Top Five Tips for Winning New Clients through Offline and WOM Marketing Strategies

Before we begin, let’s pause for a moment of self-reflection. Take a quick look at the below video and see if you can relate to this man:

An extreme example, of course, but sometimes working from home as a Virtual Assistant or online professional can become lonely and isolating, and we need to find opportunities to get out of the house. Furthermore, as virtual business owners, we need to be intentional in seeking out strategic opportunities to connect and network with like-minded professionals in our respective industries. There is a lot you can do through the Internet and Social Media, of course, but in order to be effective in marketing your business, it takes both offline and online marketing strategies to reach your potential.

So, here are some ways you can step away from the computer, get out of the house, and win new clients through offline and word-of-mouth marketing strategies:

1. Be visible in your local community and industry.

•    Join your local chamber of commerce.

•    Approach your local Rotary Club or community college.

•    Join a Meetup group in your area.

2. Ask for referrals from your current clients.

•    Thank them for the referral with lunch, flowers or a gift certificate.

•    Give both your current and potential clients more than one business card – one to keep and two to give away.

3. Attend industry events.

•    Network at events like the annual IVAA Live Summit.

•    Volunteer to help coordinate a local business organization’s event.

•    Set up a vendor booth at an event and promote your business.

4. Develop your own branded promotional materials.

•    Create brochures, fliers, special reports, and business cards to give away.

•    Make sure all materials, including presentations, are branded with your website URL, logo and contact information.

•    When marketing at a vendor’s booth, have a poster designed to promote your business and consider handing out some kind of inexpensive branded gift.

5. Find creative ways to talk about your business.

•    Practice a great 30-second elevator speech.

•    Share presentations with various networking groups.

•    Place an ad or start a column in the business section of your local newspaper.

Now, depending on where you find yourself, you may experience success either offline or online; however, we hope that the above tips can help you broaden the horizons of your marketing scope. While those of us involved in the Virtual Assistant industry may spend a lot of time in our online marketing strategies, participating in offline events has a viral word-of-mouth effect that some online strategies don’t.

The following quote from a blog post entitled “Bring Your Online Social Networking to Offline Success” provides some further food for thought:

Body language is very important, especially in business. Online networking lacks body language. You may not realize it, but people use body language a lot. It can often say more than the actually words that are being spoken. Body language can reflect attitude, emotion and true feelings. Many aspects of communication come through body language and when you are only communicating online you lose that dimension of communication.

Both of those indisputable benefits allow offline networking to deepen and reinforce relationships while adding credibility to your reputation.

So be creative, spend some time away from your computer (or cat), and let us know what strategies have or have not worked for you in your offline marketing endeavors. You can connect with us in the comment box below or on our Facebook Page.

Top Three Tips for Handling High-Maintenance Clients

Last week in our VAClassroom event, a question arose on how to deal with “Draining Clients”. I am sure we can all relate at one time or another to those clients who

•    Relentlessly invade our time and space
•    Assume they are our only client and should demand our immediate attention
•    Skype us late at night for an urgent demand the next morning
•    Are highly disorganized and “fly by the seat of their pants” all the time
•    Want us to be available full-time but are only willing to pay us part-time.

I could build a much bigger list, but I will stop there. Have you experienced those types of clients recently? Are they causing you great anxiety and sleepless nights? If so, what can we do to effectively and tactfully manage these high-maintenance clients?

Here are a couple helpful tips to consider…

1. Be honest with the client. Sometimes, clients are not actually aware of how they are behaving with you until you have a candid conversation with them. In talking with them, I would lead with the positive. Let them know the things that you enjoy about the work, but then be honest about those areas that need to be improved. These conversations are not always easy, but what is the alternative – more stress and sleepless nights?

2. Set clear communication boundaries with the client. This should be done from Day 1 (ideally), but let the client know the best ways that they can communicate with you and also clearly outline the times you are NOT available. If you hate the relentless Skyping, then present a more attractive communication alternative to them. It is important to let them know that you have other clients and that quick turnarounds on urgent projects will not always happen. You might consider setting a standard communication turnaround time that they can expect. For example, let them know you will always respond to their emails within a 24-hour period unless it is on the weekend. Setting healthy boundaries with your clients will liberate you. Yes, you run the risk of losing those “ultra-demanding” clients, but that might not be a bad thing.

3. If you have been honest with the client and reset new boundaries and the client continues their “old ways”, then it might be time to have that difficult conversation and “disinvite” them from your client list.

Important Note: In this challenging economy, it might not be financially viable to simply “fire” your client, so my suggestion would be to ramp up your marketing efforts and seek to find a client (sooner than later) that will fill the spot of this difficult client. Once you have that in place, then you can fire him or her!

Of course, the best way to deal with difficult clients is to avoid getting involved with them in the first place. This can be tricky, but the blog post “How to Spot Difficult Clients before Signing a Contract” first of all recommends listening to your gut:

Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his book, Blink, that “your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions” about people or situations.

So, don’t discount that ‘iffy’ feeling you get when you first start discussing a project with a client. That ‘feeling’ is your gut telling you to pay attention. If you get that uneasy feeling, jot down why you feel that way and see if they add up to a strong reason NOT to take the project.

This post also goes on to list a few easy-to-spot red flags you can look for during initial discussions with a client that can help determine his or her “potential for difficulty”.

In our upcoming Project Management Skills clinic, we will continue to address the issue of client relationships head on and discuss some communication strategies for managing projects if you do find yourself working with a difficult client.

In the meantime, though, we hope the above tips have been helpful in giving you some tools for handling high-maintenance clients. If you have any questions or advice from your experience as a Virtual Assistant or online business owner, please share your thoughts in the comment box below or on our VAClassroom Facebook Page.

Top Five Tips for Responding to RFPs

If you receive notifications for New Forum Threads at VAClassroom, you may have seen the literal flood of RFPs coming in last week. During tough economic times like these, it’s very encouraging to see the amount of work available for talented Virtual Assistants and online professionals. But this begs the question, how do you effectively respond to an RFP? First of all, check out this video from 2minuteswithava.com for some great advice.

And now here are some more valuable tips to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward:

1) Read the two books recommended in the above video for more information on RFPs:

•    Entrepreneurial Freedom: How to Start and Grow a Profitable Virtual Assistance Practice by Jeannine Clontz and Lauren Hidden

•    Virtual Assistant, The Series: Become a Highly Successful, Sought After VA by Diana Ennen and Kelly Poelker

2) Develop a proposal template that you’re happy with and simply tweak it to suit each RFP you apply for (especially if it’s successful!).

•    Our self-study VA Success Blueprint program contains some sample RFP proposals, as well as other important strategies and templates that may help you.

3) Be sure to include the following items in your response so the person evaluating has as much information as possible:

•    Date – Let them know you responded prior to closing date (if applicable).

•    Reference Number – Check the proposal for any reference numbers or specific proposal references so information is clearly communicated.

•    Reference to their original request – Repeat it either word-for-word so they can easily reference it, or rewrite their needs to show your level of comprehension of the project.

•    Outline your experience in relation to the project or tasks – Keep it organized and simple for the client to review.

•    Specific or special skills that you have – If they list special skills, let them know your expertise in that area. If you are still learning, just be honest and let them know how committed you are to continual learning!

•    Special connections that you share – Groups/People/Activities

•    Project estimate (timeline & costs) – Include how you calculate your costs and measure your effectiveness.

•    Any additional charges that you can foresee – Include any further information you think might help them.

•    Testimonials – Everyone loves to hear how successful you’ve been for other clients, so include some recommendations from similar projects in your proposal.

•    Contact information and availability – Don’t forget to let them know how to connect with you and the best way to do it.

4) Prepare your response carefully and thoughtfully, including the following elements:

•    Show some interest. Research the company, and if anything excites you about it, let them know!

•    Include any similar experience you’ve had. Describe how your similar or past experiences can benefit them.

•    Are you an industry expert? If you have worked in the industry before, include some specific industry information to show them how familiar you are in their area of expertise.

•    What specific skills do you feel would enhance their business? Shout out your strengths and tell them how your specific skill sets will impact their business.

•    Point out any spelling or technical errors on their site or marketing material. Impress them by showing them that you are paying attention and letting them know how to solve any errors.

5) Take note of how different businesses handle RFP proposals. For example, at VAClassroom, the process of responding directly to clients is handled a little differently than screened requests. Since the client has us to pre-screen the proposals we will be looking at a few key elements when we make our recommendations:

•    Specific industry knowledge & experience

•   Examples of similar tasks/situations

•   Availability and match of project scope/requirements

Hope these tips for responding to RFPs have helped demystify the process. If you are a VAClassroom Premium Member, be sure to check the Monday Memo and our forum for new job postings, a great way to add new client and income opportunities to your business!

If you have any questions or further tips on submitting RFP proposals, please leave us a note in the comment box below.

25 Top Marketing Strategies for Reaching New Clients (Part 2: Online Activities)

As promised (close on the heels of our last post about offline marketing strategies), we will now share some great tips for online activities Virtual Assistants and online professionals can use to reach more clients. Did we say these are our favorite kinds of activities?  Well, without further ado, here they are, with a couple extra tips thrown in for good measure.

Online Activities:

1. Create a high quality, fully search engine optimized website or blog site – We can’t emphasize enough how important this strategy is. Through new blog posts and pages, it’s crucial to expand visibility by producing regular content that is optimized with the keywords you want to build your business around.

2. Build a strong, targeted presence in social networks – Many people are now using social networks to secure joint venture partnerships and post projects in status updates.

3. Build a targeted Twitter following and actively participate in the community – Virtual assistants can land clients through Twitter by responding to requests that have been posted by business owners looking for help.

4. Create a branded Facebook Page and offer valuable and relevant content to your audience – Given the huge growth of Facebook, this is a very important strategy to help build up visibility for your business and create SEO value as well.  If you already have a Facebook Page, see where it can be improved and be sure to regularly add new content to it.

5. Create a LinkedIn Profile – By adding recommendations, joining and contributing in targeted groups, and answering relevant questions one-on-one, you can use LinkedIn to specifically connect with business owners (60 or 70 million professionals are on LinkedIn) who could become the ideal clients for you.

6. Join niche social networks – If you’re targeting specific groups like writers groups or small business groups, etc., look for networks like Ning that are supporting those groups.

7. Set up locally optimized business profiles in Google Places, Bing and Yahoo local directories – Because these profiles also have good SEO value, be sure to optimize your profile, add videos and create branding value for your business in the local community.

8. Contact Google Internet Marketing Firms / Multi-VA Firms, PR Agencies and present your portfolio – Connect with the key decision makers in these firms and agencies to present your portfolio and offer your services.

9. Create a free information product and offer in order to build a targeted e-mail list – A golden way of building up your credibility is to offer some kind of ongoing publication that is targeted to people with your skill sets. It should be valuable content (a video series, monthly newsletter, e-book, white paper, report) that will segue to the services you offer.

10. Blog, but only if you have some relevant content to share – Corporate blogs that merely present product and service updates are becoming redundant. However, blogs that share meaningful content that’s valuable to your audience can build your credibility if that content is targeted, specialized and reaching the right people.

11. Create a YouTube Channel and regularly distribute keyword-targeted videos – Video is quickly becoming the most popular medium and can’t be ignored by marketers. A great way to build your brand is by sharing tips videos (talking head or demos) and integrating these videos into your website to add a personal connection with your audience.

12. Start a BlogTalk Radio Show, regular podcast or AudioBoos where you share your expertise – This type of audio content is easily transmitted and shared on networks like Facebook, so it’s very effective for building your brand and targeting your audience.
13. Distribute keyword targeted articles and press releases through EzineArticles.com and PRWeb.com – Keywords will help you get listed in the top 10, but be sure to focus on the quality of the content before the keywords and write to benefit the lives and businesses of your target audience.
14. Create Presentations and PDFs through Slideshare.net and Scribd.com – With the rise of Slideshare.net, this strategy is gaining popularity as it can feed PowerPoint presentations directly into your LinkedIn profile. With these tools, you can also send new clients a link to your portfolio.

15. Put on webinars for online groups and associations – With tools like GoToWebinar or Free Conference Calling, you can focus on a particular industry (e.g. “Using Social Media for Interior Design Businesses”) and put on an informative webinar or tele-event.

16. Test out some low-cost Facebook Social Ads or Pay Per Click ads for targeted keywords – Another great way of targeting new clients is to test out these ads on your “Like” base from your Facebook Page. It is possible to get a lot of interest, visitors and sales through these ads.

Miscellaneous Strategies:

17. Referral Marketing – This is also called “Duct Tape Marketing” and involves being proactive with your existing clients and asking them for referrals to other colleagues. It relies on the “Know, like, trust factor” and can lead to many new client leads.

18. Set up Joint Ventures – Finally, a great way to build your business is to partner up with colleagues either inside or outside your industry who offer complementary services. For example, a person who writes articles might partner with someone in the social media space, and they could cross-refer each other.

We hope you find these tips helpful. If you are interested in reaching new clients, we recommend going through the lists in Parts 1 and 2 of this blog post series and ticking off the strategies you are currently using, evaluating which activities have been successful for you, and considering which strategies you might want to add to your overall marketing strategy.

As a community of Virtual Assistants and online professionals, we here at VAClassroom are committed to helping equip you with the skills that will help you reach your ideal client base. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a note for us in the comment box below. Also, let us know of any additional strategies or ideas that have worked for you.

25 Top Marketing Strategies for Reaching New Clients (Part 1: Offline Activities)

In this current economic climate, many Virtual Assistants and online business owners have experienced the highs and lows in their businesses over the past couple years. In fact, you yourself may have cycled from a time of abundance with great “high-value” clients to a drought where you have struggled to fill retainer clients that you may have lost for one reason or another. The ebbs and flows of a virtual business can cause a lot of stress.

During these times, it’s important to evaluate your virtual business activities and ask yourself some key questions:

•    What marketing strategies are you currently using to connect with new clients?
•    What strategies or activities have been successful for you? What has not gone well?

As we’re focusing on virtual business marketing this week, we’d like to take some time to share some top marketing strategies for reaching new clients. In our free event on March 17, “Virtual Business Marketing Makeover in One Hour,” one of the things we’ll be talking about is the fact that you must market every single day even if you have enough clients now. So, to start off our list, here are the first seven tips for how you can consistently market your business and connect with new and potential clients through offline activities.

Offline Activities:

1. Join or start a business networking group in your local area – This activity can actually happen both online and offline. Through Meetups, Tweetups, Chamber of Commerce or Local Business Associations, you can connect with like-minded individuals for collaboration purposes or to get connected with your target client audience.

2. Do a presentation for a local business group or association (i.e. local hospitality association, real estate association, small business owners) – For example, you could do a social media presentation that demonstrates how restaurants can use social media to draw in more customers. In a previous blog post, “Social Media Goes Local in 2010,” we talked about how restaurant owner Joe Sorge uses Twitter to engage with customers.

3. Attend a business fair/conference in your local region – These conferences and fairs are a great way to have face-to-face encounters with people who might potentially hire VAs.
4. Host a local event in your area (e.g. Social Media for Hospitality Businesses) – This activity requires some planning and maybe a bit of a budget, but it can be very effective as a form of networking.
5. Research and target local business clients with a one-on-one presentation – You could visit certain restaurants or spas you want to target to see how they could use social media to grow their businesses.

6. Publish an article in a local newspaper or trade magazine – This activity requires a certain level of writing skills, but can be very effective in giving your business more visibility.

7. Send targeted mail-outs to business lists through an association like the Chamber of Commerce – This is not the number one strategy we’d recommend because it isn’t very measurable, but it could definitely lead to multiple client opportunities in the local business community.

Stay tuned for our next post, where we will talk about tips for marketing your business through online activities (our favorite kind of strategies here at VAClassroom :).

And in the meantime, let us know if you have any questions or comments about these offline marketing strategies. Have you used any in the past and found them successful? Please drop us a comment in the box below!

5 Awesome Technology Tools You Wish Santa would put in Your Stocking This Year

It’s the holiday season, and many children around the world are looking forward to Santa coming down the chimney and filling their stockings on Christmas Eve. If you have kids, you might have already hung their stockings up in anticipation as they write letters to Santa.

Well, in the spirit of the season, we thought it might be fun to hear from a Santa that Virtual Assistants and online business owners can relate to. Check out this video:

So if this Santa were visiting your house, what would he put in your stocking? Here are five technology tools you might want him to bring for your virtual business:

1. Apple iPad – What can we say? The iPad is one of the hottest gifts around this year… and it’s pretty cool too. In a recent blog post, “The iPad and The Marketing Professional”, Mitch Joel quotes Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder and CEO, as saying that the iPad is “the device that lies in between your computer and your mobile device.”

So why would you want it in your stocking? Well, iPad apps can also make this a powerful tool for business professionals. Some examples that Mitch Joel recommends are Dropbox, iA Writer, FlightTrack Pro and Flipboard.

2. Google Apps for Business – Speaking of apps, if you aren’t already using Google Apps, you should really consider asking Santa for it. For only $50 per year, you can subscribe to a suite of secure web-based office tools, including Google Docs, Google Calendar, and many more.

The benefit of subscribing to this solution is that you don’t have to purchase any additional hardware or software, and you receive 25GB of email storage per person, so no matter how large your team is, you will save money and facilitate better collaboration between team members. It will also save you the time and headache of having to host and maintain your own communication and collaboration tools.

3. iPhone with TimeScroller widget – This is a handy technology tool that can help you find an appropriate time for an overseas phone call or conference, especially handy if you serve clients who live worldwide.

TimeScroller for iPhone and iPod touch is available at the App Store. Here are some features listed on the TimeScroller website:

•    Simple, compact display shows up to 9 cities without needing to scroll.
•    Takes into account daylight savings time for all cities.
•    Configurable to show different colors for different times of day – for example, “green” for normal office hours, “amber” for the evening, etc.
•    Unique suggest time feature.
•    Draft email listing times.
•    TimeScroller does not require an Internet connection.

4. Skype – This is another tool that we highly recommend at VAClassroom, especially for those accessing our live teleseminars outside of the U.S.  Skype is a software application that enables users to make voice calls over the Internet. Calls are free of charge to other users within the Skype service, while calls to landline telephones and mobile phones are paid for using a debit-based user account system.

Other features include:

•    Free video calling
•    Send files
•    Screen sharing
•    Conference calling
•    Voicemail

5. Virtual Gifts – For the Virtual Assistant who has everything, another great stocking stuffer is a virtual charity gift. For example, World Vision, an international relief and development organization, has launched a Facebook Page called “The True Spirit of Christmas”. Here you can send your Facebook friends a free virtual gift from the World Vision gift catalogue to “help spread the word about a great way to change children’s lives.”

In addition, there are many sites worldwide where the proceeds of purchasing a virtual gift benefits a certain charity, like the WWF Adopt an Animal charity gift.

We hope you are having a wonderful holiday season! We’d love to hear what’s on your wish list this year! If you have any suggestions, please comment below so that Santa knows what to put in YOUR stocking!

Five Tips for Simplifying Your Business Systems and Processes

A recent CTV report gave Canadians promising news last week. It described how a group of researchers in Ontario discovered a way to shave 20 minutes off the 90-minute time period it usually takes to get heart attack patients into surgery.

The report says that one of the key changes involves allowing paramedics to speak directly to the cardiologist on call at the hospital and then letting the patient completely bypass the emergency department and proceed directly to the procedure room. Dr. Sheldon Cheskes, the medical director of the Sunnybrook Osler Center for Prehospital Care, who led the research, explained that they now bypass anything that causes delays in the system. According to Cheskes, “From a mortality point of view, our mortality rate before we started our program was about 6.5 per cent. Our mortality currently is 2.1 per cent, which is a huge, significant increase.”

So what does this have to do with online business? Well, the life of a business often depends on the efficiency of its systems and processes too, and building a simpler yet stronger foundation can breathe new life and vigor into your work as a Virtual Assistant or online professional. For example, are you spending an excessive amount of time billing and invoicing when you could be out there networking and meeting new clients? Do you have a system for handling your clients’ tasks, or do you have to backtrack every time and try to remember how you did the same thing before?

Well, here are some quick tips for simplifying your business systems and processes:

1. Write a list of all the tasks you do more than once – According to Pam Ivey, six-figure Virtual Assistant Extraordinaire, everything you do more than once should have a system created around it, so start by determining which tasks need a system and which ones can be handled on a case-by-case basis.
2. Talk to a mentor or a “Systems Chick” like Kristi Pavlik, creator of www.systemschick.com – If you don’t enjoy outlining systems and processes, it is possible to find others who do, so don’t hesitate to find an expert who will sit down with you and figure out how to streamline your activities.
3. Put together a manual with templates and checklists – For tasks like responding to new RFPs, responding to FAQs or providing welcome packages to new clients, it helps to create a resource that allows you to quickly build customized content. Not only does it speed up these processes, but it also allows you to hand over your business activities to someone else if you need to take time off.
4. Find the best productivity tools for your business – Especially for activities like time tracking, invoicing and billing, it is imperative that you find a tool that works best for you and allows you to perform these tasks quickly and accurately. FreshBooks is an example of a great online invoicing, time tracking and billing software that can meet the needs of many types of virtual businesses.
5. Sign up for our newest VAClassroom Training Program, the “Virtual Assistant Business Success Blueprint” course – We are thrilled to have partnered with Pam Ivey to bring you this innovative new program, which is designed to help you develop the right systems, tools and templates for quickly growing your business heading into 2011. This program is ideally suited to both newbies as well as existing VAs who would like to improve and enhance their business systems and marketing strategies. It is both a start-up and a business-building program!

We hope these tips will help give you a plan of attack so you can grow a thriving and successful online business. With the right systems in place, your work as a Virtual Assistant or online professional will become much more enjoyable, and you may even free yourself up to take some much-needed time off!

If you have any other suggestions that have worked for you, please comment below.

A Review of Google Instant Preview

To click or not to click – that is the question search engine users ask themselves, and Google has just made their decision easier with the recent unveiling of a new feature called “Google Instant Preview,” which essentially gives users a sneak peek of a website before they actually click on the link.

To see it in action, check out this YouTube video tour produced by the e-Strategy Internet Marketing Blog:

Now, unlike Google Instant (which was meant to speed things up but sometimes did the opposite), Google Instant Preview truly does speed up the search process by not only giving you a graphic overview of search results but also highlighting the most relevant sections.

According to The Official Google Blog, you can use Google Instant Previews in the following ways:

•    Quickly compare results – A visual comparison of search results helps you pick the one that’s right for you. Quickly flip through previews to see which page looks best.
•    Pinpoint relevant content - Text call outs, in orange, will sometimes highlight where your search terms appear on the webpage so you can evaluate if it’s what you’re looking for.
•   Interact with the results page – Page previews let you see the layout of a webpage before clicking the search result. Looking for a chart, picture, map or list? See if you can spot one in the preview.

And, yes, it does provide those benefits… unless a website has been designed in a way that doesn’t show up properly in Instant Previews. Then it proves detrimental to both search engine users and online business owners who may be missing out on a powerful way of drawing more traffic to their pages.

The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog provides some valuable tips on how you can optimize your site for Google Instant Preview. Here are some important examples:

•    Keep your pages clearly laid out and structured, with a minimum of distractions or extraneous content. This is always good advice, since it improves the experience for visitors, and the simplicity and clarity of your site will be apparent via Instant Previews.
•    Try to avoid interstitial pages, ad pop-ups, or other elements that interfere with your content. In some cases, these distracting elements may be picked up in the preview of your page, making the screenshots less attractive.
•    Currently, some videos or Flash content in previews appear as a “puzzle piece” icon or a black square. We’re working on rendering these rich content types accurately.

But most important of all, if you are a Virtual Assistant or online business owner wanting to attract search engine users to your site, you need to make sure you have aesthetically pleasing pages with a well-designed layout that shows up great in Instant Previews. First impressions are going to matter, and since the size of each preview is too small to read much content, elements like colors, graphics and large branding are going to play a huge part.

Now the question on a lot of people’s minds is “Will Google Instant Preview affect SEO?” Well, as in the case of Google Instant, the jury is still out on that matter, so it remains to be seen whether we will need to adjust our SEO strategies.

In a blog post entitled “How will Google Instant Preview Affect You?!” the author suggests that the Instant Preview diminishes the importance of the ad copy beneath the search query titles. She also predicts that if your Preview turns off users, your click through rate will drop, your cost per click will go up, and ultimately your business costs will rise. These things could be true, but only time will tell, so we’ll need to be vigilant and monitor how our sites are doing along the way.

So Google is taking all of us online professionals on another adventure, but it’s an exciting challenge and a great opportunity to improve our branding and our websites’ first impressions. How will you respond to the challenge of Google Instant Preview? Please share your thoughts and comments below!

Five Tips to Building a Strong Client Base in a Down Economy

Won’t it be great when we don’t have to talk about the Recession any longer? In these tough economic times, there are many challenges to face, and in online business, many Virtual Assistants and online service providers complain that their greatest challenge is finding new clients and maintaining a strong client base.

Fortunately, this is not an impossible hurdle to overcome because even in today’s weakened economy, the Virtual Assistance field is growing and thriving. In fact, many companies are now choosing to hire a VA instead of a traditional employee because VAs can be way more cost-effective and flexible.

So how do you attract these clients and keep them coming back for more even during this period of belt-tightening? Well, below are five tips that we hope will help:

1. Create an “irresistible offer” – Even during a recession (and especially during a recession), clients need extra help, and your job is to “become irresistible” so that they will hire you to deliver the Virtual Assistance services they need and to perform the tasks they don’t have time to do. Check out Krishna De’s video below, where she provides some great advice and food for thought:

2. Develop an “Internet Marketing Mindset” – Use Internet Marketing strategies to aid you in your client recruitment. In a recent blog post we talked about “Mastering the Art of Email List Building”. Here are some other things you can do to market your services online:

•    Create keyword-targeted video content to build your visibility and credibility with your audience.
•    Create a Facebook Page designed to support your target client audience’s ongoing questions and needs.
•    Develop visually appealing, brand-building PP presentations and distribute them through the web with SlideShare.net.
•    Use Twellow.com to research and build a highly targeted base of followers in Twitter.

3. Join Meetup groups – Meetup groups in your community can be a great place to network face to face with other virtual professionals and meet potential clients. To find one in your area, check out the Meetup website at http://www.meetup.com/.

4. Visit brick and mortar businesses in your area – As mentioned above, many companies could use a Virtual Assistant to perform some much-needed tasks without having to hire a traditional employee. In this case, a low-cost way of marketing yourself could be to take a walk through your community and visit brick and mortar businesses in person. With your “irresistible offer” and some great ideas for how you can specifically help them in their local business, you could entice them to become your next clients too!

5. Take care of the clients you already have – An interesting article called “Keeping Clients in a Down Economy – Is Giving Or Taking Better For Your Bottom Line” suggests that one of the most effective ways to find new clients is to be generous with the ones you already have. Here’s what the author says:

“Rather than spend more time, energy and money to recruit new clients, I’m showing current clients how much I value them by going above and beyond, thus creating raving fans who are telling others and then those others are coming to me.”

So ultimately, a strong relationship with your existing clients could go a long way towards building a stronger and bigger client base even when times are tough.

We hope these tips help generate your creativity so you can face the challenge of attracting more clients to your Virtual Assistance business in a down economy. If you have more ideas that have worked for you, we’d love to hear them, so please post them in the comment area below!

Bananas and Branding in a Social Media World.

“I’m Chiquita Banana and I’ve come to say, Bananas have to ripen in a certain way…”

(lyrics from the original Chiquita Banana theme song)

Does your food talk to you?

Probably not.

Does it ask you to talk to it?

Maybe.

In this new social media driven world, even food has become interactive online, as you may have seen last week in a recent post on our VAClassroom Facebook Page. When Craig grabbed a banana as a quick snack, little did he know it would have a sticker on it that read “Chiquita – find us on Facebook to vote!” As he said, “This is a web 2.0 banana I am eating – banana branding at its best!”

So we checked out the Chiquita Banana Facebook Page, and this is what we found:

•    Facebook Page summary – “This is a page for all things banana. Pay a visit to our site and see just how bananas our bananas can get. Eatachiquita.com. Or follow us on Twitter @ChiquitaChatter.” (Chiquita Bananas are also on Twitter!)

•    Info tab – containing a link to the Chiquita Banana website, as well as a Company Overview and a list of Products.

•    “Organics” tab – promoting organic bananas and inviting people to vote. Chiquita will donate 10% of organic banana sales sold in September to the environmental non-profit organization with the most votes.

•    Photos tab – with photos from Chiquita as well as from fans. (Wow, a lot of people really like Chiquita Bananas!)

•    Page Terms tab – explaining the Chiquita Banana Community Guidelines. (This is a great idea!)

•    Several other tabs and an active Wall – with posts from both fans and Chiquita Banana itself.

Chiquita adds posts regularly to the wall and is great about interacting with fans by replying to any questions or comments.

Here are some examples of Chiquita’s wall posts:

•    Contests – e.g. “Chiquita Banana Sticker Design Contest” and “Chiquita Champion” (nominating an athlete or an athletic team who has accomplished something amazing)

•    Product Advertisements – e.g. “Exotic” varieties like red bananas and Manzano bananas

•    Fun Facts – e.g. September 21 is National Banana Day.

And if the response is any indication, people are “eating up” this Facebook Page! At this time, Chiquita Banana is “liked” by more than 20,000 people!

Moreover, the contests attract people to the Chiquita websites themselves as they are mostly held off of the Facebook Page. For example, in honor of National Organics Month, Chiquita is hosting an organic smoothie recipe contest on their blog. This is a great way of directing people to read the blog posts!

So what do you think of this banana branding and use of Social Media? Many of us had parents who told us, “Don’t play with your food,” and now here we are, entering Chiquita Banana contests and “talking to our food” on Facebook.

The great thing about this Web 2.0 world is that it can foster a sense of collaboration and trust between businesses and consumers. As companies use Social Media as a way of branding their products, consumers can interact, voicing their opinions and concerns.

A quote from the blog post “Social Media Case Study: Cindy Cieluch, Photographer Building a Brand” sums it up perfectly:

“… Whether you’re a small, medium, or large business there are small and simple things you can be doing with social media that will help with your brand building efforts while at the same time building those relationships and getting people what they truly want which is a relationship with the company before they make business and do business with them.”

So, as a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Owner, how would you use a Facebook Page or other Social Networks to build your brand in this New Media World? The possibilities are endless, so we’d love to hear your ideas!

Seven Must-Have Google Tools for Maximizing Your Business Productivity

Do you love Google Tools as much as we do? Google has a talent for coming up with features that often cater to the needs of Virtual Assistants and Online Business owners and can even help brick and mortar businesses take more of their activities online. For example, the blog post “Free Google Tools Changing the Way I Do Business” talks about the way Google’s suite of tools can streamline people’s work in the Real Estate business, providing quick access to email and documents.

If one of your goals for the last part of 2010 is to maximize your business productivity so you can hit the ground running in 2011, Google Tools can help you do that.

So without further ado, here’s a list of the ones we’d highly recommend:

1. Gmail – Google’s web-based email client provides you with 7+ GB of storage, as well as mobile access and a very effective spam filter. With Gmail we’re able to access our messages on any computer and on mobile devices when we’re on the go. Some other features we like about Gmail are:

•    Google Search within Gmail
•    Labels, Filters and Stars to help organize messages
•    Always-on HTTPS encryption

2. Google Docs – We’ve discovered Google Docs are a great way to create documents (also spreadsheets, presentations, forms, and drawings) to share online with colleagues or clients. Here’s how you can use them:

•    Upload any files from your desktop.
•    Edit and view them from any computer or smartphone.
•    Invite real-time collaboration on documents.

3. Google Calendar – Our VAClassroom team has just started using this free online calendar to enhance our productivity, and so far it’s working really well. Here are some of the things it’s allowing us to do:

•    Share our schedules with each other so we can synchronize our activities.
•    Access a mobile version of the calendar.
•    Customize reminders so that we’re notified by email or text when an upcoming event or task is approaching.

4. Google Reader – It’s very important to stay on top of what’s happening in your industry, but trying to monitor all your favorite blogs and websites for new content can be frustrating and time-consuming. Google Reader allows you to input the names of your favorite sites, and then it will check them regularly for new content and display it all on one screen. Here’s what else you can do with this tool:

•    Recommend articles to friends, colleagues or clients by sending them relevant links.
•    Add a customizable clip to your website or blog sidebar to display your latest shared articles.
•    Access your Google Reader on your mobile phone browser or from any computer.

5. Google Blog Search – This is an invaluable tool to use when writing blog posts for your business. It allows you to research blog posts on particular topics to see what other people are saying and what’s been written about before. With the advanced blog search, you can search using several criteria:

•    Words or phrases in post or title
•    URLs
•    Dates (useful when you’re looking for the most recent blog posts on a topic)
•    Author

6. Google Chrome – The Google Chrome web browser has proven to be faster and more stable for us, especially when viewing our VAClassroom training videos. Often if students are having difficulties viewing videos on other browsers, we recommend Google Chrome. So far it’s also offering these benefits:

•    Greater speed
•    Sophisticated security to allow safe browsing
•    Auto-updates

7. Google Alerts – As mentioned before, keeping apprised of certain topics related to your industry can be tricky and time-consuming. In addition to Google Reader, you can also use Google Alerts to keep on top of what people are saying about you, your business, your competitors or your industry in general. When you set up Google Alerts, you receive email updates of the latest relevant Google results according to the topic you chose. You can preview and then customize your alerts based on the following criteria:

•    Type of alert (News, Blogs, Updates, Video, Discussions)
•    How often you’d like to receive alerts
•    How many email results you’d like to receive

So there you have it – seven must-have business tools for maximizing your business productivity heading into the latter half of 2010. As the Internet landscape changes and evolves, most likely Google will come out with some more cool tools, and all of us involved in the Virtual Assistance business can benefit from anything that helps streamline our work with clients and all our Internet Marketing or Social Marketing activities.

So now we’d like to hear your thoughts! What Google Tool has had the biggest impact on your business productivity? Please add any other favorites to our list!

Five Common Mistakes to Avoid When Writing Online Newsletters

Do you subscribe to any Online Newsletters? As Virtual Assistants and online business owners, we often talk about Email Marketing from our perspective, but often it’s helpful to turn the tables and look at it from a subscriber’s perspective.

In an earlier blog post, “Mastering the Art of Email List Building,” we discussed the new Email Marketing 2.0 system and how it’s about adding value and building relationships, loyalty and trust with a niche group of subscribers rather than direct selling and building a huge generalized list of subscribers.

Infusionsoft CEO and Co-founder, Clate Mask, gives a terrific definition of this innovative marketing system:

This way of approaching Email Marketing has implications for the communications we send out to our email list and certain expectations that can turn people away or attract them to our business. So, given that definition, what would make you unsubscribe from an Online Newsletter?

The blog posts “5 Reasons Why No One Is Reading Your Email Newsletter” and “Email Newsletter Do’s and Don’t” have some great advice.

We did some thinking too, and here are the five common mistakes that might make us unsubscribe from an Online Newsletter:

1.    Boring, irrelevant content – There’s nothing worse than wasting time reading a newsletter that has no value or practical application to your business. Life is too busy for that, so be sure to provide your subscribers with valuable high-quality content that means something to them.

2.    Too many graphics – If there are too many large graphics, the images may be blocked by an email server or may be too difficult to load for people with slower Internet connections. Next stop – the Unsubscribe link!

3.   Inconsistent communication – Be sure to set a consistent schedule for your newsletter. If you call it a “monthly newsletter” but miss a few months here or there, people will begin to wonder if you’re serious or may even just forget about you.

4.    Too many ads or promotions – Even if you have a great product that you’re eager to sell, don’t be too heavy-handed with your promotions. Also, be sure to promote products that are appropriate for your target audience and that will be useful to them and their business.

5.    No options to provide feedback – As a way of building trust, it’s important to always encourage feedback and interaction somewhere in your newsletter. It’s frustrating to receive an old-style Email 1.0 newsletter that sounds like it was sent by a used car salesman who has no interest in anyone’s opinions or concerns.

So the next time you’re writing an Online Newsletter, step out of the Virtual Assistant shoes for a moment and take a look at your Email Marketing from the subscribers’ perspective. If you wouldn’t subscribe to your newsletter, chances are they wouldn’t either.

Now tell us your opinion! What mistakes do you notice in some Online Newsletters, and how do you think they affect a business’s relationship with its subscribers?

The Power of Article Writing in a Web 2.0 World

Does article writing still have a place in this new interactive Web 2.0 world? It’s a question many Virtual Professionals and online business owners may be asking themselves as Social Media Marketing and Video Marketing gain prominence.

Well, we would argue that article writing does have a place and that it is still a prolific marketing channel in this Social Media Arena. Here are some of the key reasons why:

• Increases brand visibility and interest.

• Establishes authority and thought leadership.

• Ignites SEO potency (Tons of backlinks).

• Creates opportunity for your content to go viral.

• Generates targeted website traffic and sales.

As an illustration, check out this case study described in “Article Marketing – An Hour A Week To Web 2.0 Success!”

Here the author reports how spending 45 minutes writing three articles (targeted to his sites and online products) yielded the following results one week after being uploaded to a professional online article submission service:

• 55 pages indexed and live in Google showing his resell rights article

• 43 pages indexed and live in Google showing his Article Marketing article

• 51 pages indexed and live in Google showing his Affiliate Marketing article
He summarizes the results this way:

“That’s 149 more places for people to run into my name and solid info from me online, 149 more links back to my sites, each capable of attracting tightly-targeted traffic to my salespages and affiliate marketing pre-sell pages. For one hour’s work, total. That’s the immediate benefit to article marketing – almost instant spidering by the search engines, and a number of new profit conduits set up aimed at your payment button or affiliate links.”

In addition to uploading your articles to online submission sites like EzineArticles.com, you can use Social Media channels to further maximize the exposure of your content. Here are some common ways of doing that:

• Use the EzineArticles.com Bookmarking feature.

• Schedule article tweets in HootSuite. (Send it out 2-3 times.)

• Share your article in targeted social network groups and forums. (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning)

• Include the article link in a relevant blog post.

• Submit your article to other general and niche social bookmarking sites. (Digg, Delicious)
We cover this in more detail in our Internet Marketing Specialist 2010 course since it is such a crucial step in harnessing the power of Social Media to mass-distribute your articles.

And when you’re writing, always remember the Golden Rule of Article Marketing: CONTENT IS KING! The credibility and influence of your Virtual Business will grow if you consistently provide valuable content that is directed towards your target audience.

Now we’d like to hear your thoughts! Have you used articles to promote your Virtual Business? Do you feel Article Marketing is still an effective marketing channel in the Web 2.0 world?

Social Networking Management: A Comparison of HootSuite, TweetDeck and Seesmic.

As a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Owner in general, do you find it difficult to manage your Social Networking activities? If so, you’re not alone. With the emergence and growing prominence of Social Media Marketing, it can be overwhelming to keep everything organized and ensure that your activities are well timed and effective.

For this reason, some cool tools have been created to help Marketers get the most out of their Social Networking and save a lot of time and frustration. The most popular ones are HootSuite.com, TweetDeck.com and Seesmic.com, and we’d like to show you a little comparison of them so that you can decide which one would work best for you.

First of all, check out this video showing how their dashboards can be used to manage Twitter activities:

Thankfully, though they began as Twitter clients, these tools have in some cases also begun to integrate multiple social networks, a great improvement as Social Marketing activities are certainly not limited to Twitter.

Below is a comparison of some of the more distinguishing features of HootSuite, TweetDeck and Seesmic:

HootSuite:

•    Entirely web-based
•    Manages multiple social networks
•    Tracks link statistics
•    Tabbed layout for different accounts
•    Schedules tweets and status updates
•    Built-in URL shortener

TweetDeck:

•    Has Desktop, iPhone and iPad browsers
•    Manages multiple social networks
•    Ability to customize tweets with groups, columns, saved searches and automatic updates
•    Schedules tweets

Seesmic:

•    Has web-based, Desktop and Mobile applications for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android and Blackberry
•    Manages multiple social networks
•    Ability to customize columns and save searches
•    Ability to personalize the application

Paul Sutton’s blog post “TweetDeck v Seesmic v HootSuite: Which is the Most Awesome Twitter Client?” has a great analysis of the big three and concludes that “HootSuite is best for those who need to manage several distinct accounts, and anyone who wants integrated statistical link reporting. It’s also very useful as a tweet scheduler in its own right due to the integrated URL shortening. Seesmic, on the other hand, is best for everyday management of Twitter accounts and engaging in conversations, making it easy to keep on top of timelines with its clear views and unobtrusive but effective notifications.”

In terms of TweetDeck, however, Sutton feels it has some good features, but “the white on black interface is hard on the eyes and is stylized to the expense of usability, and the column functionality is limited, especially when compared to that of Seesmic.”

Tastes may vary, though, so check them out and see which one works best for you in your Social Networking and Virtual Assistance services. If you already have a favorite, please comment below and let us know which tool you like and how it has helped you and your clients!

Harnessing the Power of Free Information Products in Your Virtual Assistant Business

Recently we held our fourth Summer Skill Camp session for Virtual Assistants on “Leveraging the Power of Free Information Products to Attract and Win New Clients.” In today’s Web 2.0 world, a revolutionary new business model has developed that uses Free Information Products to build community, brand exposure, and lucrative results in an authentic way. This is in contrast to the old model, where free products had strings attached and were all about generating a sale.

Nowadays, Free Information Products serve to build connections, add value, grow brand influence and thought leadership in a way that can ultimately lead to new clients, all the while increasing the credibility of a business.

A July 2009 Reader’s Digest article, “Chris Anderson on the Meaning of Free,” talks about Anderson’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. In his book, Anderson describes how the comedy group Monty Python were frustrated by seeing low-quality pirated versions of their sketches posted on YouTube, so they created their own YouTube channel and posted their own free higher-quality versions, letting fans know that complete DVD versions of the sketches were available for purchase. Amazingly, sales of Monty Python DVDs rose by 23,000 percent.

Anderson explains:

“Free worked, and worked brilliantly … People are making lots of money charging nothing. Not nothing for everything, but nothing for enough that we have essentially created a country-sized economy around the price of $0.00.”

But what form do Free Information Products take, and as a Virtual Assistant, how do you know which ones would be suitable to offer on your site?

Here are some examples of products you can offer:

•    White Papers, Special PDF Reports, eBooks

•    MP3 Audio Interview Series

•    Screencast Presentations

•    Pre-recorded Tele-Events (with Transcript)

•    Email tips series

•    Visual Slide Show Presentations

•    Online Newsletters

•    eCourses

And how do you know which ones to choose?

Think carefully about your online business and decide which of these products would provide the most value to your target audience, which ones could serve as a solution to any problems they might be having.

Once you have created your Free Information Product, be sure to position it for mass distribution through multiple social networks so that it gains as much exposure as possible and reaches your target audience through a wide variety of channels.

You’ll see that providing this valuable information for free will help establish you as a thought leader, a mentor, and ultimately build the credibility of your business, potentially leading to the addition of new ideal clients. Remember: the most valuable gift you have to offer your clients is yourself.

What do you think? Has providing Free Information products led to increased sales in your virtual business? As a Virtual Assistant or business owner, how do you maintain a balance between providing free and paid products and services?

Please share your comments below.

Seven Ways to Have an Ultra Productive Summer for Your Virtual Business.

Before we begin, we just want to apologize to our readers “down under” for yet another reference to summer when you are experiencing the cold of winter right now. In many parts of Canada, summer is so short, we just love to talk about it while we can!

One of the things we’re talking about right now is how to stay productive in our online businesses during the summer months. When the weather turns warm and the kids are out of school, it’s tempting to want to sit back, relax and put work on hold for awhile. That’s definitely a healthy thing to do in order to be refreshed and rejuvenated; however, as Virtual Assistants, often we are unable to take a lot of time off from our work and need a way to stay motivated and productive even when the sun is shining and the neighbors are outside barbecuing.

Here are a few simple tips to help you have a productive summer:

1. Try to establish office hours for yourself that will still allow you to participate in fun activities with your friends and family. (Often the anticipation of an event will make you use your time effectively.)

2. Don’t burn the candle at both ends. (While making time for friends and family, do remember to leave yourself enough time to finish your work and get a good night’s sleep – one of the biggest thieves of productivity is lack of sleep.)

3. Get some fresh air. (Take advantage of warm summer weather and go for a walk or take your kids to the playground – refreshing for both the mind and body.)

4. Give your office a makeover. (Clear any clutter that could be distracting you and create a pleasant space to work in – maybe even treat yourself to a vase of fresh flowers.)

5. When you’re feeling distracted or unmotivated, use that time to try out some new reading materials pertaining to your industry (i.e. blogs, eBooks, ezines, or a new book from Amazon.com).

6. Connect with colleagues and fellow Virtual Assistants. (Keep each other inspired by talking via Skype, telephone, Social Networking or even Meetup groups.)

7. Enrol in a training program like the VAClassroom Summer Skill Camp and set a goal to learn some great business-building skills by the end of the summer!

We’re keeping ourselves productive here at VAClassroom by continuing to develop top-notch training opportunities for you during the summer months, and we’re excited that our very first Summer Skill Camp for Virtual Assistants and Online Professionals will be starting in just one week!

How do you keep yourself productive during the summer? We’d love to hear any tips or advice you have!

Continual Learning – The Key to Developing a Thriving Virtual Assistant Business in 2010

I (Jena) finally got an iPod this year. What an improvement! Up until then I had been using a Discman, and it was the funny looks people were giving me on the bus that led me to believe I wasn’t carrying the hippest piece of technology.

Then there was my computer operating system. In 2007 I proudly updated it from Windows 98 to Windows XP… then discovered that XP had been released in about 2001 and was soon going to be replaced by Windows Vista.

With my love for science fiction, you’d think I’d be motivated to stay apprised of all the newest developments in technology. I mean how can you watch “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and not be interested in the future?

But without proper education and continual learning, it’s easy to get left behind, and this put me at a disadvantage in my personal life and especially in my business. I had neglected to stay on top of current trends in technology and was missing out on advances in functionality and even computer security. Perhaps it would have been wiser to spend a little more time reading Mashable.com and less time watching Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and his crew.

All professionals, from dentists to accountants, need to keep their skills current, but if you are a Virtual Assistant or Online Professional, you need to be an “incurable learner” in order to be successful in this fast-moving Internet Landscape. It is way too easy to get left behind in an online industry that moves at lightning speed.

Here are some of the things savvy Virtual Assistants must pay attention to so that they can develop a thriving business in 2010:

•    Technology trends – e.g. Innovations in SmartPhone technology are creating an irresistible platform for mobile marketing.
•    Internet Marketing trends – e.g. Video marketing is gaining prominence over traditional marketing methods.
•    Social Media trends – e.g. Twitter use for marketing purposes is increasing.
•    Productivity tools – e.g. Tools like Freshbooks and SmartSheet provide cutting-edge functionality that greatly enhances productivity.

Mashable.com is one excellent resource for keeping tabs on what’s happening in the world of Social Media and beyond. For example, a recent article called “We Might All be Watching Videos by 2015 [STATS],” discusses findings from the Pew Internet Project. Interestingly, this research reveals that 52% of the American population is watching videos online, the equivalent of 69% of all Internet-connected American adults. No wonder marketers are starting to leverage the power of video more and more!

Reading reports like this is a good way to stay informed of the latest trends, but it’s also important to receive training in the latest tools and strategies so that you can apply them in your business. We are always thrilled to hear how our VAClassroom students’ businesses start to take off when they acquire in-demand skills and have clients pounding on their doors.

Below are some places where you can search for topics related to your online industry so you can hone your skills:

•    Do a search through Google Blog Search.
•    Browse through eBooks.com.
•    Search through Ezine directories like EzineArticles.com.

•    Keep an open account at Amazon.com.

•    And, of course, new training courses and clinics through VAClassroom!

The Internet you see today can change in a heartbeat, so Virtual Assistants and other online service providers must cultivate an insatiable appetite for knowledge and a commitment to continual learning. This will pave the way for new levels of success in your career so that you can wow your clients with your skills and ability to nimbly ride the next wave in online business. Then they’ll know you’re not “stuck in the ‘80s.”

Well, that’s it for today – time to play Pong on my Atari Flashback game console!

What? An Xbox 360? When did they come out with that? :-D

6 Attributes of a Great Affiliate Manager

Have you included Affiliate Marketing in the overall strategy for your business or your clients’? If so, you are leveraging one powerful channel for widening your exposure and generating sales. However, this strategy is destined to fail without a great Affiliate Manager at the helm. If your Affiliate program isn’t being managed effectively, it’ll sink like the Titanic!

But what attributes should you be looking for in an Affiliate Manager? Below are some of the important skills and qualities this key team member should possess:

1.    Good Interpersonal Skills – An Affiliate Manager should be a “people person,” willing and able to provide assistance when needed and to interact with affiliates to keep them informed and encouraged. According to the blog post Characteristics of the Proper Affiliate Marketing Manager, “affiliate managers are the face of any company when they go to different conferences and anywhere else where there is contact with their potential affiliates.”

2.    Knowledge of the Business – A great Affiliate Manager has a good grasp of the product being sold and the ultimate goals of the company. This is essential when networking with potential affiliates and also in targeting affiliates who are the right fit for the company.

3.    Knowledge of HTML – It is essential that an Affiliate Manager know HTML so that they can assist affiliates with links and code. The blog post Common mistakes with hiring an in house Affiliate Manager puts it this way: “If your Manager cannot guide them through placing html or altering it, even basic html, then guess what, they are useless to that Affiliate and that Affiliate will move on to your competitor who can create and place their links with and for them.”

4.    Consistent Communication – It is essential to keep affiliates motivated and engaged, and a great Affiliate Manager will have the creativity and consistency to produce monthly newsletters, special incentives and contests, special product discounts, new banners, updated marketing materials and periodic web events to teach affiliates how to improve their sales.

5.    Ability to create Affiliate Broadcasts that are simple and that include tweets, Facebook updates, blog posts, etc. for communication – Your Affiliate marketing campaign will be much more successful if your affiliates are provided with a good variety of targeted content to promote your brand and products. A great Affiliate Manager will be able to create Affiliate Broadcasts that are concise and include all the important elements needed for the affiliate’s communications.

6.    Ability to teach Affiliates how to use Social Media to promote their Affiliate link – There’s no doubt that Social Media has become one of the most effective advertising channels around, so it’s imperative that an Affiliate Manager is well-versed and active in Social Media and can guide affiliates through this complicated landscape so that they can promote their Affiliate link. Recruiting an Affiliate Manager with Social Media Marketing skills is a wise move for any business!

These are just a few of the attributes that make a great Affiliate Manager, and the list could go on and on. Because building a thriving Affiliate Program is key to the success of any online business, we devote more time to this topic in our newly updated Internet Marketing 2010 course.

What attributes do you look for in an Affiliate Manager? Please share your comments below.

A Podcasting Lesson from a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Remember the scene in the movie Star Wars IV: A New Hope where Obi-Wan Kenobi views a holographic recording that was downloaded into a droid named R2-D2?

Princess Leia had used the droid’s recording and downloading software to hide plans for the Galactic Empire’s Death Star (a space station capable of destroying an entire planet) and to create a message begging Obi-Wan to help her by taking the plans to her father so he could analyze them.

This scene seems like the stuff of science fiction, but is it really that far off from what we’re capable of today? With the advent of smartphones and iPods, we too can download and transmit important information at the touch of a button.

Although as a Virtual Assistant you may not be on a mission to save a whole planet from annihilation at the hands of Darth Vader, you might still be looking for new channels to communicate important information to the world about your clients’ businesses. One effective option is podcasting.

Check out this great video, “Podcasting in Plain English,” explaining the convenience and power of this new communication tool:

The implications for marketing are powerful and undeniable. For a low cost, businesses can build their brand and gain more visibility with podcasting than they had before using traditional media and email marketing. With more and more people buying iPhones and iPods, there is great potential to reach a large target audience of customers downloading and subscribing to their favorite podcasts.

To help you gain skills in this area and leverage podcasting as a successful marketing tool, we are offering a brand new mini-course – Podcast Marketing Success Strategies, taught by Andrea Kalli, one of our talented VAClassroom Faculty Members, who specializes in podcasting and video marketing. Grads of this innovative program will be equipped with the most up-to-date skills and tools needed to effectively set up, produce and promote podcasts for businesses.

Move over, George Lucas. You don’t need R2-D2 to get your messages across in this exciting new world of Mobile Media… The right skills and tools are right at your fingertips!

Niche Social Networks: Catch the Next Wave in Business Networking

For the past few years, Social Networking has become increasingly important for businesses. So many valuable connections can be made online that would be more difficult to forge in the real world, making these social networks a great place to collaborate and share ideas and feedback between clients, customers and colleagues.

However, as Seth Godin explains in the below video, this social networking needs to be authentic to be effective:

One way to foster a greater sense of community and authenticity is through the creation of Private or Niche Social Networks. Such networks can be moderated with privacy controls that can lead to greater transparency and communication between members, while at the same time keeping sensitive information confidential and off the more public networks like Facebook and MySpace.

There are many different platforms that can be used to create Niche Social Networks, but one of the most popular is Ning.com. According to the article “Ning now supports 2 million social networks, touches up branding”,
Ning now has 41 million members across its two million networks and has added one million new communities since April of last year. These communities, populated by likeminded individuals discussing particular interests, are great for developing a company’s personal brand. The interaction and communication that happens there can have a huge impact on the success of online businesses.

In particular, Ning’s features make it a great platform for VA’s to design Private Social Networks for their clients. Below are some of the features that enhance networks designed for business:

•    Freedom to use your own branding and visual design
•    Unique profiles for each member
•    Ability to moderate members before they join and moderate photos, videos, groups, chat and events before they’re posted
•    Real-time chat between members
•    Discussion forum where forum topic creation can either be limited by you or opened up to all members
•    Ning apps like WordPress, Yelp Map and Ustream.tv to further customize your network

Given the tremendous popularity of Facebook and Twitter, it’s evident that social networking has gone mainstream. Now with the emergence of Private Social Networks, VAs and their clients have even more opportunities to leverage this trend and develop a custom network with a vibrant focused community centered around their brand.

In this way, you can create a boardroom that stretches from one corner of the world to the other, and there’s no limit to what this meeting of the minds can accomplish!