It’s common for entrepreneurs to treat their businesses as their babies, which is why many often attempt to handle everything on their own. However, taking this route will do more harm than good as the human brain isn’t designed to multitask efficiently — this is where VAs come in.

What is a Virtual Assistant, and Why Are They Important?

A virtual assistant works remotely and provides administrative support for businesses. They can work part-time, per-hour, or per-project basis. They handle tasks that an executive assistant usually handles, like answering calls, scheduling appointments, and organizing emails. 

Hiring a virtual assistant is a cost-effective investment because they’re more productive than their office counterparts and help reduce operating costs. 

What Tasks Should You Give to a Virtual Assistant?

Outsourcing some of your tasks to a virtual assistant boosts your productivity and allows you to achieve a work-life balance. It also enables you to accomplish more core activities in less time and save resources. 

Regardless of the niche and size of your business, you should entrust the following responsibilities to a virtual assistant: 

Accounting and Bookkeeping

Accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll management are tedious and time-consuming. Additionally, not all business owners and top-level management employees have the skills and experience to take on these activities. 

Instead of hiring a full-time employee to handle your business’s accounting and bookkeeping needs, look for a virtual assistant. VAs help you save time and money as they can perform various accounting tasks, namely:

• Banking responsibilities, like transferring funds and paying bills
• Basic payroll management, like computing overtime pay, incentives, and bonuses
• Reconcile financial records using accounting software 
• Send to and receive invoices from clients
• Tax management

Administrative

One of the most common responsibilities given to virtual assistants is completing administrative tasks. This ensures that the office runs smoothly and communication is present among different departments. Letting a virtual assistant take on administrative tasks also frees up your in-house employees’ time, so they can handle bigger responsibilities.

Below is a list of administrative duties you can give to a virtual assistant:

• Document activities during conferences and meetings
• Manage and schedule meeting
• Organize and update the database of files
• Send reminders about urgent work tasks
• Track financial resources and spending

Content Writing and Management

Content writing is essential for businesses to grow a website and blog organically. One way to achieve these goals is by hiring a virtual assistant with excellent writing skills. With their experience, they can:

• Do guest blogging and promote your business in various online platforms 
• Produce various promotional materials, like infographics and white papers
• Proofread all written content to ensure accuracy
• Research trending topics in your industry 
• Write and publish blog articles on your website

CRM Data Clean-Up

Cleaning up your CRM data increases the quality of your customer database by looking for errors. As a result, you can engage with your prospects better and help them move along the sales funnel faster. However, this process can take up a lot of your time. 

A virtual assistant can clean up your CRM data as they can:

• Collect and record updated data into the system
• Create data reports for analysis
• Improve data entry techniques
• Provide additional customer support systems, like live chat and helpdesk 
• Remove duplicate and inaccurate records

Customer Support

According to HubSpot Research, 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with brands that offer exceptional customer service. With this in mind, hire a virtual assistant for your business’s customer support and let them perform the following activities:

• Answer customer queries via phone, email, and other channels
• Create customer service surveys
• Create strategies to improve customer experience
• Develop procedures to resolve conflicts
• Offer alternatives to customers 

Email Management

Checking your email daily can be counterproductive as you’ll spend more time on communication than doing actual work. This also prevents you from overseeing important aspects of your business, like customer acquisition and client management. 

You’ll enjoy an organized inbox once you hire a virtual assistant to manage your emails for you. A virtual assistant adept in email management can:

• Conduct email marketing tasks, such as developing email campaigns, creating email templates, and providing performance reports 
• Handle and organize your contact list based on your preferences
• Respond to emails manually or set up autoresponders
• Update your calendar based on the appointments made through email
• Verify and sort the email addresses of prospects

Marketing

Marketing plays a vital role in the success of your business. The right marketing strategy helps increase sales, improve brand awareness, and support customer engagement. Fortunately, you don’t have to create a marketing strategy alone, as a virtual assistant can complete many marketing-related activities on your behalf.

Hire a virtual assistant with experience in marketing and let them complete these tasks:

• Find ways to improve existing marketing strategies
• Identify a new audience to target
• Monitor activities from competitors
• Plan and organize promotional events, like sponsored parties and product launches
• Recruit celebrities as endorsers 

Recruitment Activities

Recruitment involves a lot of moving parts and can be costly when not done right. A Glassdoor study shows that hiring an employee costs a business around $4,000. This amount still doesn’t include the benefits and other compensation the new hire will receive and the amount of time employers make when hiring. 

A dedicated virtual assistant can help your business save valuable resources when recruiting, as they can:

• Develop in-depth job descriptions
• Draft interview questions
• Post job ads on various online and offline channels
• Update candidates on the status of their applications 
• Use relevant recruitment software to evaluate candidates, send follow-up emails, and schedule interviews

Research

Research is important when running a business but time-consuming. Instead of letting one of your in-house employees complete this task, hire a virtual assistant. They can complete the following research-related tasks: 

• Cite resources properly
• Perform content analysis
• Read scholarly articles
• Seek accurate information from different sources, like books, websites, and journals
• Verify the credibility of sources

SEO and Digital Marketing 

Hiring a virtual assistant who has experience and training in SEO and digital marketing can help boost your site’s traffic and improve your brand’s online presence. Hiring a specialized virtual assistant is cheaper than putting together a digital marketing team. 

An SEO virtual assistant can complete these activities:

• Conduct competitor analysis
• Conduct keyword research
• Create and implement email marketing campaigns
• Do YouTube marketing
• Implement pay-per-click campaigns 

Social Media Management

Having a strong presence on social media is a must-have for businesses. According to a report from Sprout Social, 86% of Americans consider transparency on social media crucial, saying that they’ll take their business elsewhere if a brand doesn’t show transparency. For customers, transparency strengthens accountability, which makes a brand more trustworthy and reliable. 

Manage and grow your business’s social media accounts by hiring a dedicated virtual assistant. They can perform several duties daily, namely:

• Create promotions to attract and retain customers on social media
• Engage with the online community by responding to messages and comments
• Ensure information on your business’s social media profiles are up-to-date
• Track the performance of marketing campaigns using relevant tools, like Facebook Ads and TikTok Business Suite 
• Write, proofread, and share content on different social media platforms

Video Editing

Videos should be part of your digital marketing strategy as they capture attention fast. But creating or editing one can be time-consuming and prevent you from accomplishing other responsibilities. The solution? Let a virtual assistant take on this task for you. 

Many virtual assistants invest in their skills by undergoing training and workshops on video editing. Find someone who possesses these skills, and you can outsource these tasks to them:

• Add texts for subtitles
• Implement appealing transitions between different subjects
• Manipulate audio levels 
• Minimize background noise
• Provide audio voice-overs

Website Management

Your website acts as your business’s digital storefront — and how it looks can influence a customer’s decision to buy from you. In fact, one study showed that customers are more likely to visit and buy from a brand with a better-designed website, and an entrepreneur we interviewed recently mentioned an updated website as a key to his growth.

With a virtual assistant responsible for your business’s website management, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that the platform loads fast and is easy to navigate. Make sure to outsource these tasks to a web management VA:

• Develop secure ticketing and payment systems for an eCommerce store
• Install, customize, and update plugins to keep the site secure and enable customizability features
• Optimize user interface and browser compatibility 
• Perform website backups
• Provide technical support

Choose the Best VA 

When scouting for a virtual assistant for your business, avoid settling for a candidate who offers the lowest fees. Having one on board might seem like you’re saving money upfront, but not looking into their experience and skills can lead to costly mistakes in the future. 

Look for a virtual assistant that matches your business’s needs and goals. It’s always better to take as much time as you need to find a virtual assistant who’s reliable, experienced, and gets the job done rather than abruptly hiring someone who lacks the right skills.

What to Read Next

Check out more articles about Virtual Assistants here.