How to brand a virtual assistant business
Branding your virtual assistant business is the first step to giving your business an identity.
Your brand should set the tone and image to express who you are and what you do for your audience.
Why it’s important to brand your virtual assistant business.
Taking the time to build a brand will make your virtual assistant business memorable and trustworthy.
54% of people do not trust brands, so you need to get to work on how your company’s branding will win your audience’s trust.
I will give you the answers to the most commonly asked questions I receive about branding a new virtual assistant start-up.
You will find out:
- How to gain feedback on your business name and tagline
- How to and where to Watermark and copyright protect your images
- What to consider when choosing colours and styles
- What potential clients are looking for in a brand
How important is it to include the words ‘virtual assistant’ in your business name?
When your target audience searches for a VA online, including the words ‘virtual assistant’ in your business name, may encourage clients specifically looking for a virtual assistant.
On the other hand, including the words ‘virtual assistant’ in your business name could confuse people as not everyone is familiar with the term.
Whether or not to include the word is going to depend on several different factors. Is virtual assistance the main or only service you provide?
If this is the case, you may feel like you need to include the word ‘virtual’. If you provide other services, such as marketing, you may want to include the words ‘virtual’ and ‘marketing’ in your business name. Most people will be able to tell straight away just from your business name that you are a company that provides marketing services virtually.
- Example – Virtual Marketing Co.
Are your clients familiar with the term virtual assistant?
Or are they more likely to search the words ‘admin assistant’?
If your target market is familiar with the term virtual assistant, then including those words could help bring customers to you.
Other terms are more popular that you can consider using. e.g. freelancer, P.A, secretary.
If you decide you want to include the words ‘virtual assistant’ but can’t fit it in your business name, remember it can always be added to your tagline or abbreviated to V.A.
The branding basics guide has more information on the benefits of including keywords in your business name for search engine optimisation.
How to gain feedback on a business name and virtual assistant tagline.
Which sounds better? It is a question I hear so often. Deciding on your business name can be
The reason is that it’s usually so final. You can easily change a policy or your working hours, but changing your business name later can impact the hard work you do to attract customers.
When starting out, you may wonder who to ask for feedback on your business name. It is best to get the opinions of both your target audience and other virtual assistants or freelancers.
You will find that if you have a list of potential business names and ask customers and other V.A’s, they may have chosen the same names. This will help you narrow down your options and eventually pick the right name for your new virtual assistant freelancing business.
To gain opinions from potential clients, you can ask them directly. You probably know one or two existing family members or friends who could be potential clients. In
This also gives you the opportunity to connect with old friends and family for market research purposes whilst marketing your services at the same time.
You can ask for opinions on what they think about the names you have chosen and if they can identify what you do by using just your business name and tagline.
This is a great way to start a discussion about your business because you already have a connection with this person, they are likely to remember.
Even if they do forget you and they happen to be looking for this service and come across your marketing, it will trigger them to remember you, especially if you did opt for a name they suggested. Either
Getting feedback is useful to help you make a decision, but ultimately the decision lies with you and will reflect your business and your brand.
To start, make a list of catchy virtual assistant business names, virtual assistant taglines and logos suitable for your virtual assistant business, do the market research and reduce your list until you get the best name and image that represents your virtual assistant business.
Can I add watermark logos for copyright protection?
A watermark is a faint image or logo that displays the person or company who created it.
Although it is not necessary, it is recommended that you add and create a watermark to add to your creations.
Sharing is caring. However, sometimes you need to take credit for the work you are producing. Using a virtual assistant logo watermark will prevent your work been taken by someone else.
Example
You created a beautifully detailed info-graph last week, and it took you a few hours to complete. You scroll through online only to see your competitor using your infographic on their website. To avoid this happening and avoid feeling used, adding a watermark on your creations will help to prevent people from claiming your work as their own.
The watermark will also gain visibility for your brand. Anyone viewing your images will be exposed to your logo.
Most watermark software charges a small fee.
There is a handful of free watermark software, the most popular being http://picmarkr.com/. This allows you to upload text, images or tiled watermarks.
Upload your watermark logo to all of your best creations to gain recognition, raise brand awareness, and copyright protect your work.
Your company’s image and reputation
Your brand is going to be a reflection of your business and your personality. What do you want people to think when they see your brand?
A great brand position should be:
- Engaging
- Believable
- Unique
- Familiar
How to engage clients with your brand?
This can be achieved by having precise knowledge about who your customers are, the language they speak and the problems and struggles they face.
Example: I am a V.A. My target audience is mothers who run their business from home.
My brand will then incorporate social media as many stay-at-home mums are more active on social media.
I will promote my brand on social media to gain more visibility and brand awareness.
I will encourage people to join my business social media group/ page where I communicate with my visitors and provide an incentive which could be some type of relevant, valuable problem-solving content that also features my branding. I will then form a relationship with them. I will also answer questions relating to my niche on social media, which will increase the exposure of my brand via social media to people who are not already aware of my business services.
Once you know what idea you want your brand to express, begin branding your virtual assistant business accordingly.
How to make your brand believable
If you are unaware of the saying that people buy from who they trust, then now you know.
If you haven’t done the work to gain people’s trust and are not consistent with your mission, ethics and policies, you will lose credibility.
As a virtual assistant or freelancer, you will be handling other people’s businesses, so they need to be able to trust you. This is evident as you may need to handle sensitive data such as passwords, addresses and financial information.
As well as being trustworthy, if you are marketing yourself as an individual, you must be believable.
Be sure to market your true self.
If you describe yourself as an entrepreneur with lots of energy and expertise, you need to be able to back that up when the time comes.
Create promises you can fulfil.
Example: You provide SEO services
You boldly state on the front page of your website
‘I will get you to the top of Google’
Yet you know chances are you are not going to get them anywhere near the top of Google. At some
Instead, make a promise you can fulfil, such as:
‘Guaranteed to rank your low ranking website at least 10 positions higher within 2 weeks’
This will get you better results and more customer satisfaction.
There is probably a chance you have reviewed a purchase online before. People leave reviews about positive experiences, but they are far more likely to leave them after having a negative experience.
People turn to the internet to vent their frustrations and warn others of their negative experiences. This has affected some businesses so badly that there are actually services in place to manage online reputation damage caused by negative reviews.
To avoid all of this, be true to yourself and your customers. In
Virtual assistant branding – How to make your brand unique
Making your brand unique will take creativity on your part or your designer if someone else will be doing your branding. The best way to make it memorable is to start from basics by envisioning, developing and creating a unique brand and image. Your brand needs to stand out from the rest.
Is there something that can be done that everyone is not doing?
For your brand to stand out, it has to have a little something that others don’t have. Something that shows that you are different in a positive way.
Don’t limit yourself and your company’s brand by assuming you have to stick with certain kinds of images or a certain kind of language. Being a human is refreshing, and that is what people want to see.
Think outside the box – or better yet, think like there is no box, and come up with a creative, fun, unique way to brand your business. Unique does not mean extreme it just needs to be something that will catch people’s eyes and let your audience know you do things a little bit different.
Virtual assistant branding – How to make your brand more familiar
My son, like many children, was able to recognise symbols before he could read words.
Logos and symbols can be really powerful as they can get into your subconscious mind without you even realising. Think Coca-Cola and other brands that we couldn’t forget even if we tried.
These brands have become so familiar to us and have become part of our everyday lives. The reason for this is repetition. We have been repeatedly shown the same branding and images for years and years over and over. So much to the point that we can look at a logo and instantly recognise the company’s name.
Most if not everyone reading this can recognise the company’s name whose logo is in the picture above without them needing to display the company name.
There are even board games based on naming logos. This is because logos are everywhere and have become familiar to us and others all around the world.
Another way to make your brand more familiar is to have a catchy name or slogan / Tagline. Some slogans stick with us because they rhyme, because they are funny or because they are true.
Repeating your branding throughout all of your marketing will get you more brand exposure so that others will start to recognise you and become familiar with your business/ brand. Take your time to ensure your branding is incorporated everywhere, including your social media and email signature.
Here is more information about why business branding is important and the exact steps to start branding your business.
Branding your virtual assistant business is not something that needs to be perfect straight away. A brand can be developed as your business develops and grows.
