VA Secrets Revealed! The Blog

Secret #2: Get Branded

Your business needs a brand, and consistency in the look, feel and message you are putting out there. Your brand is more than just your business name or your logo; it’s your identity.

What is a Brand?

A brand is a set of elements -- symbols, words, colors -- that characterize your company or product. The goal of a brand is to create an association with your company when a client or prospective client sees these images. Your business name, logo, and the colors that you select all play a part in developing your brand. This is why it is vital that these same branding characteristics carry over to your website and any marketing materials that you use. As your business becomes established, your brand can signify all of the positive attributes of your business, i.e., quality, loyalty and trust.

Do Virtual Assistants Need a Brand?

Short answer: YES! Just like any other small business, virtual assistants should develop a brand for their business in order to inspire trust among clients and prospective clients, create a following and support business longevity.

How Do You Create a Brand?

Creating a brand is an ongoing process that involves analyzing your business, product/service offerings, and target audience. Here are few articles that may be helpful to you:

• How To Create a Great Business Name, About.com Entrepreneurs
• Make Your Brand Pop, BusinessWeek
• Follow These Five Guidelines to Create Indelible Brand, Sacramento Business Journal

And here are a few great books to get you inspired as you build your brand:

• Accidental Branding: How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Brands, by David Vinjamuri
• The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It, by John Gerzema and Edward Lebar
• BrandSimple: How the Best Brands Keep it Simple and Succeed, by Allen P. Adamson

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This post is expanded from Chapter 6: My Top 20 Secrets to Success in the book, VA Secrets Revealed! An Insider's Guide to Being a Successful Virtual Assistant. Grab a copy and follow along as I blog!

Marketing Your Business on a Budget

So, we know that marketing your small business doesn't have to cost a lot of money. But if you are a virtual assistant or any business owner providing products and services in a virtual setting, where do you start?

There is a tremendous amount of power in word-of-mouth marketing. Many of my clients have found me through other clients, friends and family just talking about what I do. Of course, it is imperative to do great work and go above expectations so people want to talk about you! But this type of marketing has huge potential.

In fact, a recent survey conducted by the Virtual Assistant Networking Association, found that an astounding 93.7% of the 750+ virtual assistants surveyed stated that their clients had been found through word of mouth referrals. It's easy, it's free and it works!

Here are a few more of my favorite free or low-cost ways to market your business:

• Write press releases and submit them to online distribution services
• Submit your information to online business directories
• Participate in online networking through business sites and social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• Join your local chamber of commerce
• Join professional organizations
• Volunteer
• Leave business cards behind at restaurants, stores, doctor’s offices, etc.
• Network with other professionals in your field

For more small business marketing tips, check out VA Secrets Revealed!

Being skinny is so in!

I've gotten a lot of questions about a term I use in the book: “Skinny Marketing.” People want to know where it came from and what exactly it means. So, I'm going to answer those questions today.

As I was writing VA Secrets Revealed!, I was thinking about the whole process of marketing and how there are so many ways you can go about it. One hot topic I have discussed with other virtual assistants is the cost and how you never know if your marketing dollars will really do what you intend them to do until you’ve already spent them.

As small businesses, our marketing budgets are never really as extensive as we may like, so it comes down to balancing the investment you make with the marketing activities you are doing. Basically, doing cheap, or free, marketing activities and trying to get the biggest bang for your buck -- i.e. Skinny Marketing.

Here is how I define the term in the book:

Skinny Marketing is a process based on completing a set of activities that when taken as a whole gives your business the strongest positive impact achievable for the least amount of investment. The idea is that a well-planned and successfully executed targeted marketing campaign can be relatively quick and inexpensive.

The key to successfully executing a Skinny Marketing campaign is knowing who you are targeting and what activities have the most potential before you begin. That means you have to be prepared. Before you spend even $1 on marketing, you need to do a few things:

1. Identify your target audience
2. Get to know your target audience (not just who they are but why they do what they do)
3. Analyze your competitors
4. Develop a list of possible activities
5. Set your budget
6. Create a marketing plan (should include specific activities and a timeline for completing them)

Most of these activities are pretty self explanatory and most likely you have already done some of them as a part of your initial business planning. However, to make this work, you may need to go back to your original plan, drill down even further and get even more specific. This part of the process can be time consuming, but it will pay off!

So what are some things you can do as a part of your Skinny Marketing campaign? Stay tuned for my next marketing post which will list some specific activities.