As an entrepreneur, it’s more important to spend time on your company rather than in it. Finding new ideas and growing your business won’t be easy though. Hiring remote workers helps you stay organised and efficient, therefore, allowing you to maximise your resources.

With more small to medium enterprises thinking “I want to try outsourcing for my business”, it’s now common to reach the answer of “I should hire a virtual assistant for my business”.

Before you hire someone, you need to know what kind of services you require. Depending on the nature of the work you’re outsourcing, there are many types of virtual assistants to help you.

Some of the Different Types of Virtual Assistants

General administrative assistant

While it’s important to choose a niche when hiring remote workers, you might find a general admin VA is more suitable for your needs. Some of the things a general VA manages are:

• Calendar meetings
• Business contacts
• Basic documents
• Data entry
• Work emails
• Project schedules
• Travel arrangements
• Business research
• Proofreading

Public relations assistant

If you’re looking for someone who loves meeting new people and building your professional network, a PR assistant may be who you need. Their primary responsibility is to develop, maintain, and boost your reputation so you’re more appealing to your target audience. They:

• Find feature or speaking opportunities for you
• Track relevant metrics
• Manage your reputation or brand
• Research publications
• Create advertising campaigns and content
• Schedule media appearances and press events
• Draft or proof content including announcements
• Maintain your public relations database
• Establish and maintain connections with your target market
• Communicate with existing and potential customers

Social media management assistant

To communicate with your customers on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, you’ll want a social media VA who:

• Plans and schedules posts
• Responds to messages using canned responses
• Create quality content for each social channel
• Engages with your audience online
• Manages your paid campaigns

Sales administration assistant

Though you might have an internal sales team in place, it’s recommended that you outsource some aspects of your sales process, especially when you’re running a start-up. They help you to:

• Update and maintain your sales CRM
• Make and send proposals for approval
• Organise records for leads and customers
• Advise the marketing team during launch periods
• Manage your sales calendar
• Research prospective customers and partners
• Send invoices and follow up on overdue ones
• Manage the pipeline
• Use major tools like Salesforce or Hubspot

Technical or WordPress assistant

Maintaining your website is a hassle for any business owner. The good news is that you may outsource to certain types of virtual assistants, including one who:

• Updates themes and plugins
• Installs and sets up plugins
• Tracks sources of social media visits
• Designs email newsletter templates
• Writes web content
• Fixes website errors
• Plans and conducts social media campaigns
• Flags spam comments on pages and posts

Product launch assistant

These focus on work related to launching new programs or products. They interpret sales funnels and execute tasks for a successful launch. Some of their responsibilities include having to:

• Run sales and opt-in pages
• Manage and test the launch process
• Attend webinars and interact with attendees
• Plan and advise the team for pre-launch
• Check pre-launch and launch funnels
• Train the launch support team
• Recruit and communicate with affiliates

Graphics design assistant

These types of virtual assistants may also be graphic designers who create eye-catching images for social media presentation and branding. Their finished products include layouts, magazines, brochures, flyers, and more. They provide assistance to:

• Produce templates for various needs such as banners, posters, etc.
• Make new graphics using the approved templates
• Create custom illustrations for social media and your website
• Design presentation desks
• Design product mock-ups and related graphics
• Editing and improving images for use on the website

Outsourcing assistant

Many small to medium enterprises think, “I want to do outsourcing for my business”, especially for marketing needs. When you don’t have a proper outsourcing process and structure, this simple task becomes hard to do. An outsourcing assistant comes in to:

• Recruit and manage freelancers
• Manage the account on the outsourcing platform
• Establish and advise budgets for campaigns and projects
• Create projects for outsourcing
• Negotiate contracts with remote workers
• Follow up on daily, weekly, and other deliverables
• Track progress on each project
• Ensure that deliverables meet quality standards
• Determine what tasks to outsource and to who
• Monitor outsourced tasks and update the status

Content marketing assistant

When you lack the skill or time to create marketing and sales copy, it’s better to leave it in the hands of a professional. They are more than just writers though as they also:

• Conduct keyword research
• Proof website and social media content
• Create sales emails
• Make and implement marketing strategies
• Research topics for blog and social media posts
• Come up with article briefs and meta data

eCommerce assistant

If you’re adopting an online store set-up, you will benefit from getting a virtual assistant who is knowledgeable in managing eCommerce platforms. They must also know how to:

• Develop and maintain an eCommerce platform
• Set up systems for easier management of the store
• Integrate apps
• Write product descriptions and other copy
• Classify products and offers
• List and manage products
• Manage the inventory online
• Make and manage promotional codes
• Create a taxonomy strategy

“Where to hire a virtual assistant for my business?”

Now that have a glimpse of the different types of virtual assistants out there, you may be wondering where you might hire one to suit your needs. There are plenty of VAs who are available to work for you but you must be cautious of who you actually hire.

Don’t waste your time on assistants who aren’t a good fit for your business. Let Remote Workmate match you with the best candidate for the job. With our staffing solutions, we ensure that the candidates we endorse meet your prerequisites.