5 Skills In-Demand Virtual Assistants Will Be Offering [Updated 2022]

If you are a virtual assistant, or want to become one, no one may know this as well as you. So many people call themselves virtual assistants – or don’t – and yet their service offerings can be so different. When offering virtual assistant jobs, you may offer Pinterest marketing but you also write blog posts for some clients. Maybe you specialize in Facebook ads but you also offer sales funnels.

The term virtual assistant can mean so many things to so many people. And when online business owners, and likely even brick-and-mortar business owners, seek help online they aren’t using the term virtual assistant anyway. They are looking for writers, social marketers, blog managers.

The upside to these more specialized terms is that they often warrant more specialized rates. A copywriter can ask for a higher rate than a general blog post writer without question. The latter may be able to offer than same quality writing at the end of the day, but it’s all in the mindset of the client.

If you are looking to up your game, and your rates, in 2017, here are a few of the services in-demand virtual assistants will likely be offering.

Email Marketing

When I first started my online business, there was no Pinterest, Instagram, Periscope, etc. There was barely Twitter and Facebook. As a result, we had to build our email lists from Day One. Once all of these social media platforms came about, many people started focusing all of their time, money and energy on social marketing as opposed to email marketing. Sadly, many are now seeing that was a bad business plan.

You see, when it comes times to run a flash sale, announce a new product, or simply sign one new client, nothing is more cost effective than sending one email to a list of people who have already expressed interest in your products or services. Nothing.

The reason email marketing got left behind so quickly is because it’s not as fun, sexy and easy as social marketing. You can’t just send cat memes by email and think it will make people buy your stuff. That’s not how this works. You need skills and strategy. That’s where you can steal the show as an Email Marketing Specialist.

You have two routes you can take here. You can offer specific email marketing services to those on any platform, or you dig deep and focus on one service provider like Seva or Mailchimp. The strategy is much the same, implementation is where things will differ.

A few email marketing services you can offer:

• Newsletter creation or editing
• Email template creation
• Drip campaign creation and/or implementation
• Opt-in form design
• Implementing sequences and automation features
• Newsletter editorial calendars
• Analytics
• Sales funnel consulting or implementation
• A/B testing
• Platform migration

Webinars

Webinars are big business these days, but they are a lot of work to put together and make successful. A few services you can offer as a webinar virtual assistant:

• Helping client choose a webinar platform
• Setting up opt-in page
• Setting up automated email sequence
• Creating slides
• Sound and video check
• Organizing attendee questions before and during the webinar
• Troubleshoot technical problems
• Linking to resources during the webinar
• Making replay available to attendees
• Getting webinar transcribed

Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are the latest fad. They are relatively inexpensive and easy to implement when compared to some other advertising options. They can also be a huge waste of time and money if they aren’t done correctly. As a Facebook Ads Specialist you can offer services like:

• Creating ads, ad sets and campaigns
• Audience targeting
• Conversion reporting
• Landing page creation
• Strategy consulting

Copywriting

What does copywriting even mean? “Copy” is simply advertorial text. When you apply that to online business needs, you have tons of things that could be considered copy. You may immediately think sales pages, but you also have landing pages, emails, blog posts, social media status updates, headlines… Anything that is promotional in nature needs to be polished and effective in converting leads.

You need to have some skills here. Just because you can write a generic 500-word blog post on how to cut coupons doesn’t mean you can write copy. You have to know how to craft words to get people to take action. Once you can do this and help your clients make more money, you can make more money.

WordPress Management & Maintenance

Bloggers, or those with a blog, are one of the largest markets in need of virtual assistants right now. So much goes into a WordPress site, someone needs to be around to deal with the blips, tweaks and updates. As a WordPress Assistant you could offer the following:

• Migration from Blogger to WordPress
• Design
• Updates & Tech Support
• Platform integrations
• SEO
• Analytics
• Backups
• Post Scheduling & Publishing
• Comment management

Just because you choose one of the above virtual assistant areas to specialize in doesn’t mean you have to offer every example on my lists nor does it mean you need to exclude other offerings. Successful VAs craft packages that match a specific client to a specific skill in which you excel. It’s your business. You are the boss.

Ready to get started? I highly recommend this free 5-day client challenge from Miranda Nahmias.