An Ingenious Marketing Campaign

I recently read about an ingenious offline marketing campaign and I quickly want to share the story with you. So here it is:

One day a man was riding his bike to work and was about 10km into it when he stopped in a usual rest spot under a tree. There on the ground was a folded 50 Euro note. He picked it up in a millisecond and put it in his pocket.

When he got home he told his wife about his good fortune and got out the folded ‘fifty’.

When he unfolds it, he saw a total new picture.

The ‘Fifty Euros’ was in fact, as you can see from above, an ingenious and effective way of “God- marketing”.

In a country where openly spreading the gospel was prohibited, the underground church had to come up with a way to effectively reach more people. With the knowledge that people will always pick up money, they printed this flyer (simulating a 50Euro note) and ‘left’ thousands of these “notes” lying around across the country – effectively spreading the message of Jesus.

This is an ingenious example of knowing your target market and then directing your marketing efforts towards them. Read more »

Make Marketing A Priority In Your Virtual Assistant Business

Is marketing one of those things that you know you should do, but you just never get to do it properly because there are so many other things taking up your time?

As a self-employed person, you have to wear a number of different hats. You’re the one doing all the client work and managing your clients. You’re the one doing your own admin and keeping your back-office in order. You’re the one managing your finances and trying to build your business. Because of all these different roles, marketing and getting clients can often be put on the back burner.

The problem is, when you put marketing on the back burner and you only focus on it once in a while (when all the other fires are put out), you never really get to do it properly.

People often don’t realize that if you don’t market your business consistently you won’t have clients consistently.  Thus, marketing should be a priority in your business because attracting prospects and converting them into paying clients is the lifeblood keeping you in business.

Make marketing a priority in your business this year by using the following 5 tips….

Read more »

Do Your Clients Know, Like and Trust You?

Getting long-term clients in a Virtual Assistant business is very much dependent on the following 3 key elements:

1. Clients first knowing about you
2. Then liking you enough to work with you and also
3. Trusting that you will be able to do the work.

This is what I call the “know, like and trust” factor.

Building a Virtual Assistant business and getting clients to fill your business has a lot to do with building solid business relationships. When you “sell” a service it usually brings a more personal dimension into your business (since you work more closely with a client) than when you purely sell a product. Thus relationships with people become a key aspect of your success. Read more »

Find Out What Your Clients Need – Don’t Run Your Business Blindly

Do you sometimes feel that you spend endless hours and loads of money marketing your services, but just never seem to get any clients from all your efforts? Are you frustrated because it feels you’re battling this uphill struggle which really takes you nowhere?

If you do, it might be that you are running your business “blindly”, because you don’t really know and understand who your ideal clients are and what they really want. As such your marketing doesn’t really “speak” to people and they just don’t understand how you can help them. So, they’re not interested in working with you. Read more »

Identifying a Target Market Can Improve Your Business

One of the biggest mistakes virtual assistants make when they’re starting out is to think anybody can use their services and everybody is in their market.

Are you making this mistake?

Although VA services can be universal and anyone in the world can use it, the question should not be if everybody CAN use your services, but if everybody WANTS to use it? And the obvious answer is no.

Let me explain and let’s take water for example. Water is a universal product. Everybody in the world NEEDS water to live. So you can pretty much argue that when you put water in a bottle and sell it in a supermarket, you will have a pretty big market, won’t you? Everybody drinks water, so anybody can buy it.

Again, the question is not if anybody CAN buy bottled water, but if everybody WANTS to buy bottled water. Read more »

Where To Find Clients

I recently received a “call for help” in the Be Virtual Assistant Wise forum where a VA explained she invested a lot of money in marketing materials such as business cards, brochures and advertising and while she’s using it to market her services for the past 4 months, nobody reacted or contacted her and she asked advice on where to find clients.

In my years of doing business and working with many VAs in the process, this is one of the most frequently asked questions:

“Where do I find clients?”

…and it is such a valid question, because without clients, you don’t have a business.

The problem is, Read more »

The 4 Biggest Marketing Mistakes Virtual Assistants Make

To have a business that is profitable, sustainable and providing a steady stream of income, any Virtual Assistant needs a certain number of clients and income a month.

But why do so many VAs struggle to find clients and make good money in their businesses?

Is it perhaps because they make 1 or more of the 4 biggest marketing mistakes?

So, let’s look at what these mistakes are, so you can correct them if they are present in your business.
1. You are unclear about who your ideal clients are. The problem with this one is: When you are not clear who your targeted audience is, your marketing message becomes diluted. You start to speak to all sorts of different people and in the process you confuse them and yourself. Potential clients don’t really understand how you can help them, they have lots of questions about what you exactly do and because of that confusion, they don’t buy. As a result of this….

2. You spend too much time, money and effort to market your services to “tire-kickers” – people who will never buy from you.

3. You don’t have a clear marketing message. When you don’t know exactly who your ideal clients are, your marketing message does not “speak” to your potential clients.  It is difficult for them to connect to you in such a way that they understand you are their problem solver. People are quite selfish and if they can’t see how you can solve their problems, they most of the time don’t buy.

4. You’re not promoting your services continuously. The only way to eliminate the 3am “I don’t have clients sweat” is to constantly promote your business and your services. The problem is, VAs sometimes tend to hide behind their computers or only market and promote their businesses when the appointment book looks a bit empty. Then they start to wonder why their businesses are not working and why they don’t have clients consistently.

Luckily it is not too difficult to prevent these mistakes or to correct them.

To ensure a steady stream of clients and a reliable income is to know your ideal clients, then have consistent and varied marketing outreach to pull these ideal clients towards you with a clear and compelling message.

Your next steps for this week:

• Identify who your ideal client/target market is;
• Identify their biggest problems and challenges and create a compelling message to show how you can solve their problems;
• Identify the best methods to get your message in front of your ideal clients;
• Take action and spread your message.

I would love to hear your thoughts on more marketing mistakes. Just comment below.

15 Cost-effective Ideas to Promote Your Business

Every Virtual Assistant can sometime use some help in the marketing department, because constantly finding new, cost-effective and innovative ways to promote your business often proves to be a difficult thing.

Furthermore, you don’t have a six-figure marketing budget to throw around.

But don’t worry – you can still attract clients without breaking the bank.

So, after you’ve spend some time pinpointing your ideal clients, here are 15 ideas to start spreading the word and promoting your business. Best of all, you can start implementing them today and many of these can be done with little to no money. It will cost you nothing more than a bit of your time.

1.     Create a blog: Show potential customers your expertise by blogging about things that might interest them. It only takes about 5 minutes to set up a free Google account and begin blogging with Blogger. You can also create links to your blog when mentioning the posts on your website, email newsletters, email signature file, social media accounts and traditional print marketing materials.

2.     Comment on Blogs: Contribute to the conversations on blogs your ideal clients will visit/read. Keep the comments relevant to the topic and include a link back to your website / blog.

3.     Use On-line Business Directories: List your business and website on on-line business directories. Just Google the words “business directories” and you will find hundreds of them. It creates free advertising as well as a link back to your website.

4.     Tell your family and friends what you are doing: Ask them if they know someone who could benefit from your services.

5. Start building a list: Build a list of potential clients who might be interested in your services – (this is where you list the names of potential clients you receive from talking to family and friends).

6.     Do an internet search: Find contact details of potential clients in your niche. Contact them personally to introduce your business.

7. Visit business owners in your local community.

8. Pin a flyer or a business card to community bulletin boards in your area.

9.     Get active on Twitter: Create a Twitter profile and start tweeting relevant info. It only takes a few minutes to make a tweet and proves to be a steady way to build up a network of followers interested in your area of expertise

10.  Create a Facebook Business Page: Start by sending out invites to all your friends, family, and existing clients and post conversions on the “Wall”. Post items like videos, news stories, pictures, interesting blog posts applicable to your business. Get the conversations going.

11.  Make Your Business Cards Memorable: Print a coupon code or discount service on the back of your business card to encourage potential clients to make use of your services.

12.  Join professional groups in your area for great networking opportunities: It can be groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Women associations, Rotary Club and more.

13.  Use your website and exchange links with other businesses: Offer link exchanges on related business websites where your link will add value to their visitors, and their link will add value to your visitors.

14.  Use your Invoices: Attach a small brochure or flyers to the invoices you send out monthly. Inform existing clients about special offers or new services you provide.

15.  Print a few leaflets: Leave your leaflets and business cards at the local hairdresser, doctor, and dentist – anywhere people have to wait.

16.  Print a t-shirt and hat with your company logo: Wear it when walking or jogging and ensure your spouse also has one!

This list is only a starting point to help you getting the creative juices flowing. There are many, many more ideas to spread your message far and wide and attract your ideal clients.

If you enjoyed this list or if you have any other ideas please feel free to drop them into the comments section below. Let’s help each other and be helped in the process as well!

Differentiate Your Business To Compete In An Overcrowded Marketplace

The day you decide to start selling services virtually, you’re faced with one big dilemma…

Competition… and lots of it.

Most of the time it’s not only reasonable and fair competition, but you also compete with 1000s of VAs around the world who advertise their services on job boards for extremely low rates.

The question then comes up – how do you compete with that. How can you make a reasonable living from your business and how will you ever get clients when you compete with people who charge less than 1/10th  of what you charge for exactly the same services? How on earth can you compete with that?

Well, today I want to tell you that you don’t NEED to compete with that.

In actual fact, you don’t WANT to compete with that. You don’t want to compete with other VAs on price alone, because there will always be someone charging a lower rate.

You want to compete on your own grounds and have clients that are willing and happy to pay your fees. The only way you can achieve that is by having a business that stands out above this crowd.

Have a business that is different because if you are the same – or appears to be the same as your competitors, you are not giving potential clients a chance to pick your business.

Now the fact of the matter is. People are very selfish creatures and 99% of the time they think about themselves first. Before they part with their hard-earned money the first question popping up in their mind is “What is in it for Me”? In other words, “What will I benefit if I buy this service from you?”; “Why should I buy from you specifically!”

It is therefore important to answer those questions satisfactory to convince clients that you are different and that by working with you they will experience so much more benefits.

But how do you do that?

How exactly can you differentiate your business and position yourself as the “Go To” person in your niche?

Luckily, it’s not that difficult to stand out and be different. You just have to do 1 of 3 things.

You either need to

• solve a unique problem for a client that not many other VAs can solve, or
• solve a common problem but solve it in a unique way, or
• solve a common problem in a common way but specialize in a particular audience.

And let me tell you a dirty little secret today. People who succeed in their business sometimes do things just a little bit better or they do things just a little bit different in a particular area and it leads to extraordinary differences in results.

It is like a horse race. When a horse runs a race and wins by a nose, he wins ten times more in price money than the horse that comes in second. This doesn’t mean he is ten times faster… he is just a “nose” faster.

Brian Tracey says: “People who succeed in life are a “nose” better than those who don’t”

So decide today in what area of your business, you’ll be a “nose” better than the rest.

Your Business Assignment For Today:

1. Knowing what you do best can be critical to differentiate yourself from the competition because trying to incorporate too many different services into your business, sometimes only lead to the discovery that you can do them all but not do any of them exceedingly well. Thus, make a list today of the things you can do particularly well. Then focuses upon doing it better than anyone else.

2. Schedule an hour or two in your diary and put on a “client hat”.  Have a look at the websites of other VAs in your niche. Evaluate what they say and how they do it. The idea is not to copy what they do, but to find something where you can be different.

Develop a Marketing Mindset

It’s the most important thing you can do for your business.

If your business is not growing to your expectations, the problem may not lie in your business, it may be a result of your marketing mindset – how you think about- and respond to marketing.

I believe that marketing is by far the most important thing that you can do for your business.

Why?

Because if people don’t know you exist or  how you can help them, they’re simply not going to come to you when they need your help.

The problem with marketing however is that lots of people are afraid of it or they sometimes have these inherent believes that marketing is a sleazy business – much like a door-to-door salesman trying to sell you something you don’t need.

But in actual fact, you don’t have to be afraid of marketing and it doesn’t have to be sleazy. It can be done ethically without sacrificing your own values.

Marketing is about building trust, building relationship with your prospective clients and making people aware of your company, your services and what you have to offer.

Marketing is also about having a genuine belief in the importance AND the value of your services and knowing that it can really help your clients. When you truly belief this, marketing is not an obstacle any more. It then becomes a passion because you just have to let potential clients know how you can help them!

This belief then becomes your marketing MINDSET.

Having a successful marketing mindset helps you to focus everything you do and everything you say into a common goal namely building awareness among your current and potential clients of what you can do for them and how they can benefit from making use of your services.

Thus, to create a strong marketing mindset, just follow these 6 steps:

1.    Start with you. Build confidence in yourself, your services and your business. If you are confident about

• what you do and
• know how it can benefit people, it will show.

Potential clients will be able to see it and you’ll find it much easier to convey your marketing message to them.

2.    Realize that when you do marketing, you’re not pushing people to buy what they don’t want.

• Instead, you offer potential clients a solution to the problems and pain they experience in their lives.
• Thus, you have to let them know you exist and that you can help them! What can be more satisfying than helping people?

3. With every marketing action you take, think about the following:

• Does this action / words build awareness among potential clients on how your services can benefit them;
• Is it something they really need and will give attention to;
• Does it help you achieve your marketing goals?

4. Refine your marketing processes continuously.

• Ask yourself  how you can make it even better;
• As you gain confidence in one marketing technique, find new marketing ideas to try out;

5.    Do some marketing activities daily. Nobody is born a great marketer. It takes practice, every day. But you know what, the more you practice, the better you will become at it.

Your business assignment for this week: Start developing your marketing mindset, by making a list of how potential clients can benefit from your services, what problems they have and what solutions you offer to their problems. Then plan your marketing message accordingly and choose at least one marketing tool (something you’re comfortable to use) to deliver this message to your clients.

If you are unsure how to do it or how to get started with creating your marketing strategy, I recommend getting a copy of “Jumpstart your Virtual Assistant Business”. It contains content rich marketing information to show you EXACTLY how to set up a simple, solid marketing strategy, so that you consistently fill your client pipeline and continually get new clients. You just follow and do the steps, one-by-one. It is that easy. You can get Jumpstart at http://www.be-virtual-assistant-wise.com/jumpstart