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Sales Enablement: Helping Customers Discover Your Product

1. Using social media to sell your products

Although social media is all about awareness and engagement, businesses can also promote their products and help customers in the phase of product discovery.

55% of respondents who discovered a product through social media proceeded to purchase later on. ~ Mary Meeker, Internet Trends 2018
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In this report, Facebook tops the social media channels where people find out about new products. Use this opportunity to make it easier and faster for your audience to move down your sales funnel.

Easy-to-Digest Content, Ads, and Stories

2. Omnichannel marketing

Omni, which means ‘all or every’ is about managing customer experience in all channels whether offline or online. The idea is that the customer’s journey may start in one channel and move to another seamlessly towards the end point—your product or service.

With the help of a Social Media Virtual Assistant, you can reach and interact with your audience anytime through the use of email marketing, online advertising, social networking, and other platforms because nobody today shops exclusively through a single medium.

3. 24-hour stories impacts how people consume content

Stories are visual content in a vertical format that lasts for a day and first became popular on Snapchat and later on copied by Instagram and Facebook.

These stories are easy to create, fun, engaging, authentic, and don’t last long so there’s that sense of urgency to consume them before they’re gone.

This means more and more brands will use this in-the-moment style content vs. overly produced, pre-packed content.

Currently, 400 million people are consuming Stories on Instagram on a daily basis, while Facebook is trying to integrate Stories to our daily routines.
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4. Growing social media ad spend across marketers

One of every four Facebook Pages now use paid advertising as part of their social media marketing strategy.

But always consider not relying too much on one platform, either for organic or paid growth. One recommended way to do this is to just boost your top performing organic content.

Marketers increased social ad budgets up to 32% in 2018. Facebook accounts for 23% of total U.S. digital ad spending.
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5. Invest some time in creating great content

In our blog Why you need to hire a social media manager for your business, we discussed how a social media VA can help you increase conversions by sharing your content on social media.

6. Join more communities through LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn is already making a huge push toward becoming a connection nurturing network among executives and younger demographics entering the workforce. It’s also constantly updating its groups in an aim to drive more community.

LinkedIn reports that likes, comments, and shares on the network increased more than 50%.
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Engagement and Influencer Marketing

7. Love and care about your social community

Connecting with your audience, responding quickly to customer inquiries/requests, and addressing issues are just few of the reasons for using social media marketing.

Businesses that monitor and participate in conversations with their followers and potential customers can expect more loyalty form their fans and develop deeper and longer relationships.

8. Working with influencers and micro-influencers

Working with the best influencers can be expensive so this is where micro-influencers (ordinary digital citizens) come in. Try tools like Mavrck, Neoreach, and Traackr to find key micro-influencers so you can test the waters of influencer marketing on a budget.

Example: a food brand may see better results by using a rising food blogger (micro-influencer) with 30k followers than a celebrity chef who may ask for 20x of the budget.

Facebook Groups are a hot spot for engagement and a place to focus social media efforts in 2019.
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Social Media TV, Videos, Podcasts, and Live Streaming

9. Highlighting video content marketing

More on social media tips for business – The launch of IGTV by Instagram was one of the biggest social media trends of 2018. And according to Statista, more than 50% of digital videos are now viewed on mobile in vertical video format.

Among the top picks of marketers are: Live video or live streaming, interactive video, short videos, and vertical videos.

10. Share authentic stories and important moments

“Stories create a more transparent and meaningful relationship. That means less of static updates and more behind-the-scenes, raw, and intimate stories.” – Anna Crowe, Assistant Editor of Search Engine Journal

Business owners will need to tell more stories and moments that matter to the people, and not their brand. You can take your best-performing posts and evergreen web content and create one-minute videos or convert them to blog posts.

One-minute videos get 400 – 500% more reach on LinkedIn compared to Facebook.
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Messaging Apps, Automation, Chatbots

11. AI and automated messaging for customers

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automated messengers for customer service support means that the expectations about the response time are increasing. Huffington Post reported that 60% of the Millennial population are the quickest adaptors of chatbot-based customer experiences.

12. Understanding how people use messaging apps

People widely use private messaging, whether it’s simply about reaching their families or staying in touch with their favorite brands. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and WeChat hold a large percentage of the messaging market.

13. Personalized, Private messaging, and chatbots

Facebook Messenger and chatbots are one of the most effective ways to reach and build audience engagement—it’s email blasting done via messenger.

“Businesses that market via Messenger earn 60 to 80 percent open rates within the first 60 minutes.” ~ Kristi Kellogg, Founder & CEO of Dazzling Digital

Many experts predict that by 2020, more than 80% of all customer service interactions will be powered by AI bots.
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The Importance of Trust and Transparency in Social Media Marketing

14. Making customers comfortable in sharing their data

Because of recent data breaches on some platforms, building trust with your audience is now more important than ever. Be transparent and prompt enough to update your customers on a recent change or admitting your mistakes and working on to resolve issues.

15. Earn and keep the trust of your followers

Finally, always aim to capture the trust and confidence of your customers every single day. With all the fake news and privacy disasters this past year, it’s imperative that you ensure people that their personal online privacy is in good hands.

Interested to start working on how to improve social media for your business? Reach out to us and we can discuss your social media marketing strategy and overall business objectives.

Our experienced social media virtual assistants (VA) can help you with sharing posts, lead generation, increasing your followers, customer support, and promoting your brand so you can continue to thrive online and make an impact this 2019.

Virtual Assistant Talent is a top-notch virtual assistant staffing agency helping professionals from different industries such as the real estate, insurance, small business, coaching/consulting, and executive leadership.

CALL US at 1-866-596-9041 and discover how our highly qualified and trained virtual assistants can help in your everyday tasks and objectives.

Reference:
www.searchenginejournal.com/
blog.bufferapp.com/
medium.com/
www.martechadvisor.com/

Top 13 Reasons Why You Need to Incorporate Video Marketing to Promote Your Business

video marketing business strategy

Introduce Brand to Build Trusts

Explain Products or Services Effectively

Social Media Shares and Web Traffic

Video Boosts Your Conversion and Sales

Engage Mobile Users

Engage All Audience with Videos

search engine and social media love videos

Rank High in Youtube, Get ROI

Ads in Videos

maximize and recycle videos

best video marketing strategy

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Before, business owners and marketers shy away from using videos because they take a long time to make and required special software.

Nowadays, there are a lot of sites and software with editing tools that can be used for free. Some also include free effects and transitions to make your videos more fluid and attractive to viewers.

Videos can be informative as well as entertaining. As long as you’ve made videos that effectively represent your brand or business, your products or services will sell out quickly.

If you haven’t started using videos yet, here are 13 points to explain the importance of video marketing for your business.

1. Builds Trust with Your Audience

Trust makes conversions and sales happen. The concept of content marketing is not about selling but creating long-term relationships. Once you’ve established trust, people will come to you not just for information but for the products or services you’re offering.

When you’re in a brick and mortar store, it’s easier to build trust with customers through personal interaction. It’s quite difficult when you have an online store. Some costumers are still skeptical about making online purchases because of fraud and scams.

Build trust with your prospects first by introducing your brand or company through a video. Put up how-to videos or content-filled to keep your audience engaged. Once your audience understands and remembers your brand, you can publish videos promoting your products or services.

2. Explains Products or Services Effectively

A video can explain a variety of topics easily. It can show steps on how to use a newly launched product or discuss in detail how a new service is fulfilled and who are involved in the process.

Always remember to make videos with the intention to keep your audience engaged. When making a video, focus on one topic only. Throw in questions to trigger curiosity and include references for further reading. Inject some humor to excite your audience and avoid long texts and talking nonstop.

Want to simplify a complicated service? Show the process through an animated video. Live demonstration can work but animations are more fun and engaging. This way, customers remember your brand and recall more information about your products or services.

3. Gets More Social Shares and Web Traffic

Social media platforms have revolutionized from still pictures to moving ones. In fact, videos are found to generate 1200% more shares compared to text and images on social media.

The sharing potential offered by video marketing can effectively multiply your visibility and help you reach the audience you’re looking for. And given that your video will reach your potential consumers organically, the impact will be higher.

This is why video marketing is so powerful. It can capture a wide audience that will continue to share your video until it reaches your desired audience. Make sure to also use your website as landing page to increase traffic into it.

4. Boosts Your Conversions and Sales

There’s no denying the fact that online marketing can help you make money but some strategies don’t make sales as high as video marketing. If you know how to do video marketing properly, it will increase conversions and lead to sales.

Videos are visually pleasing and can trigger a variety of emotions. With a product or explainer video, you can build a connection with your audience. Once you’ve earned their interest and trust, your audience becomes customers.

5. Engages with Mobile Users

Mobile phones or smartphones are not only used for communication but also for entertainment or just to pass the time. In fact, people are getting obsessed with smartphones that they spend breaks burying their faces on mobile screens.

A big chunk of these mobile users also watch videos through mobile. The increase in mobile usage and video streaming is so dramatic that social media platforms like Youtube and Facebook incorporated ads into videos.

As the number of smartphone users grow, so as your video audience. Having a wide audience doesn’t guarantee conversions or sales though. An enticing video content still plays a big role in making your viewers consume what you’re offering.

6. Engage All Types of Audience

Even then, ads are usually short and straight to the point. Will you read a 300-word billboard ad or a lengthy facebook post without an image? I guess not. Your audience is a mix of the busiest, the laziest and everyone in between. Make sure your video content will engage a majority of your audience, especially the laziest ones. Consumers already know what they want, all you have to do is make them take action.

7. Viewers Want More Videos

We are living in the golden age of videos. They are so accessible that people just scroll through social media, find a random video and get sucked into a black hole where they end up watching video after video.

Information hunting has become easier as well because of videos. Customers are watching more videos to find products and make purchasing decisions. For example, you want to remove hard stains from your bathroom walls; you can easily find a demo video in YouTube that also includes recommendation for tools and products.

You don’t have to convince your audience to watch your videos. Just put your videos out, add relevant tags or interests, and your audience will do the rest. People want things to be comprehensive and videos can achieve that.

8. Search Engines and Social Media Love Videos

Videos drive organic traffic into your site and increase the time spent by visitors. An effective way to do this is by uploading your videos through YouTube and sharing them in your social media accounts.

YouTube is owned by Google which means all videos uploaded into it are also tracked by Google. It also affects your site’s search ranking so the more relevant and optimized the videos are, the higher the search engine rank.

People also love watching random videos on social media and they share anything they find entertaining. A fun video post that includes a link to your website will convert into website clicks which can potentially turn visitors into customers. Give potential customers the way to take the next step.

9. Rank High in YouTube

Information hunting is not only done through search engines like Google, you can also do it through YouTube. People use YouTube to search for educational or demo videos.

How-to videos in YouTube can teach anyone, anything from simple hacks to complicated web programming. A study shows that searches for how-to videos went up 70% in the last couple of years.

10. Get Unbelievable ROI

Return on investment (ROI) is the ratio of profit made in a financial year as a percentage of an investment. Entrepreneurs use it to see if their investment on a business is successful or not.

Although high quality video production involves a lot of money and time, it also produces a big payoff. 52% of business owners state that video marketing gives the greatest ROI in marketing so you’re assured that you’re putting your buck at the right place.

If you’re a start up or you don’t have the resources yet, you can use a smartphone or point-and-shoot camera to take videos and edit them using free editing tools. You can then upgrade to high quality or even animated ones when you have the funds. As mentioned earlier, video content matters more than aesthetics so get that all polished first before going for the upgrade.

11. Ads in Videos Work Wonders

Video ads are rocking social media platforms. Facebook learned that 74% of the total Ad Recall (the number of people that remember the ad) can be achieved within the first 10 seconds. So long as you’ve made sure your video is fun and engaging especially on the first 10 seconds, people will remember you, watch till the end or make the purchase. That right there is the importance of video marketing for your business.

12. Upgrade Your Email Marketing

Let’s be honest, emails can get boring and are not convincing enough. Why not incorporate your videos into your emails? Adding a video into your email can increase your click through rate by a whooping 96%. More clicks mean more conversion and more conversion increases sales.

13. Maximize and Recycle

Creating videos can be costly and time-consuming that’s why you have to find other ways to use them. How do you do that? For example, you want to repurpose your existing videos for other video marketing strategies. You can post an announcement on social media that you will do a talk about it and an episode or video will be posted at certain intervals and your audience can comment their questions for further discussion.

Video clips can also be turned into GIFs and teaser videos that you can use in other marketing strategies. You can use a GIF on a new social media post and a teaser video to promote a blog post or landing page.

Video marketing is proven to be one of the best marketing strategies. With the increase in demand for videos, you may eventually find it difficult to keep up with it.

Don’t miss out on a great business opportunity; don’t let go of video marketing. If you’re too busy, you can hire for technical virtual assistant. Let an expert video marketer bring in more conversions and sales while you reap the benefits of video marketing for business.

Looking for virtual staffing agencies or have questions about virtual assistant services? CALL US at 1-866-596-9041 and see how our highly qualified and trained VAs can assist in your everyday tasks and objectives.

We would love to hear if these tips worked for you! If you have questions or any Content Marketing related success stories, please leave a comment below.

References:
Yumyumvideos.com
Tarproductions.com
Business2community.com
Ngdata.com
Strategiccfo.com

Millions of consumers visit Craigslist each month, thus making this as one of the best free classifieds site online.

How you post a Craigslist ad will define how quickly your items will sell.
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That is, “if” they even sell at all. When you set out to write a Craigslist ad, you can use some simple suggestions that will help you sell what you are trying to unload quickly and to the right prospect.

There are many factors to consider when posting your ad so your listing will not get flagged.

Related: When to hire a virtual assistant

How to advertise on Craigslist:

• Advertise by geographical area
• Advertise
• Sell responsibly
• Check results

Even if you post legitimate ads, there is a possibility that Craigslist will still flag and your ads get ghosted. Why is that? There are a number of reasons why but before we go further let us know what is flagging and ghosting on Craigslist mean.

Flagging – is a system to quickly identify illegal and inappropriate postings. This is an option in which Craigslist users can flag ads of other users.

Ghosting – is the term used when you make a post on Craigslist and the system notifies you that your post has been published but in reality, your post, by no means did not appear on the front page of Craigslist.

Reasons for flagging:

• Wrong category
• Prohibited
• Spam or over post

Reasons for ghosting:

• Many ads before were flagged
• CL staff will decide if the ad is worth posting or not or by automated system
• Overposting

Don’t be complacent about your business’ ad posting just because you think your post went through and nobody is watching your back. Your competitor might be lurking and is there ready to attack anytime and flag your ad down once it is up on the list. A marketing virtual assistant knows exactly what needs to be done in order for your post to get approved on Craigslist.

Basically, Craigslist is trying to avoid marketers spamming the site with unwanted ads and wants to make sure the ads are legitimate and unique and from different people. Unfortunately, Craigslist staff knows how to verify if an ad is appropriate or not.

1. IP Address. According to Craigslist’s terms, ads posted by a specific IP are only allowed to post once in one section in one city. If Craigslist determines one IP address is placing multiple ads or an ad in multiple cities, the ad or all ads will likely be flagged or ghosted.
2. Email Address. There are a limited amount of times a user can post with the same email address or account. If they see that an email account is posting multiple times, especially within 48 hours, the ad or all ads may be flagged or ghosted.
3. Title and Content. Craigslist has software that routinely compares content so that all posts are distinct and unique. If you are posting the same ad time and again, that ad and the other duplicates will possibly be flagged or ghosted.

Additionally, hiring virtual assistant can help you save time because a VA can monitor your ads as well as handle inquiries over the phone or via email. You can then focus on more strategies for your business and your virtual assistant can post and promote an ad or two on Craigslist.

Facebook marketing, being the most popular one, has transformed how business is conducted. But for most businesses and service providers, it seems like the battle for online presence is never-ending. While all the tips you read can be overwhelming, there are several simple yet effective ways to market your brand on Facebook.

It’s time to take your business page to the next level. You can take a look at several social media packages online but here are some of the marketing experts tips on using Facebook for business:

Related: Top 5 Reasons to Use Social Media Marketing in Your Business

1. Your Facebook page should reflect the overall look and feel of your brand

• Make good use of your vanity URL – make your full business name as your Facebook page username so it will be easier for customers and search engines to find you (e.g. www.facebook.com/yourbusiness)
• About section — use keywords that are commonly used by your customers to search for your business and products. Include your website URL in your description
• Set the right category – if you’re a local business and you select it as your business type, Facebook users can “check in” at your business, giving you more exposure

• Cover and profile photo — professional quality of cover photo (851×315 pixels) and profile photo (160×160 pixels)

Jayson DeMers, Definitive Guide to Marketing Your Business on Facebook

2. Study your page viewers and post strategically

The best time of day to publish posts can vary from page to page and audience to audience.

Research shows: Posts from 1-4 pm have the highest clickthrough & share rates.
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HubSpot, Do’s and Don’ts: Facebook for Business

3.Attract more likes by using images

According to Facebook, 75% of content posted by brands are images. Show the human side of your business by featuring customers or clients. Images shared on Facebook tend to attract the most likes, shares and comments.
Marketing Donut, Checklist

 Discover ways to fast-track your online presence! Steal this Facebook Marketing Blueprint for Business – Download for FREE!

4. Brand awareness and positive word-of-mouth

The more you encourage people to click the ‘Like’ button on your Facebook page, the more you boost brand awareness. Friends and extended network of your followers will then get to see your products or services and learn about them too. Hire a VA and assign a task or two to handle your social media campaigns.

5. Always drive traffic to your website

Businesses can use an extra traffic from Facebook. Include a link to your website on your page. Visitors who already know something about your business are likely to be more receptive than the average visitor. Make sure customers who land on your Facebook page will see stronger marketing messages and will be motivated to click the website link.

Benefits of Facebook for business

Business owners and professionals:

6. Why more executives are now on Facebook Live

Facebook’s “Live” video feature, which launched last August are attracting more business execs, such as Loic Le Meur, a cofounder at LeWeb, and an entrepreneur and investor.

Initially, Le Meur created live videos randomly, but quickly noticed an impressive increase in views and audience engagement. He then started doing live videos for one hour each day. Now, his page already has over 160,000 followers and he said he is getting more than one thousand per day.

“My approach with Live was to try to do something original and share the way I am building my startup in an authentic and transparent way,” Le Meur said. “I wanted to come across as a founder telling his friends what I am doing and what I need.”

Le Meur, on PR Week

7. Take a shot with Facebook Ads

It’s important to write clear and concise ads that speak directly to your targeted audience.

Katy Dinner, a top San Francisco-based agent conducted a study of the impact of parking spaces and garages on home prices in San Francisco and used a graph of the data in a successful Facebook Ad campaign.

She recommends setting up Facebook ads to target not only your fans but also their friends — because those who are in your area of influence are more likely to become clients and be in your target demographic.

Also…

Be smart about the image you use. People want to see properties, not your smiling face.
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“They’ll also click on graphs if the information is focused, relevant and not available elsewhere, says Dinner. ”

Katy Dinner, Mashable – Facebook for real estate

Talking about Facebook ads, at VAT LLC, we try to attract more visitors by pinning our most popular ad post to the top of our page’s timeline.

Some Facebook success stories:

8. Write a compelling story with strong CTA’s

To guarantee effective creative ad content, craft a compelling copy with strong calls to action. Top-quality images are also a plus.

FabFurnish.com ran photo ads that showcased its most visually appealing products. Link ads in the News Feed and the right column also drove traffic directly to the company’s website.

“We’ve found Facebook to be one of the key drivers of our growth. While it continues to be great with its reach and targeting capability from a branding and visibility point of view, it has also delivered tangible results in terms of site visits, the number of orders and overall revenue.”

Vikram Chopra, co-founder, FabFurnish

9. Build a community through constant interaction

 “Facebook has played a huge role in turning me into a best-selling author. That fact of my life can’t be overstated. As my books started to take off in late 2011 and early 2012, I began to think about ways I could harness reader excitement about the books and build a community around my stories.

Today, I’m the proud owner of 33 Facebook groups with more than 16,000 members. I love my Facebook groups, and I love the personal interaction with my readers. Thank you, Facebook, for making it possible for me to be “down on the street” with my readers every day!”

Marie Force, How Facebook Helped Me Become A Best-Selling Author

10. Develop trust and loyalty with your fans

When you post status updates, don’t make 100% of your posts just about you and your business. Help out someone in need by providing insights, answering questions, giving advise. Be transparent and let your own stand shine through.

What trending media relate to your audience? Make a post based on that.
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Lori Peterson, an Ambit Energy consultant has a different approach. To gain more clients, she used Facebook’s influence by telling her story in subtle ways.

She once posted a status like: ‘Setting off on a new adventure. Going to be busier than ever.’ Almost immediately, someone contacted her to ask what the new adventure was.

Lori Peterson, How Consultants Can Get Clients on Facebook

Lastly, don’t ignore your page insights. This will help you learn more about the people who are most engaged in your business. Find out what’s working and not so you can maximize all of your efforts.  The key to a successful Facebook marketing for business is to first understand its unique opportunities and then tailor your posts and offers to meet your audience’s needs and interests.

If you have questions or if you need help setting up your Facebook page to market your business, please contact us at 1.866.596.9041 for a free phone consultation.

Learn how Facebook marketing can work for your business.
Download Facebook Marketing Blueprint for FREE!

Why is that? Well, a recent HubSpot survey featured in Forbes indicated 92% of marketers claim that social media marketing was an important part of their business—and 80% indicated their efforts increased traffic to their websites.

A social media virtual assistant can help build your brand reputation, build a following, and increase your market exposure and potential sales and conversions. There’s no time like the present to get your business up to speed and avoid falling behind your competition. Here are five reasons to use social media marketing in your business:

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1. Increase traffic and brand recognition

Your social media presence paves the way for new customers to access your brand and content easier while making you more familiar and recognizable for existing customers. The social media networks you create are new channels for you to build reputation by increasing your visibility online.

For example, a Twitter user could get interested about your company after just seeing your hashtag retweeted by his friend. Or, an online buyer might check out your website after seeing your promo posted on multiple networks. It’s all about making use of every opportunity you can get to broadcast your brand in the internet world.

2. Build a following and brand loyalty

A conclusion from a report published by Texas Tech University stated that a strategically designed social media plan could prove influential in encouraging consumers into being brand loyal. Businesses should take advantage of the tools social media gives them when it comes to connecting with their audience and building a following.

According to the report, brands who engage on social media channels enjoy higher loyalty from their customers. Furthermore, another study published by Convince&Convert found that 53% of Americans who follow brands in social are more loyal to those brands.

Related: Smart And Creative Ways To Promote A Business

3. Convert visitors to customers

Did you know that every post you make on social media platforms is an opportunity for customers to convert? Whether it’s a video, an image, or a blog post, what you share online is a chance for them to react and/or take action.

You will have access to new customers, recent customers, and old customers, and the great thing is, you’ll be able to interact with all of them simultaneously! Remember that each of their reactions could lead to a site visit, and eventually a conversion.

However, not every interaction with your brand results in a conversion. But keep in mind that every positive feedback increases the likelihood of an actual conversion. The opportunities you have on social media alone are very valuable.

4. Decrease marketing costs

According to Hubspot…

84% of marketers say that 6 hours/week on social media helps generate traffic.
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In fact, if you hire a virtual assistant (VA) or remote worker to spend just one hour a day developing your content and syndication strategy, you could start seeing the results of your efforts.

You can also go for paid advertising through Facebook and Twitter. It is not that pricey depending on your goals and can be a valuable investment. For example, a VA can go over your page insights and develop a strategy for you and once you get a better feel for what to expect, you can increase your budget or time allocation for the efforts.

Additionally, the VA can consistently monitor your social media account, reviewing and responding to prospective customers and existing customers inquiries, comments, and concerns, escalating important things that come up for you to address and take action as needed. VAs can also create and populate dashboards for you to monitor the traffic and measure the activities and success of your social media.

Using virtual assistants saves you up to 76% in labor costs vs. office-based employees.
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Further, virtual assistants can be a highly cost effective alternative to utilizing PR firms or marketing agencies depending on your business needs and budget.

5.The sooner you start, the better

The sooner you start your social media marketing, the sooner you will reap the benefits. You will see your network grow rapidly as your followers tell their friends, their families, and so on. The earlier you start, the sooner you’ll be able to start establishing your presence and growing your audience. And, with the feedback you get in the social media marketing process, you’ll know if there are issues right away and take steps to resolve them.

Studies have shown that…

Consumers appreciate those who respond to good feedback & also to complaints AND make things right.
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So make sure you are all ears when it comes to this, as social media is the most viral marketing ever—word gets out faster than before.

Now is the time to start growing your network. If you don’t have the time or expertise to do so, you can hire a VA to start inviting connections, creating, writing, and posting content and engaging in conversation and follow up with your audience or customer base.

The important thing is you build your online presence and make it easier for prospective clients/customers to find you, and interact with you. This opens the door and increases your market exposure to create more opportunities in delivering your message and unique selling points for increased sales conversions of your products/services.

References:
www.forbes.com
www.contentfac.com

Maximize your online marketing this holiday season
with these 5 marketing tips:

Related: Smart And Creative Ways To Promote A Business

1. Make Your Product or Service the “Best Gift” Ever

Look for creative ways to turn your products or services into the best gift a family or friend could ever receive. Some ideas:

• A massage or spa treatment makes the ideal gift for a busy mom or teacher that spends a lot of time taking care of others but often forgets themselves.
• An hour conversation with a business consultant would make the best gift for a friend that is thinking about opening a restaurant.
• A premium ball of yarn is a perfect match for grandma’s new knitting set.
• A gift card to an online men’s clothing store makes a thoughtful gift for that husband who’s been working so hard for the family.

What do you have that the big companies don’t have? Manage your online marketing campaign by highlighting what makes your product or service unique.

If you can’t compete on pricing, emphasize quality & customer experience.
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2. Be the Holiday Hero

Think of the holiday scenarios and use them to your advantage. If you have any product or service that people can use more during the season, be the holiday hero. Pet boarding businesses can offer holiday travel specials while financial planners can provide budgeting consultations for the next year. Promoting specials that make your customer’s life easier during the holidays is a great opportunity to take advantage of seasonal spending.

Working with virtual assistants, you can organize your online announcements in your website by designing a one-pager that lists everything as well as an email you can send to customers with a quick “Take a look at our holiday specials” message.

3. For E-mail Marketing, Timing is everything

Bring out the best of e-mail marketing this holiday season. Send multiple emails or holiday cards announcing your sales and special promos. HubSpot’s brand new data reveals the best times to send one-to-one emails during holidays.

HubSpot conducted a study of over 20 million emails delivered over a 10-month period to find the ideal time to send an email. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday had the highest volume of email opens. Tuesday appeared as the best day to send an email with 20% more opens than average.

Here are the best days and times to email:

A. Thanksgiving – Send emails 24 hours before Thanksgiving eve or one week after the holiday.

B. Christmas – Send emails one week before Christmas Eve.

C. New Year – Send emails 4 days after New Year’s Day.

Quick tips:

• Send emails during the beginning of the workweek at 11 AM to increase the chances of getting your email opened. If you have to send email on the weekend, send it on Sunday night.
• Send emails between 10 AM and 12 PM to increase the likelihood that the recipient will open and respond, to your email. If you’re catching up on emails over the weekend, we recommend sending emails on Sundays between 8 and 10 PM.

4. It’s All About Giving

Plan for a budget but attractive giveaway that people will want to take.
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• Create time-limited offers to encourage customers to buy now
• Include add-on incentives, such as a vacation drawing entry with every purchase of your product
• Treat your old customers in a new way – run exclusive email campaigns for the customers who have purchased from your site before
• Consider sending promo codes or giving actual money like $10 credit for purchases above $50.

A successful holiday contest or promo will help you build a new customers list and will help market your services or products.

5. Increase Exposure Using Social Media

Make sure every customer receives a flyer or brochure with information about your upcoming holiday sales by posting them in your social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Feature your holiday specials on your blog and boost the reasons why it’s better to buy from you than your competitors.

Related: 10 Effective Ways to Promote Your Business Using Facebook

Start planning your main campaign right now so you’re ready to launch well. For products, ensure that gift cards or certificates are available. For services, share examples of one or couple of hours of service to customers who want to try them out first before purchasing a subscription.

Finally, all of your holiday marketing efforts must be measurable so you can track your return on investment and plan for an even more profitable campaign next year. When you plan your marketing campaigns early you will not only maximize your profits, but you will also get some free time of your own to enjoy the holidays with friends and family!

If you need assistance with your holiday marketing campaign, Virtual Assistant Talent can help.  We can update your website with your newly featured products & services or promotions and/or add a seasonal theme to your site.  We can create your holiday newsletters, update your contact lists, write interesting articles and content for your blog that will engage your audience and/or promote your products & services.

We can also manage your online marketing campaigns and social media to generate more customers during the holidays and handle customer service or taking orders/sales calls for your business.  The possibilities are limitless with a virtual assistant.  Heck, we can even send out all your e-greetings for you and make photoshop edits to your holiday greetings and Christmas cards.

Most importantly, a virtual assistant can help reduce your workload this holiday season by taking away your busy work, boosting your holiday marketing campaigns, and allow you to spend more time celebrating with your family and loved ones.  Consider giving the gift of virtual assistant services for yourself or family or friends that own a business!

Contact us to get started!

References:
www.weebly.com
www.verticalresponse.com
www.slideshare.net

As market competition gets tougher and tougher, entrepreneurs tend to focus more on how to get customers and sell their products to rake profits. But the thing here is they forgot about the importance of technology when it comes to branding, maintaining their website and social media marketing.

As an entrepreneur, it is given that you are good at strategizing. You excel on a number of things but certainly there are other matters that you may not have the time to do or you are not good at, like technology.

If you are one entrepreneur that is technology savvy, you know what we’re talking about. But if you are someone who is not or has less knowledge with online technology and having challenges in this field, don’t get discouraged.

Hiring a virtual assistant is all you ever need. Someone who is technically skilled when it comes to web developing, designing, social media marketing and all that is about digital technology.

Delegate the tech side & focus on the more important side of your business.
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Technical and Non-technical VAs Can Do the Following:

1. Design a professional looking website – If you don’t have one yet or have an existing website but you’re not happy with the design and layout, a web designer can help you create the website that will speak of your brand.

2. Web designer and web developer – A web developer is the one responsible with the construction of your website and making it into a reality – the one you really want for business website. He is in control of all the codes and graphics to create that compelling and professional looking website with all the functionalities your visitors and customers need. These websites can be:

•   Blog and Personal sites
•   Real Estate sites
•   Portfolio, Multimedia, News, Magazine sites
•   Business and E-commerce sites

Nowadays, most people use their smartphones to shop online. So, you can also upgrade to mobile-responsive web design so that your page displays good on mobile phones.

3. Social Media Marketing – Social media is one marketing tool that can help you grow your business for free or for a fraction of cost if you are just starting. But even those companies with big names are using social media to reach more market and target customers. Social media virtual assistants can help you strategize on how to promote, advertise and sell your products and services online according to your market.

4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Struggling to get your page found online by target customers or clients? SEO virtual agents can tweak your website so it becomes more visible and ranks higher in search engines. SEO Packages include in-depth research and analysis to provide relevant strategies for all your pages.
Being a busy entrepreneur is not an excuse when you don’t have time to manage your website, online marketing or your social media accounts. All you need is to delegate these tasks to your staff or hire a virtual assistant.

This will cost you less rather than having a physical staff. You can hire a VA on a project base like Web Design & Development Packages and another assistant to manage your social media and online marketing campaigns.

There are a thousand and one ways and strategies to promote a small business without spending a fortune.

Related: Top 5 Strategies To Jumpstart Your Business 2016

1. Define your market – Determine the best way you can reach your market after you know who your best prospects are.
2. Create your own website – Your website is where you sell and promote your products and services. If you don’t have the technical skills to do this, there are a lot of Web design & development packages online to help you.
3. Establish business profile and join social media – Make lots of noise so your brand can penetrate the market by using social media – for free.
4. List your business in local search engine directories – By listing your business on free ads or paid ads like craigslist, you have the chance to get customers.
5. Create a blog – Blogs let you connect to your audience comfortably and easily.
6. Newsletter

Newsletter: effective type of campaign – announce what’s new & what’s happening.
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1. Email campaign – Just like the newsletter, email campaign is a form of marketing campaign that lets you connect with your customers.
2. Network with others who have the same business as yours – There are a lot of social media platforms where you can network your business and connect with entrepreneurs who are on the same or similar business that you have.
3. Run a PPC or the pay per click campaign.
4. Create videos of your products and upload on YouTube, Vimeo and other free video sharing sites.
5. Optimize your site with local keywords.
6. Revisit your keywords, search and analyze your competition – You have to check your standing on the search tools so you know far you are from your competition.
7. Have a calling card and letterhead – In every business, a calling card and letterhead is a must. This is one of the oldest and most common marketing strategies.
8. Organize a contest and or online promotion – This kind of strategy perks up the curiosity of clients and by spreading the news, your organization has been promoted through word of the mouth.

15. Encourage referrals – Encourage referrals and give token in every successful referral as gratuity to the person recommending your site.
16. Webinar – Using webinar to invite and inform prospective clients around the globe is one of the most effective tool in promoting your products and services.

Don’t attempt to fool your clients, be honest in your dealings online.
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We are proud to be a Better Business Bureau Accredited Company (BBB.org).

Some of the creative ways a virtual assistant can help you are…

• Infographics marketing – Make your business blog more visually appealing by using infographics! Readers love this type of visual element and will most likely share it in social media.
• Design opt-in pop-ups – a lot of web design services offer newsletter opt-in pop-ups to help increase subscriptions.
• Create online flyers and posters – best for local businesses but can also work with any business. A VA can design flyers that you or your team can spread out into the streets.
• Search for call for speakers – You can offer to be a speaker to industry conferences, organizations, and local business groups. A VA can search for speaking benefits that will help you benefit from contacts and publicity.

• Got a contest or promo in mind? A VA can promote it on social media – a photo contest via Instagram is one of the great ways to go viral. A virtual assistant can still promote it on your Facebook page, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. so others can know about your giveaway!

Sometimes, you don’t know who’s finding their ways to your website – they may be just looking around and shopping or is there to really buy an item or two.

A creative and effective marketing strategy will save you time and money. Treat your customers as someone who you want to get impact on. The thing there is you must leave a good impression to those visiting your website.

An infographics is a diagram of information in a graphic format that includes histogram, pie charts, mind maps, gantt chart, line charts, bar graphs, etc. Businesses use infographics to convey a message promptly, to streamline the presentation of sizeable amounts of data, of which the main purpose of doing such is to disseminate information to the public.

It is said that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and that more people respond to better visual information than text. That means more infographics are read than text articles since it is easy to understand and a fun way to appreciate a message because it is expressed visually.

Every enterprise can benefit from infographics because it does not only help increase your search engine optimization but can also help grow and increase traffic to your website. And social media is one of the many ways in promoting your brand and your business.

How to design a visually engaging infographics

1. Research and read everything about the topic you want to create and convey.
2. Gather as much data about the topic and information you want to relay to your audience. Extensive representation of an article is usually found not in one date but through multiple materials.
3. Sort the data and find the storyline. A great story can be found from a unique and compelling infographics.
4. Identify problems in the infographics. In many instances, the statistics and facts don’t support the story a business wants to communicate to their clients. Data don’t lie, and respectable and worthy clients do not want to be obviously misinformed.
5. Avoid vague titles as this might confuse your reader. Find one that is catchy but still relates to the story you want to share.
6. Engage in originality. Though it is easy to find readily available images for your storyboard from online stock photos but what catches more attention are those created with originality.
7. Find the perfect font. Font is as important as the images in your infographics as it gives the feel and the final touch of your creation.
8. Test the final infographic to people that weren’t involved in the design process so as not to get a bias opinion.  You need to go back and identify the problem if they can’t comprehend the data presented.
9. Present and create a readable infographic that directs people through the data.
10. Finally, share the infographics through social media and start directing people to your website.

We are proud to be a Better Business Bureau Accredited Company (BBB.org).