Establishing Your Niche Post here if you're defining (or redefining) your niche.
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Old 09-20-2011
VaVaVirtual VaVaVirtual is offline
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Company name: VaVa Virtual Assistants
 
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Default Are Specialities Needed?
Hi there!

My partner and I have just launched our new virtual assistant business. We were wondering if it would be a good idea to market ourselves as specialists in certain areas, but also offering other various services.

Does it look better and stand out if we are "specialists" for certain services? Or is it it okay to just list the services we offer and can accomplish?

Thank you!
Melanie & Lauren from VaVa Virtual
www.VaVaVirtual.com
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Old 09-20-2011
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Office Goddess Office Goddess is offline
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Default Re: Are Specialities Needed?
Absolutely! My 'specialty' is bookkeeping, but I also offer office support, transcription, graphic design services, etc. I have found that by focusing my marketing on bookkeeping, potential clients tend to look at that first and then sometimes take advantage of the other services I offer.
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Old 09-20-2011
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VA-at-Work VA-at-Work is offline
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Default Re: Are Specialities Needed?
Without a doubt, yes.

Whilst providing a broad range of services is recommended always play to your strengths. If you have certain knowledge, skills or experience that will make you stand out from the crowd take full advantage. Especially if it's the kind of work that you feel most comfortable doing and enjoy doing - why shouldn't you emphasise that?

It also means it will be easier to target people online; when people search they generally search for specialists, e.g. "wordpress virtual assistant", "social media virtual assistant" and so on. Starting out you are best placed to target that niche from day one, which is especially important when you consider all the pre-existing competition that's already out there.

Think of it this way; whenever you search online for something you're always looking for something specific. When you find a site that isn't specifically related to your needs, you click out. So you need to ensure that when people find your site online it's because they found it for a specific search. That goes for social media, search engines, sites like Freelancer and Elance and so on.

If you generalise and just target "virtual assistant" you're going to have a near to impossible task of beating them all on search engines and social media, but if you specialise you have a far greater chance of getting targeted traffic to your site from people who are most interested in your core services.

That way, once you build your customer base, you can up-sell or cross-sell them on your other services. Once your newfound clients are happy with your service they will be far less inclined to go elsewhere when they know they can get other related work done at the same level of service.
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