Does Your Digital Marketing Virtual Assistant Need Marketing Support Too?

Hiring a virtual assistant can be a smart way to get more done without hiring another full-time employee. But when that virtual assistant is responsible for digital marketing, there is something many businesses don't consider:  Who does your virtual assistant turn to when they have a marketing question they don't know how to answer?

If the answer is you, think about why you hired the virtual assistant in the first place.

You may know your business, customers, products and services better than anyone. But that doesn't mean you know more than your VA about SEO, search intent, e-commerce, email marketing, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, conversion optimization or customer retention.

Your VA shouldn't be expected to know everything either.

Instead of expecting either person to figure everything out alone, businesses can give their virtual assistants access to ongoing digital marketing education and group coaching with an experienced digital marketing strategist.

What Is a Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant, commonly called a VA, is someone who works remotely and helps a business with tasks that might otherwise be handled by an employee or in-house assistant.

A virtual assistant might answer emails, schedule appointments, conduct research, enter information, handle customer service, process orders, update a website or perform other day-to-day business tasks.

Some virtual assistants are generalists. Others specialize in areas such as bookkeeping, customer service, e-commerce or digital marketing.

What Is a Digital Marketing Virtual Assistant?

A digital marketing virtual assistant is a VA who helps a business carry out its online marketing activities.

Depending on their skills and responsibilities, a digital marketing VA might:

• Update website or Shopify, WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, pages
• Create email campaigns and automations
• Research keywords
• Work on SEO
• Post website or social media content
• Update a Google Business Profile
• Review Google Analytics
• Work in Google Search Console
• Build landing pages
• Install and configure Shopify apps
• Help with lead generation
• Prepare marketing reports

A business might also hire a Shopify virtual assistant or e-commerce virtual assistant whose work is concentrated specifically on running and marketing an online store.

These VAs can take a significant amount of work off a business owner's plate.

But knowing how to complete a marketing task isn't always the same as knowing which marketing task should be done, why it should be done or what should be prioritized first.

Your Virtual Assistant Shouldn't Have to Figure Out Your Marketing Alone

Digital marketing isn't one skill. Someone can be excellent at Shopify and know very little about SEO.

Someone can know how to create an email campaign without understanding customer segmentation.

A VA can learn how to pull reports from Google Analytics without knowing what the numbers are telling the business to do next.

Someone can conduct keyword research without fully understanding search intent.

That's not a failure on the VA's part. Digital marketing covers a lot of areas, and it isn't reasonable to expect one person to have years of experience in every one of them.

The problem occurs when a business hires a digital marketing virtual assistant and then expects that person to figure out the company's entire marketing strategy while completing the work.

Here are a few examples.

Your VA Is Asked to “Do SEO”

A business owner tells a virtual assistant: “We need more traffic. Can you work on our SEO?”

The VA may know how to research keywords, update title tags and meta descriptions, add content to a page and make other website changes.

But there are bigger questions behind those tasks.

• What searches should the business actually target?
• What is the intent behind those searches?
• Is the business already appearing in Google for searches that represent opportunities?
• Should an existing page be optimized or should a new page be created?

And here's an even bigger question: Is more traffic actually what the business needs?

If a website already receives plenty of traffic but isn't generating enough leads or sales, simply increasing traffic may not solve the problem.

A VA needs more than instructions about where to put a keyword. They need to understand how the SEO work connects to the business.

A Shopify Virtual Assistant May Know Shopify Without Knowing Your Entire E-commerce Strategy

A Shopify virtual assistant might know exactly how to add products, create collections, install apps, update a theme, create discount codes and manage orders.

Then the business owner says: “I heard upsells increase sales. Find an app and add upsells to the store.”

The VA can probably do exactly what was requested. But before anyone installs another app, there are questions worth asking.

• What should we upsell?
• What products are customers already buying together?
• Would a cross sell make more sense?
• Should we create a bundle instead?
• Would volume discounts work for this particular product?
• Is there an opportunity for subscriptions or repeat purchases?
• Are enough of the right people reaching the product page in the first place?
• Installing an app is execution.

Determining how that app fits into the store's e-commerce and marketing strategy requires something different.

The Shopify VA shouldn't automatically be expected to make all of those decisions alone.

Your VA Can Build an Email Automation, But Which One Should They Build?

A business owner has an email list and tells their digital marketing virtual assistant: “We need email automations.”

The VA knows how to log into the email platform and create an automation. Great. But which automation should be built first?

• Welcome?
• Abandoned cart?
• Post purchase?
• Win back?
• Cross sell?
• Replenishment?
• Review request?

And should every customer receive the same emails? Before building anything, someone should be asking:

• What does the business sell?
• How often do customers typically purchase?
• What happens after someone's first purchase?
• How many customers come back and purchase again?
• What customer information is available for segmentation?
• Where is the biggest opportunity right now?

Those answers should help determine what gets built.

That's the difference between knowing how to operate the email software and understanding the marketing behind it.

Your VA Opens Google Search Console. Now What?

Google Search Console is another good example. A virtual assistant can learn how to open the Performance report and view clicks, impressions, queries, pages and average positions.

But imagine they find a page with 15,000 impressions and only 200 clicks. Now what?

Or a service page is appearing for dozens of different searches. Which searches should they focus on?

Maybe a page that previously generated clicks has been declining for several months. What should they investigate first?

Or perhaps Google is showing a page for searches that don't match what the business actually sells. Should that traffic even be considered valuable?

Knowing how to open Search Console is one skill. Knowing what to investigate after seeing the data is another. These are exactly the types of real situations a VA can bring into group coaching.

Your Analytics Show More Traffic, But Sales Aren't Increasing

Imagine your VA reports: “Website traffic increased 30% this month.”

That sounds good. But sales didn't increase.

Instead of stopping at the traffic number, someone needs to start asking questions.

• Where did the additional visitors come from?
• Which pages did they enter through?
• What were they looking for?
• Were they potential customers?
• Did they visit product or service pages?
• Did they add products to their carts?
• Where did they leave?

At Mastering P.O.P., I talk a lot about getting the right traffic, not simply more traffic.

A digital marketing virtual assistant becomes more valuable when they learn to look beyond a number going up or down and start asking what that number tells them about the business.

If You Hire a Marketing Assistant, Who Is Training Them?

This can create an interesting situation for small business owners.

You hire a marketing assistant because you need marketing help. Then you become responsible for teaching that person marketing. But what happens when neither of you knows the answer?

You shouldn't have to become an SEO expert so you can supervise an SEO task. You shouldn't have to master Google Analytics so you can explain analytics to your VA. And you shouldn't need to understand every Shopify app, email platform or marketing technology your VA encounters. That doesn't mean you need to replace your VA.

You may need to give the virtual assistant you already have access to more experienced marketing support.

What Does Digital Marketing Group Coaching Look Like for a Virtual Assistant?

Mastering P.O.P. provides ongoing digital marketing education and group coaching. This isn't one-on-one consulting for every VA.

Instead, virtual assistants can continue learning while doing actual marketing work and bring questions they encounter into group coaching.

For example, one VA might ask: “My client's Search Console shows that this page is appearing for several different searches. How do I determine which search intent we should focus on?”

Another might ask: “We're getting traffic to the Shopify store, but very few visitors are adding products to their carts. Where should I start looking?”

Someone else could ask: “My client wants me to install another Shopify app. How do I determine if we actually need it?”

Or: “We have 8,000 email subscribers, but the business sends the same promotion to everyone. How should I start thinking about segmentation?”

Or even: “My client wants more leads, but their website gets very little traffic. What should I look at before we start changing things?”

These aren't hypothetical classroom exercises. They're questions that can come up while a VA is actually supporting a business. And because the coaching happens in a group, a question from one VA can help other VAs who may encounter a similar situation.

What If You're a Virtual Assistant Company With 10, 25 or 50 VAs?

Now consider this from the perspective of a virtual assistant company. You have 25 VAs supporting different businesses.

• One VA is managing a Shopify store.
• Another is working in Google Search Console.
• Another is creating email campaigns.
• Someone is researching keywords.
• Someone else is working on lead generation.
• Another is reviewing Google Analytics.
• And another is helping a business improve repeat purchases.

Every one of those VAs is eventually going to encounter something they haven't dealt with before.

What happens then? You could expect each VA to search for answers independently.

You could try to build an internal training department covering every area of digital marketing.

You could hire experienced specialists across SEO, ecommerce, email, analytics, conversion optimization and other disciplines.

Or you could give your team access to ongoing digital marketing education and group coaching.

That's the purpose behind Mastering P.O.P. licensing for virtual assistant teams.

Give Your VAs a Resource That Can Make Your VA Company Stronger

Mastering P.O.P. isn't there to take over the relationship between a VA company and its customers.

Your VAs continue supporting their clients. Your company maintains its client relationships.

Mastering P.O.P. becomes an educational resource behind the people doing the work.

That also gives the VA company something additional to communicate to prospective customers: “Our VAs have access to ongoing digital marketing and e-commerce education and group coaching with an experienced digital marketing strategist.”

Think about that from the customer's perspective. They're not simply hiring someone who can perform tasks.

They're hiring a VA who has somewhere to continue learning and somewhere to bring marketing questions when they encounter something outside their existing knowledge.

What Can Virtual Assistants Learn Through Mastering P.O.P.?

Mastering P.O.P. focuses on more than teaching someone where to click inside a particular marketing platform.

Virtual assistants can continue developing their knowledge in areas such as SEO, search intent, e-commerce, Shopify, email marketing, marketing automation, Google Analytics, Google Search Console, conversion optimization, customer retention, lead generation, content marketing, competitor research, strategic partnerships and marketing technology.

The goal is to understand more of the thinking behind the work.

Instead of only learning how to find a keyword, ask:

• Why is someone searching for it?
• What are they expecting to find?
• Could that person become a customer?

Instead of only learning how to create an email, ask:

• Who should receive it?
• Why should they receive it?
• What do we want them to do next?

Instead of simply reporting website traffic, ask:

• Where did those visitors come from?
• Were they the right visitors?
• What did they do after arriving?

Marketing tools and platforms will continue changing. Understanding how to think through a marketing problem gives a VA knowledge they can continue applying as the technology changes.

Mastering P.O.P. Licensing for Virtual Assistant Companies

If you operate a virtual assistant company or have a staff of VAs, Mastering P.O.P. offers team licensing for ongoing digital marketing education and group coaching.

Licensing provides eligible team members with access to Mastering P.O.P. education and resources along with ongoing group coaching.

During group coaching, VAs can bring questions about the digital marketing and ecommerce work they're doing and learn from questions being discussed by other participants.

This is group coaching, not individual or one-on-one coaching.

Pricing for larger VA organizations is based on team size and access requirements.

What If Your Business Only Has One Virtual Assistant?

You don't have to own a virtual assistant company to use this model.

Maybe you're an ecommerce business with one Shopify virtual assistant.

Maybe you have a VA helping with SEO and website updates.

Maybe your assistant manages email marketing, content and analytics.

Ask yourself:

When my VA doesn't know the answer to a marketing question, who do they ask?

If the answer is always you, but you don't have extensive digital marketing experience yourself, you may be putting both of you in a difficult position.

You don't necessarily need another employee or an agency charging thousands of dollars every month to take everything over.

Your business can keep the VA who already understands your company while giving them access to ongoing digital marketing education and group coaching.

The business owner still makes business decisions.

The VA still does the work.

And when the VA encounters a marketing question they don't know how to approach, they have somewhere to continue learning.

Don't Replace a Good Virtual Assistant. Give Them More Marketing Support.

A good virtual assistant may already know your business, customers, products, systems and daily operations.

If they're missing knowledge in a particular area of digital marketing, replacing them isn't necessarily the answer.

Give them somewhere to learn.

Give them somewhere to ask questions.

Give them exposure to marketing problems other businesses and virtual assistants are working through.

And don't put yourself in the position of having to become a digital marketing strategist just so you can train the person you hired to help you with digital marketing.

For virtual assistant companies, the same idea can extend across an entire team.

Your VAs do the work. Mastering P.O.P. helps them continue learning the marketing behind the work.

Digital Marketing Training and Group Coaching for Your VA Team

If your company manages virtual assistants who work in digital marketing, ecommerce or Shopify, Mastering P.O.P. offers licensing for teams of different sizes.

Your VAs can receive ongoing digital marketing education, participate in group coaching and bring real marketing questions into an environment where they can continue developing their skills while working with your clients.

Have a VA team? Contact Mastering P.O.P. to discuss licensing and group access.