If you’re like most business owners, you’re probably short on time and stretched thin. That’s where a virtual assistant can come in handy. VAs handle a range of business tasks, and some assistants can even help you in certain areas of specialization. For example, you could offload inbound lead generation to a marketing support VA.
This includes things like finding contact information for prospects, compiling data from multiple sources, and social listening. Marketing VAs have basic knowledge of your industry and plenty of experience in the tasks you need them to do. Wing’s dedicated content marketing assistants are equipped to assist agencies and marketing professionals alike, letting them focus on strategy, reporting, analytics, and other more crucial to-do’s.
One of the best things you can offload to a marketing VA is lead generation. Read on to learn more about generating leads and the specific tasks you can offload to a VA!
What is a Lead?
A lead is someone who expresses interest in your product or service. When we say “expresses interest,” they don’t have to explicitly say so. When a person submits personal information to get a freebie, signs up for a trial, or subscribes to your content, they are already indicating that they want to know more about your brand. You can consider them as a lead.
There are two types of leads: inbound and outbound. Inbound leads come to you, usually through your website or blog. They find you through SEO keywords, social media, or perhaps a friend told them about you. Outbound leads are the ones you actively seek out. You reach out to them through cold calls, direct emails, or even LinkedIn messages.
Some marketers believe that inbound leads are easier to turn into customers. It is because this type of lead is already interested in you and what you do. An inbound lead is looking for a solution to their problem, and they think you might have the answer.
With outbound leads, on the other hand, you have to pique their interest and explain what you do and how you can help them. That said, both types of leads are crucial in growing your customer base. We’ll be tackling outbound leads in a separate post–we’ll focus on inbound leads for now.
Why Conduct Inbound Lead Generation?
Lead generation is crucial to building a business, but it involves plenty of tedious tasks. Getting people’s attention, especially online, is no mean feat. It’s even harder to conduct inbound lead generation. To attract inbound leads, you need to get into your prospect’s psyche, understand how they see the world, write copy and make illustrations that reflect that worldview, and persuade them to your call to action.
These things take up a lot of time–time that you could be spending on other tasks, like developing your product or expanding your team.
That’s why most businesses delegate their inbound lead generation to a VA. It’s more efficient and cost-effective to hire someone to fill your sales pipeline with interested leads. And when you have a VA for marketing, they can help you not only with generating leads but also with other tasks, like social media management and email campaigns.
Think about it this way: would you rather spend hours trying to generate leads yourself or use that time to work on high-level tasks that only you can do? If you want to focus on growing your business, then lead generation is best left to the professionals.
What Are the Benefits of Lead Generation?
There are plenty of reasons to outsource your lead generation, but here are some of the most important ones:
You can focus on other aspects of your business
As we mentioned earlier, lead generation can be time-consuming. When you outsource this task, you free up time to work on developing your product, expanding your team, or growing your customer base.
You also get better results. When you leave lead generation to experts, you’re more likely to get qualified leads that convert into customers.
Outsourcing lead generation is cost-effective
Hiring a full-time employee to do inbound lead generation can be expensive. Not to mention, you’ll need to provide them with the necessary tools and resources. When you outsource this task, you only pay for the services you need–no commitment is required.
You can produce work at scale
When you outsource your lead generation, you can be as involved or uninvolved in the process as you want. You can choose to receive weekly updates or set it and forget it. It’s up to you! You may also direct your assistants to focus on certain profiles or look for prospects in certain industries.
Instead of looking up prospects, sending them emails, and following things up yourself, you can hire a VA to do all of that for you. If you want to broaden your efforts, you could hire more VAs or request your assistant to work on the task for several days. If you want to cut back on lead generation, you can assign your assistant to other marketing tasks.
What Tasks Should I Offload?
When you have a VA for marketing, you don’t need to worry about tedious inbound lead generation tasks. Your assistant will take care of things like creating and sending email campaigns, researching potential leads, and compiling contact information. Here are some tasks you could assign to a marketing VA!
Content Creation
One of the most time-consuming tasks in lead generation is content creation. This includes everything from writing blog posts to designing social media graphics. If you’re finding it difficult to keep up with your content calendar, then consider offloading this task to a VA.
That way, you can focus on creating high-level content like sales pitches or presentations for investors while your assistant executes the finer details of your online strategy.
Social Media Management
Another time-consuming task is social media management. This includes things like creating and scheduling posts, responding to comments and messages, and monitoring your social media analytics.
Having an online presence is crucial in building a brand today, and it is often the best way for new businesses to compete in any meaningful way with more established players in their industry.
If you’re struggling to keep up with your social media accounts, then consider hiring a VA to take care of things for you. With an assistant, you don’t have to worry about losing page followers or leaving comments and private messages unanswered.
Email Marketing
Inbound lead generation isn’t confined to content you see on the web. Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your leads and customers. It’s also an effective way to promote new products or services, announce sales or discounts, and share helpful content like blog posts or infographics.
However, email marketing can be time-consuming–especially if you have a large list of contacts. If you find yourself spending hours writing drafts of letters or maintaining your automation sequences, then it’s time to get a virtual assistant.
Basic SEO
You can also offload your SEO tasks to a marketing VA. This includes things like keyword research, optimizing website content, and link building. While you don’t need to be an expert in search engine optimization to have a successful website, it is important to understand the basics.
The thing is, SEO takes time and effort. From looking up good keywords to creating thoughtfully positioned articles that incorporate them, to seeking out content partnerships and affiliates, there’s just a ton to do. Luckily, a skilled VA will be able to tackle all of these for you, and more!
Basic Marketing Research
Another inbound lead generation task you can offload is secondary research. This includes things like finding contact information for prospects, compiling data from multiple sources, and social listening.
Brand-related research is crucial in marketing campaigns. First, it allows you to track your reputation and your competitors’. This is important because what people say about your brand can have a big impact on your business, and what people are saying about your competitors can inform your strategy.
Meanwhile, social listening can help you identify potential leads. For example, if you see someone tweeting about their pain points, you could reach out and offer them a solution. You can also identify new features you could offer or content you can write about by listening to what others say about your brand.
Graphic Design
Your marketing virtual assistant can also help with graphic design tasks. This includes things like creating social media graphics, coming up with image ads, designing email headers, and creating infographics.
Graphic design is an important part of any marketing campaign. And while you don’t need to be a professional designer to create great visuals, it does take a while to produce even one image. Offloading this to a marketing VA will free up your time considerably.
Product Demos and Webinars
Your assistant can help you with tasks further down the marketing funnel. For instance, you can assign a marketing virtual assistant to tasks involving product demos. This includes things like creating presentations, setting up webinars, and recording videos.
Demos and webinars are a great way to showcase your products or services in action. They’re also an effective way to generate leads and build interest in what you have to offer.
When you’re doing live presentations like these, though, you need to give your 100%, and that gets tricky if you have a ton of admin to do. If you have a marketing VA, you can concentrate on the presentation and on answering your prospects’ questions.
Find your leads faster and better with a marketing virtual assistant
Businesses should have inbound lead generation baked into their sales and marketing strategy. It’s a process that begins with generating awareness about your product or service and ends with converting leads into customers, which involves dozens of smaller activities that you simply have no time for.
When looking for the best marketing virtual assistant for your business, you won’t go wrong with Wing. We have vetted and trained VAs specializing in content writing, content marketing, social media, and graphic design. Book a call and get your Wing Assistant today!
Aya is Wing Assistant’s blog manager. When she’s not wrangling content briefs, editing article drafts and handling on-page SEO, she is crafting messages for Wing’s other communication materials. Aya writes about SaaS startups, marketing for startups, search engine optimization, and pop culture.
