Choosing a virtual assistant niche and services

A niche is the service you specialise in offering to your target market

When starting a virtual assistant freelancing business, choosing a niche will help you determine your target market and ideal client. It’s important to identify a niche before marketing your business. If you market every service under the sun, you could attract any type of customer. This isn’t as effective as specifically targeting, marketing and attracting your ideal client. By choosing a niche, your marketing will be more effective as you speak directly to the group of people who need your services. 

WHY A NICHE IS IMPORTANT FOR VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS

There are so many reasons why you will benefit from choosing a niche for your virtual assistant business. Focusing on a particular niche will not limit your business in any way. In fact, many case studies show companies with a focused niche are more successful at marketing than those without. Once you take a closer look at the benefits of having a niche, you will realise that it will enable you to accomplish your business goals faster.

It is easier to become an expert with a niche.

You cannot position yourself as an expert at everything, but you can position yourself in front of your target audience as an expert in one particular area.

Don’t expect to become the number one authority figure in your niche overnight. That type of success takes a lot of energy, consistency and relationship building.

Whilst working on positioning yourself as an expert in your niche, you can be just as informative and helpful as the current experts that dominate the niche. Do this by providing new unique expert advice; this can be refreshing for your audience and is sometimes just what the market needs.

Even though your target audience may be loyal to the experts who already dominate your niche, you will find that your audience is dedicated to themselves first.

This means if someone else is offering new, valuable and relevant advice that will improve their life or business, they will listen.

In the virtual assistant and freelance industry, the majority of your customers are business owners. The type of information they subscribe to is usually geared at improving themselves or their business. Therefore if you are providing help to others, people will begin to take notice. You will naturally be seen by others as an expert in your niche, especially if you remain consistent.

Look for opportunities to showcase your expertise, for example, creating a blog. Writing unique content related to your niche will show your customers you know what you’re talking about, especially as you provide free helpful advice from which they benefit.

You don’t have to be an expert per se, but you do need to know enough to provide valuable information to your customers.

Remember, you can always practice and improve your skills and knowledge as you go along. No one ever really completes learning everything, there is always something more to learn, and there is always something that could be improved. 

As a virtual assistant myself, I can easily recognise another expert virtual assistant because I am familiar with the industry.

Rather than focusing on being an expert virtual assistant, focus on becoming an expert within your area of focus. This area of focus is your niche, and your customers will know you as an expert in that service.

Having a niche will make it easier for others to understand what you do and why you do it. Because you will be targeting a smaller audience, you get the opportunity to become well known within this group. Some communities and groups are very tight-knit; having a niche gives you more visibility within the group.

Marketing becomes clearer and more effective.

Having a virtual assistant niche is going to make your marketing more effective. This is because you will be speaking to a group of individuals specifically about the problem you solve or the service you provide.

Defining and then marketing a niche is important, and it gives you more focus. It is going to help you stay focused on what it is your clients want or need.

Having a niche allows you to focus on the audience that needs your service. Market your business correctly, and you will be visible to your chosen audience. Your niche marketing content speaks directly to your audience, solving the problem they have.

A virtual assistant niche allows you to mass market to a whole group of people and talk to all of them simultaneously.

This group of people is what is known as your target market.

Example: If your niche is proofreading and editing for authors, then sending out a message loud and clear directly to authors letting them know that you proofread will be very effective.

If you market your services without paying attention to a specific niche, then it becomes harder to attract the specific clients you want.

Virtual assistants can and usually do provide a variety of services. In fact, this is one of the selling points. Our skills include the ability to take on a multitude of tasks. However, you can still focus your marketing on a particular niche whilst still providing other services.

If you are starting a virtual assistant business part-time, you may already feel disadvantaged when it comes to putting in time in your business. Do not feel like you will miss out on getting more customers because you are targeting a niche. Having a niche will ensure that when you do your marketing, you are not wasting time or money as your marketing will be niche focused and will result in getting more of the clients you need faster. 

Less competition

Marketing yourself as a niche virtual assistant will give you less competition than marketing yourself as a general virtual assistant.

There will be less competition as you provide specific services for specific people in a specific way that is unique to you. This will help with your online marketing and when it comes to S.E.O, as people are more likely to search long-tail keywords – meaning they get specific and do detailed online searches to get a solution.

Example: A potential client needs a virtual assistant to do data entry

Customers typical online search: Data entry virtual assistant

Customer typical online search: Data entry business UK

Customer typical online search: Data entry virtual assistant service

Customer won’t usually search: Data entry

Customers won’t usually search: Virtual assistant

Most people search for the solution to the problem they want to be solved rather than the type of business or industry. Once they are aware of you, they may search for you by your business name.

This is also the case when customers do searches outside of this industry.

Example: I need to find a new 3-bed house to rent

Customers search: 3 bedroom house to rent in London

Customers don’t typically search: Estate Agents

So looking at both examples, even though a potential customer may need a virtual assistant or an estate agent, they are more likely to search for a data entry virtual assistant or 3-bed house in London.

In the above example, positioning yourself as a virtual assistant that specialises in the niche Data entry would help the customers that are already looking for that particular service find you easily.

There are many services virtual assistants can offer. To see a full list of ideas, please click here.

Easier to sell

It becomes easier to sell when you have a niche because you will be seen as an expert in your chosen field; therefore, you are more likely to gain the trust of your audience.

Having a niche is important because if you don’t tell people what you are good at, they won’t have any idea. There are no experts in everything. Most people that are deemed as experts are knowledgeable or skilled in one or a few areas but not at everything. This is why it is recommended that you get specific with your marketing.

If I have a specific problem and see you are an expert at solving this particular issue, I am more likely to buy from you than someone who doesn’t focus on my problem.

Having a niche will mean you are focusing on a smaller but more focused group of people. This actually works in your favour because it’s much easier to convince a small group of people who need your services how valuable you are than it is to convince a large group with no use for your assistance. Not only will you come up with more resistance and objections with a broader audience, but they won’t get to know you as well because a focused group is easier to build relationships with. 

Loyalty and Credibility

You get more referrals by having a niche. When clients are referring you to their own contacts, they will focus on what you do. They are going to explain to their contact the problem you solved for them. If their contact looks at your marketing presence and they see you directly talking about solving their problem, they are more likely to buy from you. This is just another example of why having a niche is essential for your virtual assistant business.

HOW TO CHOOSE A NICHE  

When choosing a niche, focus on your skills and strengths and what you enjoy doing. The benefit of having your own business is that it is done your way. You don’t want to be stuck doing things you don’t enjoy doing, so choose a niche that motivates you, as this is probably the service you will be providing the most.

Start by making a list of what you are good at and what you enjoy doing. If your list of virtual assistant niches is short, it will be easier to find your niche.

If your list is long, you want to try and select virtual assistant niches that let you incorporate all or most of the skills you enjoy doing.

Once you have this list, you need to think about which areas you are most skilled at.

Once you have determined that, it’s time for some market research to find out more about the niche and its profitability.

You will need to begin to find out some information about your target market. You can find out more about their interests, how they talk, what they like to do, their frustrations, and how interactive they are. This can be done by searching blogs and checking out comments, social media and social shares. Do they get a lot of interaction? This is going to help you determine your niche marketing plan. Another place you can go for this type of information is within Facebook groups or question and answer sites like Quora.

Once you have done this, you can locate your customers where they hang out online to talk to them, build relationships, and get them to pay attention to you. If you don’t identify where your potential customers are, you will not be able to talk directly to them.

IS MY NICHE PROFITABLE?

To find out if your niche is going to be profitable, you need to answer the following questions: 

• Do people need this service?
• What people need this service?
• What will people pay for this type of service?
• Who is my competition?
• What is my unique selling point?

Carrying out market research will help you to answer these questions correctly. You will need to research your competition to see their position and work out what you can do differently and add to the market.

Perform keyword research to determine whether your niche receives searches online and how often. This will let you know how popular it is.

You can also check on Google Trends; this will give you even more insight into trending topics. Then evaluate all the market research information you have gathered to see how profitable it is likely to be.

Another way Is to see whether people are advertising this service on Google. If Google ads appear at the top of the search listings when you search for a niche service, this indicates that the niche may be profitable.

Whether you decide to come up with a brand new niche or choose a niche that already exists, it is your job to make your business stand out from the crowd through your branding. A niche that already exists probably means there is a market for it, but this cannot be confirmed without doing the market research suggested above to discover whether or not the niche is profitable for you.

After researching whether a niche will be profitable for you, the best way to confirm is by testing the market and marketing your services. We recommend starting with free marketing options such as social media, especially if you are not sure whether or not it will be a profitable niche.

If your niche is popular among other virtual assistants, ensure your business stands out from the crowd by providing extra services related to your niche. In addition to additional services, think about what services virtual assistants offer that you can provide in a unique way that is better for your customers. Sometimes it is not possible to stand out because of what you do, but you can always stand out because of how you do it.

When finding your niche – Consider your passion first, and money second.