Hi there,

I have finally decided to go for the target market of coaches and speakers in New Zealand (as I live here) and would like to first introduce my service in a letter with information pack and then follow up with a targeted postcard. If I don't hear anything back, after a few weeks, I may follow up with a phone call.

What would you or have you included in a first letter pack to attract clients' attention to your services? The thing is that VAs are virtually unknown in New Zealand. There are so few around that no one even knows the term virtual assistant. There are PAs, temps and secretarial services, but no one would think that these women could be an online marketing support person, for example. They expect PAs to only do typing and transcriptions. And maybe bookkeeping.

Online social networking for businesses is still very new and not much done in NZ either, but it definitely is starting to be an integral part of some industries, like public relations, journalists (from what I read in their newsletter).

I'm so excited about theses services to these target groups. I know from a few business and life coaches that they struggle planning their seminars/workshops and can't even answer their emails due to time problems. So they are definitely in need of help, but they don't know about VAs, so lots of groundwork needs to be done. So I need a great convincing first letter pack.

Would you please share with what you include in a first letter pack? I know there are so called Welcome kits for new clients, but I would like to make a little first letter/contact kit for potential clients.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thank you.

Cheers
Heike

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Heike Miller
www.heikemiller.com

Sorry to say, I don't have a good answer for you Heike, but I'd love to see what others have to say so I'm giving your thread a nudge

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I don't write letters and send information packs. What I do is go and mix and mingle in my target audience. If you want to meet coaches and speakers in NZ then why not find out about their networking events and attend them? I went along to National Speakers Association of Australia meetings in the late 1990s with the purpose of learning more about public speaking as I was getting asked to speak a lot to audiences about this new phenomena of working via the web. What happened was that once the speakers realised there was someone in their midst who both understood their industry (because of my attending their meetings) and could handle their admin, the rest became a natural progression. Today I, and my team of VAs in Australia, service many, many professional speakers - simply because of my attending those first meetings.

Same for the coaching industry - I got involved with that industry by attending meetings and meeting other coaches - again because I wanted to learn more about being a coach for our industry. Result was that the coaches became more aware of what a VA can do for them.

I believe that mixing and mingling with your target audience, getting to know what makes them tick, what their needs are, and just letting them get to know you, is a great way to make contact.

Heike -

I'm thinking you need to emphasize what your clientele will get from you, and not worry about explaining what a VA is. If they are beginning to use the internet, you can probably catch their attention by offering guidance, planning, and implementation of an internet marketing campaign. The fact that you're a VA is fairly irrelevant: what will attract them is the chance to get a handle on the web, which they suspect they need to do.

My 2 cents.

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Mary H. Ruth/Virtual Writing & Communications
http://www.writingVA.com