How much have you spent trying to get clients for your Virtual Assistant business?

If the only money you’ve spent has gone towards getting your VA website set up, you’re doing great. If you’ve spent additional money on marketing, stop now. You do not need to spend money to get clients. All you need is time, effort and skills.

Here are five no-cost ways to market your virtual assistant business to get clients:

1. Bait Pieces

A bait piece is something of value that you give away in exchange for the potential client’s name, email address and permission to market to them. You then use the contact information to market to that individual via email, using a list building system which I describe next. A bait piece can be a free ebook, teleseminar, webinar, newsletter or video.

2. List Building

Begin building an email list of potential clients by collecting names and email addresses. To do this, you’ll want to use a software program that allows you to capture email addresses and names and then market to them via email. My favorite software program for list building is MailChimp because it’s free and easy to use.

3. Blog Posts

If you’re not already blogging, you’re missing out. It’s free and search engines like Google love blog posts! Every time you load a new blog post, search engines visit your site and add the blog post to their search results, giving you more opportunities to reach potential clients. The hardest part is getting those blog posts written. The best way to make sure you write at least one a week is to get an accountability partner. Ask a VA who also wants to write blog posts to hold you accountable for writing at least one blog post each week – and you do the same for her. Tough love may be required.

4. Joint Ventures With Your Competition

Instead of staying far and clear from your competition keep them by your side to help you find more clients. The bible says to love your enemies for a reason. 😉 Your competition is not your enemy and can be a real godsend to you. Connecting up and forming a joint venture with your competitor can give you access to their list or prospects. Ideas for joint ventures you can do with each other:

1. Write articles in each other’s newsletters or do a guest blog. At the end offer some freebie to entice their readers to sign up to your newsletter too.
2. If you offer wordpress design and your competitor offers bookkeeping services then in essence you can both offer this on your website now and outsource to each other.
3. Share each other’s banner ads on your websites promoting services you might not have otherwise offered.

5. Local Networking Meetings

If you love to get out and mingle, and you live in a large metro area, you might enjoy networking in person. You can typically attend one or two meetings at no cost, to find out if you like the group. Find local networking meetings you can tap into by searching on any of these groups to find out if they have meetings in your area:

1. www.bni.com
2. www.meetup.com

If you’d like to get step-by-step training as well as personalized coaching on how to get as many clients as you can possibly handle in your VA business, sign up for our VAinsiders Club. If you can’t decide if it’s right for you, or you want to be sure I’m the right fit for you, please contact Tawnya to set up a free consultation.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in August, 2012 and has been completely revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.