Top 5 Roles to Outsource for Digital Agencies

If you’re finding yourself with a growing to-do list and not enough time to complete everything on it, it might be time to start thinking about bringing in some professional help. It can feel overwhelming as a business owner to know where to start, considering that finding a virtual assistant or virtual project manager might be a new experience for your marketing or digital agency. Here are the top 5 roles to outsource for digital agencies, followed by specific examples to help give you some inspiration.

1. General Assistant

General assistants provide support to a business leader or team. Assistants can take on a variety of tasks, but most of the time they take on administrative and organizational work so you and your team members can focus on more complex, higher-impact tasks.

Manage your calendar

Managing a calendar can take up a lot of time. The minutes spent sending out invites and finding a meeting time that works for all attendees can add up quickly. An assistant can take on this work so you only need to know where to show up and when.

Communicate with potential clients

It’s great for your agency if you have inbound leads, but how many of them actually result in business? A general assistant can collect all the basic information from potential clients to ensure they’re serious about working with you. As a bonus, a general assistant may also get to those emails faster than you, which is a huge unlock because lead response time is key in getting new clients.

Organize documents

When working with clients, there are often a lot of documents floating around. Whether it’s a contract that needs to be signed, a proposal, or notes from your meeting, a general assistant can make sure none of that important information gets lost. They’ll make it easy for you to communicate with clients with clarity and consistency.

2. Recruiter

Recruiters are responsible for finding, screening, and attracting applicants to fill positions at a company. A recruiter functions as a single point of contact for questions and issues, resulting in a better candidate experience which is good for business.

Create job postings

You may be looking for a new sales associate, but beyond that, do you know what you want? A recruiter can work with you to narrow down the specific skills you’re looking for – such as time management, leadership, or experience with a specific tool – and craft an engaging job posting based on that information. They’ll put your ideas to paper so you don’t have to spend time refining your asks and posting them on job sites.

Review applications

Once you have applications coming in, they still need to be reviewed before offering an interview. People might apply to roles they’re not qualified for or some might be spam submissions. A recruiter will take the time to weed out all the unqualified candidates and only present you with the best candidates who are fit to move into the next stage.

Interview

A recruiter can complete an initial interview screening for you to further narrow down the best candidates for the job. Having a recruiting assistant run this entire process saves you time so you only have to worry about showing up to the interview and giving your expert opinion on who to hire. Recruiters can also sit in on interviews to take notes or ask additional questions to ensure nothing is missed.

3. Project Manager

A project manager can take on any project from start to finish, leading everything from planning to launch. A project manager can also successfully organize, plan, and execute projects while working within restraints such as budgets and schedules. They provide a lot of flexibility, take a lot of work off your shoulders, and make a positive business impact at the same time.

Create project plans

Sometimes the most difficult part of a project is turning your idea into an actionable plan. A project manager can come in and make your idea a reality. Problem-solving is an essential skill for project managers, so it’s okay if you don’t’ have ideas about how to fix something yet. They’ll bring their expertise and past experience to make suggestions to improve your business.

Manage stakeholders

If you’re the only person who knows what’s going on, that also means you have to answer questions that everyone inevitably has – both internal team members and external stakeholders. A project manager can become the new go-to person, ensuring that only the important questions get escalated to you for your response. This way, you can focus on higher priority items instead of answering the same questions all the time.

Adhere to timelines

A key part of projects is maintaining a timeline. The larger the project, the more likely that deadlines will be extended, probably making you go over budget. Project managers play a key role in keeping things on track. They’ll follow up with stakeholders to make sure action items are completed on time, manage status check-in meetings and more to ensure they know the status of the project at all times.

4. Creatives

You can outsource your creative needs to help ensure you’re getting the best talent at the best price. Instead of hiring someone full-time and hoping they’ll be good at everything, you can outsource your specific needs to professionals only when you need them. With a whole world of creatives, you’ll be able to find someone who matches your exact aesthetic and can execute your vision.

Branding

Especially with social media today, branding has become increasingly important for businesses of all sizes. Your brand is essentially your personality, and it gets people to recognize and get excited about your company. Branding guidelines are a great thing to outsource because they require a deeper understanding of things like font, text size, color usage, tone, and more. All these things impact your brand, so you want clear guidelines to ensure all your materials stay consistent with who you are as a company.

Graphic design

If you’re not quite ready for a full set of branding guidelines, another great place to start is hiring a graphic designer to do something smaller, such as a logo. A logo is an extremely important part of your digital agency, so even having someone complete a single task like that can make an impact on the overall success of your company.

Website development

Your website is a great place to tell your story as a business, highlight your services, and bring in potential clients. If you don’t have a website yet, or if you do and it needs a refresh, outsourcing this work ensures that a professional is thinking about all the things you might not know about, such as page responsiveness, web vs. mobile experience, and accessibility.

5. Marketing Assistant

Marketing takes your branding to the next level by ensuring customers and potential customers engage with your company. They can create a variety of materials and help in different areas depending on your specific needs.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a key part of ensuring you stay connected to your audience; however, there can be a lot of ambiguity around what type of content to include in your emails, how often to send them, and how to further categorize your audience for targeted campaigns. Bringing in an outsourced marketing specialist professional can help make your current email marketing strategy more effective.

Blog writing

Once you have your website set up, a blog is generally a positive next step. Blogging helps drive traffic to your website and promotes your products and services at the same time. Outsource a marketing specialist to save you time by doing keyword research, optimizing your blog for search engine optimization, and creating engaging content that will keep bringing users back to your site.

Social media

Society today relies on social media for everything from news to decision-making. Ignoring social media as a business simply because it’s time-consuming or new territory for you would be missing out on many potential clients. You can outsource a professional to create posts for your social media platforms and manage your direct messages. As a bonus, social media can also be leveraged as a means for your customers to receive support, so your outsourced marketing assistant could help you with your customer support strategy as well.

How do I find the right virtual assistant service for my agency?

The safest route to hire a virtual assistant – whether it be in project management, marketing, or something else – is to go through a professional virtual assistant agency. Make sure the virtual assistant agency you go through has vetted their candidates so you know you’re getting the best service possible. Additionally, see if the virtual assistant agency has their candidates complete any type of training – this will allow them to jump right in to support your agency as soon as they start.