How to successfully hire and manage digital marketing virtual assistants

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Are you spending so much time on digital marketing activities that you can’t focus on what matters most for your business?

Digital marketing is an essential activity for businesses in any industry.

However, it takes up tons of time and effort that could be used in other activities that need your personal attention!

So how do you solve this dilemma?

By hiring a digital marketing virtual assistant!

Digital marketing virtual assistants are experts who can handle all your marketing needs, from SEO and content marketing to social media marketing and ads!

They’re skilled, efficient and cost-effective!

To help you out, we’ll cover everything you need to know about digital marketing virtual assistants in this article. We’ll explore why you should hire one, the tasks they can take on and some tips on how to make the most of them!

This article contains:

(Click on the links below to jump to a specific section)

• What Is A Digital Marketing Virtual Assistant?
• 3 Key Benefits Of Hiring A Digital Marketing Virtual Assistant
• What Tasks Can Digital Marketing Virtual Assistants Perform?
• How To Hire Digital Marketing Virtual Assistants
• How To Manage Your Digital Marketing Virtual Assistant

Let’s get started.

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What is a digital marketing virtual assistant?

A digital marketing virtual assistant is a remote assistant who handles all the aspects of your digital marketing. As they work remotely, they don’t have to be present in-person at your office or business!

These trained experts manage your online brand so that you can focus on things like overall marketing strategy, maintaining relationships with key customers and so on.

Some of their tasks could include:

• Content creation and blogging
• Social media management (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.)
• Managing email marketing for prospects
• SEO optimizing your website

Let’s answer a few common questions to give you a better idea of what a digital marketing VA really is:

Why shouldn’t I do my own digital marketing?

You definitely could — but only at the cost of focusing on other more core business activities!

Any business owner’s most vital resource is time— time you have to divide between:

• Acquiring leads and closing potential customers
• Attracting top talent
• Raising funds and more

A digital marketing virtual assistant helps you focus on these core business activities by saving you from spending time on your marketing efforts!

Would they accurately portray my online brand?

Remember, digital marketing VAs are specialists in their field.

They have tons of relevant skills and experience from working with a variety of businesses.

You can choose a virtual assistant that has the best background and the know-how for your company’s needs!

Is this really costly?

No!

In fact, hiring a virtual assistant is much more cost-effective than hiring an on-site marketing assistant. Plus, you usually only have to pay them for the work they actually do!

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3 Key benefits of hiring a digital marketing VA

Here are the 3 key benefits of hiring a digital marketing VA:

1. Maximizes efficiency

Time is the only resource that’s as important as money for any business. If a business owner spends all their time on digital marketing, they can’t focus on anything else!

A real estate business owner, for example, could spend half the day writing daily blogs. This leaves them with less time and energy for activities like showing clients houses and closing deals, which is the main focus of any real estate business!

A digital marketing virtual assistant would change this by taking over tasks like:

• Content creation and blogging
• SEO
• Social media posts
• Other digital marketing campaigns like Facebook and Google ads.

Remember, these tasks are important and require undivided time and attention.

And that’s time and attention most business owners don’t have!

By hiring a virtual marketing assistant, you can focus on core business activities without worrying about neglecting your digital marketing needs!

2. Helps you reduce costs

Hiring is difficult.

It takes loads of time and resources. And once you’ve hired someone, you probably have to invest in training as well.

A digital marketing virtual assistant would save you all this.

How?

A Digital marketing VA saves your resources in several ways:

A. Lower training costs

Digital marketing virtual assistants are experts in their field, with several years of experience. They’re trained to minimize your onboarding time and quickly get to work without much training at all! For example, good VAs would already have experience with tools like Mailchimp and Hubspot.

B. Save on salaries and other expenses

Virtual assistants are often much more cost-effective than a full-time or in-house employee.

There are several reasons for this:

• You save on office space and IT costs since most VAs are remote and Instead of a fixed payroll, most virtual assistants charge by the task or hour. This way, you’re only paying for the work you actually give them.
• Since you can hire from anywhere in the world, you can hire top digital marketing assistants from less-expensive countries with lower salaries (such as the Philippines.)

3. They free up time for yourself

Not only does a digital marketing virtual assistant give you more time for core business activities, but they also give you more time for yourself!

If you’re spending the entire day on your business, you’ll be too tired to be productive.

Setting aside time for yourself is essential for your well-being as well as the value you give to the business.

Digital marketing VAs give you that well-deserved time off while finishing digital marketing tasks much more quickly!

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What tasks can a digital marketing virtual assistant perform?

You’re probably wondering:

What marketing tasks can a digital marketing virtual assistant take over?

The answer is pretty much everything!

Most digital marketing VAs have trained to be the one-stop solution for all your marketing needs!

Let’s explore some tasks a digital marketing virtual assistant can do for you:

A. Improve your online marketing strategy

Having a comprehensive digital marketing strategy helps you build a stronger base for your online marketing efforts.

It’s essential that your virtual assistants are familiar with all the marketing channels you currently use so that they can provide valuable insights on how to improve your existing campaigns.

However, that isn’t all.

Digital marketing VAs can also suggest new avenues for you to target to maximize your online reach. For example, you could be running tons of Facebook Ads but your VA might advise you that organic content works better in your industry.

This way, you can restructure your online marketing strategy for maximum efficiency!

B. Establish a strong social media presence

Powerful social media management is key to effective lead generation.

Your online presence should tell potential customers why your business is the best solution to their needs.

However, managing several social media platforms is not easy!

It takes a lot of time and regular, consistent effort.

To make your life easier, a digital marketing virtual assistant helps you:

• Maintain an interactive social media presence
• Create regular posts on LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
• Keep up with the latest hashtags and trends
• Respond to comments on Instagram and other channels

This way, your digital marketing VA can efficiently curate your social media presence while you sit back and focus on other areas of your business!

C. Harness ads for increased conversions

Advertising forms a huge part of your digital marketing efforts! However, the process of managing ad campaigns is tricky and time-consuming.

A digital marketing VA can boost your advertising efforts by:

• Determining target audiences for each ad campaign.
• Running social media ads on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram
• Retargeting leads with Google or Facebook ads
• Using PPC campaigns on Google, Bing, etc.
• Optimizing ad copy to maximize click-throughs

With the help of a VA, you can outsource such repetitive tasks and focus on onboarding your newly converted customers!

D. Utilize content marketing for added online visibility

Content is always going to be king.

If you generate valuable content, your articles – and websites – are going to rank on Google, thereby increasing your online visibility!

This is why it makes sense to have someone dedicated to content creation and copywriting in your digital marketing strategy.

And that’s where a digital marketing virtual assistant comes in!

They can help you:

• Create helpful content to boost inbound marketing
• Rank on Google via search engine optimization
• Send regular email newsletters.
• Optimize landing pages to maximize conversions
• Design website opt-ins
• Analyze Google analytics data to evaluate how campaigns are performing

With SEO, skilled copywriting and content planning, a digital marketing VA will ensure that your customers always turn to you for their needs!

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How to hire digital marketing VAs

Now that you know how a digital marketing virtual assistant will boost your business, you must be wondering:

How do I find one?

There are two common ways to hire VAs:

• Through an agency
• Hiring an independent virtual assistant

Let’s take a closer look to see which one is right for you:

A. Hire via a virtual assistant agency

Virtual assistant agencies are best for businesses that have never worked with a VA before.

They give you benefits like:

• Full agency support for any problems
• Tested and approved virtual assistants to hire
• Replacement guarantees in case a VA isn’t the right fit for you

Here are the top agencies to hire a digital marketing virtual assistant:

1.The Virtual Hub

The Virtual Hub helps small business owners find digital marketing virtual assistants that are best suited for their company. It offers several affordable pricing plans, as well as additional services and features for Virtual Hub Members.

2. Zirtual

Zirtual is a US-based agency that helps small businesses find virtual assistants to outsource their digital marketing tasks. Zirtual VAs are skilled at several marketing tasks, from marketing campaigns and content creation to search engine optimization.

B. Hire an individual virtual assistant

Individual VAs are a better choice for business owners who’ve outsourced tasks to virtual assistants before.

Why?

• You need to already know what you’re looking for in a virtual assistant
• Freelancer marketplaces usually don’t provide replacement guarantees or additional support in case things don’t work out

Here are the best freelancer networks you can use to find digital marketing virtual assistants:

1. Upwork

Upwork is one of the most popular freelance marketplaces. Apart from digital marketing VAs, you can find plenty of other specialists, including web design and social media experts for your virtual assistance needs.

2. Fiverr

Fiverr is a gig/task-based freelance network that works best for short-term projects and one-off jobs. They have a plethora of virtual assistant services, including digital marketers, industry-specific virtual assistants and graphic design experts.

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How to manage your digital marketing virtual assistant

Since virtual assistants work remotely, they can reduce your costs significantly.

However, this also means that they can be harder to monitor and manage.

You may find it hard to:

• Monitor their work
• Track their productivity
• Communicate efficiently

So how do you manage a virtual assistant?

Through remote tools!

These help you monitor your virtual assistants and communicate with them easily.

Here are a few remote tools that can make managing remote employees a piece of cake:

1. Communication tools

Communication tools are essential for any business that employs virtual employees.

Communication tools offer several features such as chats, file sharing and even video calls with your virtual assistant.

Let’s check out the best ones:

A. Messaging tools

Messaging tools help you get in touch instantly for urgent queries or messages. Popular platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams offer features like:

• Searchable message archives
• Quick file sharing
• Categorized conversations

B. Video conferencing tools

Video conferencing and calls allow you to conduct in-depth meetings and reviews. Tools like Zoom and Skype make it easier to check-in and cover detailed topics.

Common features include:

• HD audio and video calls
• Screen sharing and annotation for easy explanations
• Video and audio recordings and transcripts for future reference

2. Employee monitoring tools

Worried that your virtual assistant is billing you work while they’re surfing social media?

The biggest challenge with remote workers is ensuring productivity and tracking their work.
However, employee monitoring tools like Time Doctor make this a piece of cake!

What’s Time Doctor?

Time Doctor is a powerful tool used for monitoring employees by large companies like PwC and Apple as well as small businesses like Firehouse Subs.

Time Doctor helps you:

• Track time spent by your digital marketing VA on each task
• Monitor web and app activity during billed hours
• Easily pay for billed hours within the platform
• Boost your virtual assistant’s productivity through distraction management
• Analyze efficiency through powerful and detailed reports

Conclusion

The right digital marketing VA can significantly boost your online reach in no time!

Just use the tips covered in this article, and you’ll find the perfect digital marketing VA quickly. And once you do, your digital marketing activities are bound to become far more powerful and efficient!