What are the best sources to find the best VAs?
Virtual assistants have revitalized the way business activities are performed. Virtual assistant services have helped start-ups and small and medium eCommerce business owners increase the productivity of their businesses. Business owners have realized that by outsourcing a few business activities, they can focus on the core activities of their business.
What are virtual assistant services?
According to Investopedia, a virtual assistant is an independent contractor who provides administrative services to clients while operating outside of the client’s office. A virtual assistant typically operates from a home office but can remotely access the necessary planning documents, such as shared calendars.
The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged the work from home culture, and post the pandemic, both the employees and business owners accept the working style. With start-ups, and small and medium businesses mushrooming, the demand for virtual assistants has also grown several leaps and bounds. There will be 31.7 million small businesses in the U.S. in 2020 alone if numbers are believed. In the following year, this number spiked to 32.5 million. Will the virtual assistant service providers can meet supply with the growing demand for virtual assistants? Only time will tell.
Typically, a virtual assistant works remotely from outside the office. A majority of VAs work from their home office. By doing so, the business owner does not have to incur costs to support the working of the virtual assistant. Because hiring a virtual assistant works as a cost-savings measure. It is one of the primary reasons why many small and medium eCommerce business owners are hiring virtual assistants.
Furthermore, virtual assistants have become more prominent as small and medium business owners are highly dependent on virtual offices. Armed with a few technological tools, a virtual assistant can perform various business activities right from the ‘the go.’
How to make up your mind about what services to outsource to a virtual assistant?
Small and medium eCommerce business owners are always in a fix. More often than not, they are caught at the crossroads juggling roles and responsibilities of the business. However, the VA shares the business responsibility when a virtual assistant is hired. The business owner per se performs certain business activities. However, a virtual assistant can perform the rest of the business activities and tasks. Typical tasks a virtual assistant might perform include scheduling appointments, making phone calls, making travel arrangements, and managing email accounts. However, this depends on the need and the nature of the eCommerce business. The business owner is the best judge who will decide and allot the various business tasks to a virtual assistant. In the next section of our blog, we have detailed the tasks a virtual assistant can perform.
What tasks can a virtual assistant perform for an eCommerce business?
There is no task that a professional virtual assistant will not or cannot perform. Ideally, the eCommerce business owner hires a virtual assistant or a team of virtual assistants to perform a certain set of business roles and responsibilities. We have listed a few of the most common tasks a virtual assistant will perform. In no order of importance, we have listed a few most popular tasks that an eCommerce business owner can consider outsourcing to a virtual assistant. As an eCommerce business owner, you can consider hiring a virtual assistant or a team who will perform the following business tasks and activities.
General virtual assistants, also known as administrative virtual assistants, are responsible for performing the various administrative tasks of the eCommerce business. Business owners understand that hiring a general virtual assistant can help the business owner save on valuable costs, both administrative and labor. A general virtual assistant or a virtual administrative assistant manages tasks like managing business emails, invoicing, handling customer inquiries, and FAQs. Besides the ones we have mentioned, the general virtual assistants also take care of business tasks and responsibilities that can save the business owner valuable time and resources. The general virtual assistants can perform the tasks that a personal assistant will perform. However, the only difference is that the former works from outside the office. Listed below are a few tasks that a general virtual assistant is expected to perform:-
- Building a database for the business.
- Bookkeeping activity, daily, monthly, and annually, depending on the need of the business.
- Payroll duties, including calculating the number of work hours of the staff, expenses, leave, and other related tasks.
- Taking care of the phone answering service of the business, which also includes attending to voicemails and checking business messages.ย
- Depending on the need, create and present weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or annual sales reports.
- Writing and dispatching invoices.
- Scheduling meetings and taking care of business appointments.
- Creating forms that can be used for customer and staff surveys.
Content writing virtual assistant
Small and medium eCommerce business owners find it challenging to identify and hire the ideal content writer who will work well and who will be associated with the business on a long-term basis. Thus, the ideal thing is to have a virtual assistant take care of the content writing activity of the business. The biggest myth is that any candidate who is well versed in language can write content. However, this is not the case. The content written for a product package is different from the content written for a marketing campaign. Only an experienced virtual assistant content writer will understand this and churn out content for the platform. A virtual assistant content writer can perform the following tasks:-
- Contributes to drafting the content editorial calendar.
- Can write content for blog posts, newsletters, marketing mailers, campaigns, and guest bloggers, depending on the need and the content editorial calendar.
- Produce content for marketing material, like infographics, white papers, and ebooks.
- Publish extensive how-to guides and industry-related book reviews.
- Responds to comments left behind by readers of the business blog.
ย Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and digital marketing virtual assistant
Small and business owners have realized that having an excellent website can work wonders for the business. Thus, many business owners are hiring a virtual assistant or a team of VAs in the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and digital marketing VAs to create a website that will work. Here’s what Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and digital marketing virtual assistant can do for the business:-
- Develop, update, and optimize an SEO and web marketing strategy.
- Design and develop landing pages.
- Perform keyword research for websites and perform a blog analysis.
- Initiate link-building campaigns and generate a sufficient number of backlinks to help the business.
- Monitor Google Analytics reports weekly and monthly and observe site traffic.
- Design and develop logos, ebook covers, headers, icons, and other graphic elements as per the marketing requirement of the business.
- Establishes contact with media outlets and influencers to garner profiles by publishers.
Social media virtual assistants
Having understood the potential of social media, eCommerce business owners are allotting a large portion of marketing budgets towards social media campaigns. A dedicated social media virtual assistant will plan and implement the social media campaign and also will monitor the progress of the social media (SM) campaign. Here’s what a social media virtual assistant can do:-
- Opens social media accounts on various social media platforms.
- Manages the various social media profiles of the business. This includes creating content for various sections of the business’s social media accounts.
- Creates social media posts that will work.
- Schedule the posts on various social media platforms.
- Performs social media audits regularly.
- Monitors and observes trends in social media, like making notes of traffic and engagement on social media.
- Observe the company’s competitors on social media and plan what will work best for the company on social media.
- Updates the business accounts on the various social media platforms.
- Plan and implement social media strategies that will increase user engagement.
- Ensures that the business owner gets full Return On Investment (ROI) for the social media initiatives.
Besides these tasks, virtual assistants can perform various business tasks and activities. The business owner can assign business tasks to a virtual assistant depending on the need.
Where to source the best virtual assistants who can work for your business?
There are multiple sources from which a business owner can handpick a virtual assistant or a team of virtual assistants who will work for the business and add value. The virtual space is the best place to identify and hire the best virtual assistants to work for the business. There are dedicated web portals that successfully bridge the gap between virtual assistants and business owners. Virtual assistants can be hired and paid on an hourly basis, on a monthly or annual basis, and perform a specific set of business activities.
Wrapping up
Vserve eBusiness solution is one of the leading providers of eCommerce solutions. If you wish to hire a virtual assistant for a cost-effective price for your eCommerce business, you can consider taking advantage of the services offered by Vserve. The experts understand that growing your eCommerce business is a full-time job. Thus, they will recommend solutions that will work for your business. Get in touch with Vserve for a quote.
Virtual assistants have revolutionized the way business tasks and activities are performed. There are certain activities and tasks that virtual assistants can perform that can help the eCommerce business.
