Marketing and advertising your VA business

• Actively be engaged in local company tele-market research
• Advertise honestly
• Advertise on search engines
• Advertising in small magazines
• Always have business cards ready to hand out
• Always look the part whenever you step out your door.
• Ask for referrals from the clients
• Attend local business networking events
• Be a great communicator, especially with e-mails. Nothing looks more unprofessional than bad grammar and bad spelling. Your e-mails represent you so you want them to look great.
• Be a great VA, and you will get dozens of referrals from satisfied customers.
• Be consistent
• Be enthusiastic. It draws people like a magnet.
• Be Frequent
• Be sure to include those that have confirmed prospect on a regular newsletter
• Before you advertise, make sure you're ready for anything.
• Biz Cards
• Brochures
• Business card magnets
• Business Cards
• Carry brochures when you are out shopping or visiting or other places.
• Check your purse for business cards every day.
• Create a website
• Create an attractive website that relays your message and services, and make sure you place it with the right search engines.
• Create different types of marketing/collateral pieces
• Direct mail to a specific segment of the market such as realtors, lawyers, medical practice
• Distribute brochures, business cards, post cards to targeted audience (customers)
• Distributing fliers at various local businesses
• Don't be shy. :-)
• Don't over look who you know, have cards or pens handy to give or drop off, don't be afraid to make a suggestion (which in our old lives, meant if we had the idea...we'd volunteered!)
• Don't splatter your marketing copy with buzzwords.
• Existing web host (i.e. Yahoo.com) for better exposure
• Flyers
• Follow-up calls to number one that say they are open to the idea or currently engaged in an exclusive contract with another VA by sending e-mail or fax or postal mail letter of introduction, business card (2), and either a web-card or tri-fold brochure;
• Follow-up the correspondence to number 2 with a call to confirm receipt of sent literature
• Get a coach.
• Get invoked in Community projects - Its amazing how many potential customers you can meet
• Great Web site.
• Have a good name, have a competitive advantage to promote your business, and be creative in your approach to potential clients - think about what their needs are and tell them how you can fulfill them.
• Have a specific market in mind before you begin.
• Have extra marketing "tools" with you at all times.
• Hit those yellow pages and market yourself!
• I have been sending small mailings each week, and a week after each mailing, I call the prospects to follow up with them. I've gotten some bites this way.
• Join a chamber of commerce or BNI group so that you can meet people face-to-face. Virtual Assistance is best described in person.
• Join your local chamber of commerce and other network groups.
• Join your local Chamber of Commerce
• Know how to promote your Web site.
• Leave business cards everywhere. Be ready with your "Mini Commercial" at any given moment. Never miss the opportunity to promote yourself.
• Let everyone know what you are doing, and give your business cards out to all who you know might know someone that could use your services.
• Listen to what people say and if an opportunity to promote yourself comes up - take it!!
• Look and be professional with yourself and materials.
• Lots of networking, old contacts, anyone
• Mailing lists
• Make magnets with your business information on them so that people will have it readily available when they need administrative support
• Make sure you provide good service by being courteous and listen to your prospects thoroughly.
• Market without paying (e.g. supermarket bulletin boards etc.)
• Mass mailing
• Network with other professionals that could use your services.
• Networking
• Offer the same tips you use successfully as a service.
• Place an ad in the newspaper
• Professional brochures and business cards
• Publish on the web
• Signs on your car
• Small newspapers
• Stay abreast of new situations
• Swap link programs.
• Talk to everyone about what you do and how it can help them with their business. Always strive to tell them what is in it for them.
• Talk to everyone you know about what you do.
• Tell everyone you talk to about what it is you do
• Use every opportunity to tell people what you do,
• Use networking as a marketing tool
• Use the yellow pages
• Volunteer work
• Web site post cards
• Website
• Word-of-mouth.
• Write Press Releases about interesting things about your business for (hopefully) free editorial in the newspapers
• You never know whom you might run into.