As Virtual Assistants, we like helping others. No matter who our ideal clients are, we provide a service to them and, in doing so, receive payment for doing something we enjoy. We like helping more clients, as it makes us feel awesome as we grow our VA businesses and we often use our content marketing as one of the many means of attracting our ideal clients to us.
Logic, therefore, dictates, our business is as a result of clients and we see our clients as those people who we complete tasks for – the ones who give us money for our services. Our content marketing is simply a tool we use, to gain us more new clients. But in seeing it this way, we’re actually severely limiting our view and potential for business growth, for several reasons. Here’s why:
- We feel that we only really impact those clients who are on our books.
- Our available time will always be limited to how many clients we help.
So how do we go about changing those limitations and why is it important to our content marketing and our business, that we do? It begins with changing our view on clients and our business!
Two simple shifts in viewpoint
You provide more than just a range of services to your clients – you provide VALUE. This simple shift in perception can open you up to the wider reasons behind why your clients work with you. If in doubt, ask yourself what benefits your clients glean from outsourcing to you – what does it enable them to do, feel and behave, as a result?
The second subtle shift is around clients. You clients aren’t just the people who are on your books or those who pay you for blocks of your time. Your clients are anybody who interacts with you, your services AND your content marketing. This subtle shift in perception will help you not only create better content, but it also enables you to see where content marketing fits in with helping more of your clients.
Use your content marketing to fill in the gaps
Once you start seeing a client as anyone who reads one of your blogs or watches one of your videos, you can start using your content marketing more effectively. You can use it to fill in gaps in their knowledge or answer common questions they may have. Your content marketing enables you to open up possibilities for your ideal client and lead them towards better solutions, as you build better relationships with them. [Need help coming up with ideas? Check out Blogging Ideas For A VA.]
Treat your content marketing as a valuable reference source
Many VAs, like other business owners, mistakenly think the job of content marketing is to attract new clients. As mentioned above, it’s ideal for filling in knowledge gaps too. But another crucial aspect of your content marketing is that around adding even more value to your existing clients. You can direct existing clients to your blog posts, videos and resources, any time they need additional help or if they can’t afford to hire you personally – as well as creating more cost-effective solutions (DIY courses, downloadable resources etc) to help further.
Visitors may need you to help them make that leap to client
And finally, you can use your content marketing to encourage visitors to make that leap into becoming a paying client. Many business owners are afraid to write purchase and promo pieces on their blogs and social media. But if you want to help your clients further, sometimes that means they need to make a decision to part with some cash – and you need to step up and ask for the sale.
Content marketing can help you and your clients more if you use it well. By making simple shifts in your mindset and changing how you view both your clients and your content marketing, you’ll find it helps grow your VA business, reach more clients and offer even more value to them in the process. If you’d like some additional help with getting more clients, I’d recommend checking out this blog post – Want Clients For Your VA Business? You Need to Reach Out! and Are You Selling What Clients Want To Buy?
Content marketing can be an incredibly effective way of helping more clients and indeed, attracting more to you. But it can be difficult knowing how to expand and grow your VA business when you’re working isolated on your own at home. That’s why I’ve created the VA membership. It gives you an affordable way to access the practical, supportive and expert help you need, to grow your business further and get the life and business you set out to achieve. If you’re ready to invest in your VA business, you can read more about the VA Membership, here.