Every entrepreneur knows the importance of a strong launch for a new product or service. No matter how much effort you put into every other stage of its development, the impact of its launch can make or break the product’s success. Not only that, product launches provide great opportunities for attracting new customers and building your reputation within the market.

But if you have a new product launch on the horizon and you’re planning on doing it all yourself, you're missing out on a major opportunity.

Any seasoned professional knows that a strong launch campaign is a culmination of a number of efforts, so you will be juggling a lot of proverbial balls. This can be a lot to contend with on its own, not to mention when you’re also trying to keep up with the day-to-day running of your business.

Although you will likely get the job done and launch the product, are you confident there will be no shortcuts or compromises made?

If there’s one thing that will benefit you, your launch, and your business the most—it’s time. Time allows you to dedicate the focus and attention to your launch that it deserves, ensuring a higher quality of work and reducing the likelihood of errors. But unfortunately, time is in all-too-short supply when you try to juggle everything yourself.

So instead of taking the “lone wolf” approach, hiring a virtual assistant can help you take care of all the little details so you can focus on the big picture.

What is a virtual assistant?

No, we don’t mean Siri, Alexa, or Google. Those things are good for fetching weather info and telling bad Dad jokes, but they won’t help you launch your product.

The virtual assistant (VA) that we are referring to is an assistant that is not “physically” present with you like a regular employee, but “virtually” as an independent contractor who works from a remote location.

Mainly, they provide support for tasks that are less urgent but still need to be done. They often handle regular, repetitive tasks, but can also help with other necessary duties depending on their experience.

So let’s dive into how you can use a virtual assistant to help you successfully launch your product.

How a virtual assistant can help

Your virtual assistant will not only help you to launch your product, but also take care of some of your workload post-launch.

PRE-LAUNCH SUPPORT:

Conduct market research

Market research is a critical step in the product development process, and there are many ways a virtual assistant can help you save time. Some examples may include:

• Providing insights into your target audience’s demographics, psychographics, and behavior.
• Sending surveys and interviews and collating responses.
• Trawling social media platforms, websites, or forums to identify consumer sentiment.
• Conduct competitor analysis.
• Research trends within your industry or target audience.

See: How A Virtual Assistant Can Help You With Research

Prepare your product video for promotion

If you're looking for an engaging and effective way to communicate your message, video is the answer. But creating a high-quality video takes time and effort. That's where a virtual assistant can come in handy.

• They can assist in creating supplemental visuals and graphics.
• They can transcribe the audio from your video to create subtitles. This will help your message to be more accessible to all.
• If all you need is basic editing for your video and don’t want to hire an external film agency or freelancer, an experienced virtual assistant could be your answer.

Create marketing and sales materials

A virtual assistant can help you create compelling marketing and informational content to engage and inform your customers all about your product.

• Assist in the creation of promotional materials like brochures and flyers.
• Write detailed how-to guides, FAQs, and articles about your product.
• Create email marketing campaigns at scale.
• Create customized templates for email marketing campaigns.
• Keep your subscriber database optimized and up-to-date by creating segments and removing inactive subscribers.

See: How A Virtual Assistant Can Help With Your Digital Marketing

Create simple visual assets

If you're in need of some quality content, a virtual assistant can be a huge time- and money-saver for professional visual assets.

• Create images, infographics, and visuals for your blog, website, or social media posts using Canva or similar design platforms.
• Take your raw photos and elevate them into high-quality images.
• Source relevant stock images.

Manage your social media

Social media management can be a real hassle, and you may not always have time to check or post on your accounts regularly. But with a virtual assistant, you’re free to focus on your more impactful tasks while being safe in the knowledge that your social media is being taken care of.

• They can create and schedule your social media posts based on your guidelines to help increase your product visibility, reach, and awareness.
• They can research content ideas that are relevant to your industry or niche so that you don't have to rack your brains for fresh ideas every day.

See: How A Virtual Assistant Can Help With Your Social Media

Create and manage product pages

A well-crafted product page is essential for any business looking to sell online. But who has the time to create one? A virtual assistant can take this task off your hands and help build a perfect page for your new product, based on your guidelines or existing pages. Some of the ways they can help you save time include:

• Writing engaging copy for your product description.
• Uploading product images.
• Making sure all information on the page is accurate and all links work.

POST-LAUNCH SUPPORT:

Sales admin

As a business owner, you’ll know how important it is to keep on top of your orders, customer accounts, and invoicing. You’ll also know that there are only so many hours in the day to try and do it all. Cue your virtual assistant.

• They can help input any orders you receive into your system, and keep your information organized and up-to-date.
• They can create invoices for your customers or clients and send them out.
• As a busy entrepreneur, you can't afford to waste time chasing down late payments. Your virtual assistant can track late payments, make sure bills are paid on time, and contact customers or clients with payments outstanding, which frees up your time to focus on sales and growth.

See: How A Virtual Assistant Can Help With Your E-Commerce Business

Manage your social media

Things can get a bit chaotic after a new product is launched, but a virtual assistant can help make sure that your social media strategy doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

• Update banners on your website, blogs, and social media accounts to promote your new product.
• Monitor the sentiment online and provide insights into how consumers are responding to your product by keeping track of online reviews, ratings, and comments.
• Provide additional customer support by responding to questions and queries on social media.

What’s the bottom line?

Launching a new product can be an incredibly stressful time, but with the help of a virtual assistant, you can streamline your process and feel much more confident in your preparation.

A virtual assistant allows you to stay focused on your businesses without worrying about everyday tasks that take your time away from what matters the most. You can focus on growing your business instead of spending hours on administrative tasks such as scheduling meetings, making travel arrangements, and managing email accounts.

You will never have to worry about day-to-day operations, and you’ll benefit from increased productivity, increased efficiency, decreased stress levels, and improved work-life balance.

Ready to take back control of your time with a virtual assistant? Stop searching and let our expert team at Time etc do the work for you. We’ll match you with the best-suited candidate from our vast talent pool to help you and your business succeed.

Speak to our team to help us find your ideal assistant and build a plan tailored to your unique needs, or try a virtual assistant for free today!