One of the biggest questions I get asked from new creative virtual assistants is this: What services can I offer as a creative virtual assistant? Well, I have some good news for you! The tasks you can provide as a virtual assistant are endless: from social media to admin, to website design, to graphic design. You can do ANYTHING you want! Some virtual assistants are more admin focused, who work on excel, QuickBooks, or admin tasks. Others will be workflow focused, who are all about implementing workflows and organizing a business. Others are more graphic design-focused.

There isn’t a one size fits all when it comes to what you can offer as a virtual assistant! I’ve seen some people only offer Pinterest – yes, just Pinterest – and make a huge profit. I’ve seen others who offer only day rates, where someone books them for one day, at a premium price. What you offer is completely up to you. While there are many types of virtual assistants, the two common industries are Creative VA’s and Administrative VA’s.

Creative Virtual Assistants vs. Administrative Virtual Assistants

Before I dive into the services you can offer, I wanted to touch a little bit on the difference between the two. A creative virtual assistant can be one of two things:

A creative virtual assistant can offer creative services to creative businesses. This can include doing services such as graphic design, social media, blogging and copywriting, Etsy and Shopify management, photography, and photo editing. The creative industries can include wedding professionals (like photographers, planners, florists etc.), product-based businesses and artists, coaches and course creators, wellness and nutrition, graphic designers, and anything else in the creative fields.

A creative virtual assistant can also offer more admin related services to those creative businesses. This can include bookkeeping, analytics and reporting, data entry, SEO, sales funnels, and more!

A creative virtual assistant can also offer creative services to any industry. So this can include doing the items listed above, for local businesses, realtors, etc.

An Administrative Virtual Assistant tends to focus on the admin tasks of a business. This includes bookkeeping, cold calling, data entry, Excel and data work, lead generation, analytics, appointment management, etc.

You can offer services from both sides! In my business, Ava And The Bee, we offer graphic design, website design, SEO, Pinterest, Blogging, and some analytics. My clients are wedding professionals. So while I offer services from both the admin and analytical side, I also offer creative services. But because I focus on the creative wedding industry – I consider myself a creative virtual assistant and digital marketer.

What title do I choose?

There are so many titles out there – I know it can be confusing! I tell my students that they can pick whatever title they feel the most comfortable in. I personally use the term “digital marketing” for my company, Ava And The Bee. Typically, people search for the term “Virtual Assistant” because they don’t know exactly what they need help with. So I tend to get a lot of inquiries referring to my business as a virtual assistant business, even though that is not what I call myself. Some other terms can include:

• Social Media Manager
• Pinterest Manager
• Virtual Assistant
• Creative Virtual Assistant
• Sales Funnel Strategist
• Launch Strategist
• Digital Marketer
• Facebook Ads Manager
• Webinar Strategist or Designer
• Graphic Designer

The Industries You Can Work With

It is perfectly okay to work in multiple industries! When you are first getting started, I recommend working in multiple industries to find what you love. Maybe you think you want to work with event designers but find out you like working with local small businesses instead. That is okay! I didn’t always just work with wedding professionals. I took the time to work in different industries, to find my strengths. This included working for graphic designers, a fitness coach, a website design team, and a law firm, as well as wedding professionals. In fact, I didn’t niche down to only wedding professionals until one year into the business.

How Many Services Do I Offer?

Here is my favorite part about being a VA: Being a freelance worker means that you decide what you want to do. There are no bosses giving you a title that doesn’t feel right or assigning you projects you hate. You can focus on what makes you happy, and what makes you the best profit. I mean… how awesome is that?!

This means that you can decide how many services you offer – and what services you offer. Here are a few common ways you can structure your business. Remember: this is by no means the only ways you can run a business – these are just common in the industry!

Option One: You offer a variety of services, and focus on hourly retainers. This is how I started my business! I offered all the things. From Instagram to blogging, to Pinterest, to newsletters, to design, I did it all. These can be harder to package – so often times these will be set as hourly retainers. For example: You offer 10 hours per month for $300/month.

Option Two: You combine a handful of services and offer those. This is what I do in my business, Ava And The Bee. We offer digital marketing services. I suggest offering 4-6 services as your core offering.

Option Three: You select one service – and you master it. For example, you can choose to become a Pinterest Virtual Assistant and ONLY offer Pinterest management. Yep, you can offer just one signature service! I teach students how to offer Pinterest in my course, The Pinterest Elective. One student, who joined in May 2020, already has SEVEN Pinterest clients. Yep, seven! All within three months of starting and mastering Pinterest.

Services You Can Offer As A Creative Virtual Assistant

While there are literally hundreds (even thousands!) of services you can offer, below are some of the more common ones for creative virtual assistants. In my Signature Course, The Creative VA Masterclass, I break the series down by industry, so you can easily see what services to offer to which industries.

Graphic Design:

• Logo design
• Brand design
• Mood boards and brand boards
• Social media graphics
• Design marketing collateral like brochures, business cards, etc.
• Photo album design
• PDF, Opt-Ins and workbook design
• Social media header design
• Info-graphics
• Labels and product wraps
• Book and album covers
• T shirt and merchandise design
• Photoshop editing

Social Media:

• Content creation
• Posting and scheduling content (either directly or via an application)
• Comment monitoring
• Engagement with other accounts
• Instagram stories and Facebook Live assistance
• Finding and scheduling affiliate and influencer postings
• Running contests and giveaways
• Managing online communities (such as Facebook groups)
• Creating and running ad campaigns (Facebook or Instagram ads)
• Creating a social media calendar
• Create surveys and promotions
• Compile marketing statistics and analytics for each platform, and generate weekly progress and reports.

 

Blogging:

• Blog write-ups and copywriting
• Proofreading
• Mood boards and brand boards
• Culling photographs for blog posts
• Use the Yoast SEO Plug in for WordPress to implement SEO strategies
• Online affiliate marketing and management
• Managing an editorial calendar
• Coordinating with contributors and guest posters
• Researching potential topics or trends
• Creating emails and social media content to go along with each blog post

 

Newsletters:

• Newsletter template creation
• Email automation
• Nurture sequence set up
• Weekly and Quarterly newsletter set up
• Email announcements and special promotions
• Track email campaign metrics and analytics

 

Podcasts:

• Audio editing
• Adding intro/outro music, or additional effects
• ID3 Tagging for Podcast SEO
• Creating show notes to share via a blog or other sources
• Creating social media content from the podcast episode
• Episode transcription and timestamps
• Creating graphics including cover images, logo’s, or social content
• Assisting with sponsorships
• Assisting with guest speakers

 

Website:

• Website building or template set up (including WordPress, Squarespace, Showit, etc)
• Landing page creation
• Shopify assistance and maintenance
• Website seo
• Tracking website metrics and analytics
• Website copywriting
• Website maintenance and updating

Email marketing:

• Newsletter template creation
• Email automation
• Nurture sequence set up
• Weekly and Quarterly newsletter set up
• Email announcements and special promotions
• Track email campaign metrics and analytics
• Landing page setup and sequence setup

 

Travel and Speakers:

• Researching destinations
• Creating travel itineraries
• Creating budget sheets
• Handling all areas of booking for the trip
• Researching activities to do
• Assisting with work activities on the trip (photoshoots, speaking opportunities etc.)
• Designing event promos, graphics, and social media

 

Pinterest:

• Monthly Pinning of blog posts and other content
• Monthly management of Tailwind
•  Audit existing Pinterest business accounts, or create new accounts for your clients
•  Create boards that will engage their audience
• Create and design beautiful Pinterest graphics to share your client’s blogs
• Dig into the data with Pinterest analytics
• Create promoted pin campaigns, and track the results

 

Video Editing:

• Video editing, including intro and outro video
• YouTube or Vimeo account maintenance
• Writing scripts
• Sharing audio or video files across social platforms and websites
• Content research
• Channel art and thumbnail art
• Channel maintenance including tags, titles, and monitoring comments
• IGTV editing

 

Product Based Business:

• Shopify or Etsy setup
• New product listings (Shopify, Etsy, websites, etc)
• Social media posts and captions
• Social media management (IG, FB, Pinterest, YouTube etc)
• Website design
• Photographing products or editing photos
• Graphic Design: creating catalogs, wishlist guides, etc.
• Email Management: Emailing clients (thank you emails, follow up emails, etc.)
• Blog write-ups and proofreading
• Assisting with SEO, including Alt Tags, keywords, and Yoast SEO Plug-In for WordPress
• Run Facebook and Instagram ads

 

Admin & Analytics

• Bookkeeping and Quickbooks
• Data Collection and entry
• Web research: Researching on important data, statistics, and facts for presentations or blogs.
• Excel, Word, Powerpoint
• Personal secretary
• Appointment scheduling
• Email management and client management
• Lead generation
• SEO (search engine optimization)
• Sitemap and webmaster submissions
• Conducting keyword research for website and blogs
• Analytics reporting including social media, google analytics, etc.
• PPC (pay per click)
• Google Ads, Facebook and IG Ads management
• Database management
• Sales Funnels
• Creating weekly reports on sales, deliverables, hours and tasks for a companies team
• Writing and sending invoices to clients
• Maintaining cloud computing accounts (DropBox, OneDrive, Google)
• Preparing training manuals for new staff members or remote workers
• Create forms or surveys for customer feedback
• Interviewing previous customers to compose case studies
• Turning raw data into a detailed report and slideshow
• Writing down minutes from meetings and creating a detailed document and outline
• Transcribing voicemail, video or audio, podcasts, and meeting recordings

 

Your Services Can Change Over Time

The services you offer will change and evolve over time. And that is okay! As my company has grown, so have my skills! As my skill set continues to grow, I am able to offer more services, and remove ones I no longer like to do, or feel I am the most proficient at. After completely re-building a Showit website, I learned many new valuable skills. I can now offer Showit design services, with new knowledge! I am a huge advocate for education – I believe you can never learn too much! It is important to continue to learn new skills every year, to ensure you are offering the best services.