Over the last several weeks, I’ve described many ways that an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant can support your online marketing activities. Today I will wrap up this series with a look at a task that you’re likely to find valuable even if you have the time and desire to carry out your own marketing activities. Regardless of the forms of Internet marketing you choose to promote your products and services, your efforts will nearly always be more profitable if you begin with some research.

Here are just a few of the types of research a VA can conduct to support your Internet marketing.

An IMVA can help you:

• locate websites related to your industry or which your target market is likely to frequent. These may be social networking sites, blogs, article directories, business directories, regional directories, or other sites where it will be beneficial for you to have a profile or to advertise. Although many sites offer free listings, others require a fee, and your virtual assistant can compile a list of these sites and their costs, so you can decide the best use of your advertising dollars.
• locate ezines and newsletters that are popular with the people you want to reach, where you can submit articles or advertising.
• locate people for you to connect with. Identifying potential customers is one possibility, but certainly not the only one. Perhaps you’d like to interview someone for your blog, invite them to be a guest blogger, or offer to write a guest post for their blog. Maybe you’d like to trade links on your blog or website with someone whose business is complementary to yours. Or maybe you just want to learn how they’ve become successful, by following them on Twitter or reading their blog.
• suggest topics for you to write about in your blog or articles, by identifying current trends and themes that may interest your target audience.
• research data to support an article or blog post you are writing.
• recommend the technology that will best suit your needs, whether it’s for email marketing, blogging, or some other form of Internet marketing.
• identify the right keywords and phrases to use in your website, blog, and/or profiles, to ensure that your messages are found by the people you are trying to reach.

Certainly you could do your own research, but is that really how you want to spend your time? Partnering with a virtual assistant gives you more time to do what you love to do – whether it be developing products or delivering services – that made you decide to start your business in the first place! In addition, an Internet Marketing VA can offer up-to-date expertise as well as a fresh perspective on your situation, so rather than thinking of it as an added expense, consider it an investment in your future success.

This concludes my series on Internet Marketing Virtual Assistance. I’ve listed the previous entries below in case you missed any of them or would like to read them again.

• What is an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant?
• How an Internet Marketing VA Can Support Your Social Networking Activities
• How an Internet Marketing VA Can Support Your Article Marketing Activities
• How an Internet Marketing VA Can Support Your Email Marketing Activities
• How an Internet Marketing VA Can Support Your Blogging Activities
• How an Internet Marketing VA Can Support Your Search Engine Optimization

I’m sure that you and your business can benefit in one or more of these areas, and perhaps this series has even inspired you to come up with ideas of your own. Please keep this information in mind as you create your marketing plan for 2009, and don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to explore this possibility further.