility. Virtual assistants can work from any location or at any time, even if the client and the virtual assistant are in different time zones.

Moreover, these online pros can work according to your business requirements, either on an hourly or project basis.

You can choose the time you want them to work for you and even specify the number of hours per day for their assistance. In this way, you can scale up and down your workforce according to the fluctuating demand.

The research by Upwork found that due to the availability of virtual assistants, almost 75% of companies across the world increased their talent search globally.

2. Cost-effective

Another big benefit of Virtual assistant services is Cost-effectiveness. Your every dollar counts. Hiring a Virtual assistant is much more affordable than a full-time employee. If you think for a moment you will be justified in hiring a virtual assistant. No taxes, no compensations, no paid leaves, no office expenses, no insurance, no health benefits.

Hiring a virtual assistant means you only pay for the services you want from them. This will eliminate your overhead costs. Even though there is no cost in the hiring process for virtual assistants.

3. No Training

By hiring a virtual assistant, the cost and headache of training them are no longer an issue. The no-training element of virtual assistants makes them attractive to hire.

As they are well-trained and skilled in their fields. All you need is to headhunt the right talent for the services you need and you are good to go. I recommend having a detailed meeting to understand the mutual expectations and skill sets of your VA to avoid any problems while jumping into the project.

4. Scalability

Scalability is another benefit of hiring a virtual assistant. It means you can increase or decrease the size of the services according to the needs of the customers. It depends on the size of your business, as your business grows you can scale up the virtual assistant services with time.

Scalability is the main issue for e-commerce businesses today. Where transactions are changing rapidly with the increase and decrease of demand for a product. It also depends on the time of the year or the popularity of the product. So in this scenario, virtual assistant services can be very beneficial for your business's scalability.

Learn more: Virtual assistant vs Employee : A comprehensive comparison

5. Time-Saving

Hiring a virtual assistant can transform your business, freeing up decisive time and energy. Unlike typical recruiting approaches, which include significant testing, interviews, and scans, employing a virtual assistant is simple and efficient. This allows you to concentrate on your primary duties, which boosts productivity and efficiency.

Virtual assistants are self-employed professionals who strive to provide their clients with the finest possible service. While employing a virtual assistant may seem scary at first, there are various considerations to consider before making a decision.

Relevant: How to hire a virtual assistant? Outsourcing guide for entrepreneurs.

Where can you hire a virtual assistant?

Nowadays with the increase in online buying trends, either buying any product or any virtual assistant service, everyone wants to avoid fraud. Platform independence in buying can reduce the chances of scammers.

With the increasing demand for virtual assistants, many companies are established to serve as an intermediate between the client and virtual assistants. These company sites have a pool of skilled and experienced virtual assistants across the world who deliver numerous services.

On these sites, clients post about their projects and explain the details of services and skills they need from virtual assistants. Clients also mention the amount of money they will give to virtual assistants. Virtual assistants over the globe then bid on their jobs and give them their previous work samples.

Many companies are famous for hiring expert virtual assistants like Fiver and Upwork, but the market is getting oversaturated there, and there are more chances of scammers and frauds. Now marketers suggest alternative platforms for employers and virtual assistants.

If you aren't able to find an efficient and affordable virtual assistant for your business needs, then you can inquire about us here.