Marketing agency vs virtual assistant services: Which one is right for you and your business? These two services are often discussed as opposing sides, but in reality, businesses can — and should — use both of them to succeed. Using a marketing agency is a great choice for companies that need expert advice, connections, and services on demand. However, if your business needs regular assistance from a trusted individual who understands your target audience or industry best practices and can help you save time instead of spending it on research or ideas, a virtual assistant might be the better option. A marketing agency has specialists who understand the nuances of branding your business, creating logos and websites, writing content and press releases, monitoring social media for mentions of your brand, identifying opportunities to partner with other brands (such as through co-branded products or services), recommending PR opportunities such as speaking engagements, coordinating interviews with local journalists or blogs to build awareness, among many other services.
What Is a Marketing Agency?
Marketing agencies are companies that provide various marketing services to business clients. Some marketing agencies work on a retainer basis, while others offer project-based pricing. Agencies may specialize in a particular type of marketing, such as SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, or content marketing. Marketing agencies may be limited in the types of services they offer, or they may provide a wide range of marketing services, including general business consulting. Marketing agencies often provide a variety of services to help a company build a marketing strategy and launch a marketing campaign. Some of these services may include developing a company brand, creating a logo and visual identity, writing marketing or sales copy, creating a website, managing email marketing campaigns, creating an online presence on social media channels, and managing paid advertising campaigns. Other marketing agencies specialize in a particular type of marketing, such as SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, or content marketing.
What Is a Virtual Assistant (VA) Service?
Virtual assistant agencies provide administrative or other specialized business assistance on a project or retainer basis. VA services are available in a variety of fields: marketing, customer service, finance, accounting, administrative, human resources, recruiting, and even creative fields such as copywriting, editing, and graphics design. Some virtual assistants are skilled in multiple fields; others specialize in a particular niche. VA services may be more cost effective than hiring a full-time employee. Virtual assistants can work remotely in their own hours, allowing businesses to supplement their full-time staff or hire assistants who live in different time zones. Virtual assistants may provide a wide range of services, such as administrative support, marketing and sales assistance, customer service, event planning, project management, and bookkeeping. Some virtual assistants provide specialized services, such as health care transcription, website design and development, or internet research.
How MarketersPH Successfully Combined Marketing Agency and VA Services
Why are we the first to Combine Marketing Agency + VA Agency? Companies that do not want to commit to a retainer or project-based pricing with a marketing or virtual assistant agency should strongly consider a hybrid approach by hiring a marketing agency and a virtual assistant. If a company works with a marketing agency on retainer, it can get a steady stream of marketing activities without having to commit to a specific time frame. In addition, the marketing agency will have a better understanding of the company’s goals and be able to offer custom solutions for each project. This type of hybrid approach may allow a company to benefit from the best of both services. The marketing agency can help to set a strategic vision, strategize the best path to the goals, and thrive on big-picture brainstorming. The VA service can help to implement the ideas one step at a time, provide a steady stream of support with day-to-day company operations, and thrive on smaller-picture analysis.
5 Tips for Merging Marketing Agency and VA Services
When choosing between a marketing agency and a VA, consider the type of services you need and your company’s capacity to consume them. Before you make a decision, also consider how well you will be able to integrate both services. The following are tips to help you successfully merge marketing agency and VA services.
✔ Keep your core team in-the-know.
Your marketing team, sales team, and executive team should be aware of the level of assistance you are receiving from a marketing agency or the level of assistance a virtual assistant is providing. Your core team members can then use this assistance to plug any gaps in coverage and keep your business running smoothly.
✔ Understand your business goals and use them to evaluate potential agencies and VAs.
If you decide to work with a marketing agency, you can use the same process to evaluate agencies as you would when hiring a full-time employee. If you decide to hire a virtual assistant, you can use the same process to evaluate VAs as you would when hiring a freelancer.
✔ Define clear expectations.
When you work with agencies and VAs, you should expect the assistance to help you achieve your business goals. If a marketing agency or VA is not helping your business, you should end your relationship with that partner. You should also be clear about the payment terms and how long you expect to work with an agency or VA.
✔ Encourage collaboration.
If your marketing team is already stretched too thin, integrating agency assistance may be necessary. However, you may want to encourage your agency and VAs to collaborate with your core team members. By allowing agency or VA assistance to meet with your team, share knowledge, and work together on projects, you can help your team to become stronger as a unit and reduce the risk of creating silos.
✔ Continuously evaluate effectiveness.
Marketing agencies and VAs don’t always deliver the same results on each project. To prevent wasting money, you should regularly evaluate how effective the assistance of the marketing agency or VA is. If you find that assistance is not meeting expectations, end the relationship.
A marketing agency can help you create a long-term strategy that meets your business goals. A marketing agency can also help you launch campaigns and projects, such as generating leads, engaging audiences, and increasing sales. At the same time, a VA can help you support your company on a day-to-day basis, providing administrative assistance such as answering calls, scheduling meetings, and managing tasks. In short, when you combine marketing agency and VA services, your business will receive consistent, long-term benefits, such as increased revenue or leads.
