How to hire a virtual assistant for marketing who keeps your posts, emails and reports going

Marketing in a small business tends to come in bursts. You post every day for two weeks, then a busy month arrives and the account goes quiet. The newsletter slips to "next week". Nobody has looked at the numbers since spring.

A virtual assistant for marketing does the repeatable part of that work, so it keeps happening when you're busy. You keep the plan and the voice. They schedule, build, upload, update and report. This guide covers what to hand over first, what needs a specialist instead, what it costs and how to hire one.

What a virtual assistant for marketing does

Most of the work is the same every week, and that's what makes it good to hand over.

• Social media: scheduling the posts you've approved, replying to comments with saved answers and pulling a monthly report
• Email: building the newsletter in your email tool from your copy, tidying the list and setting up the send
• Content: formatting and uploading blog posts, adding images and links, and turning a post into captions for you to approve
• Graphics: making social images and banners from your brand templates in Canva or a similar tool
• Website: updating product pages, prices, banners and team pages, and fixing broken links
• Reporting: pulling the numbers from your analytics, social and email tools into one sheet each week
• Research: what competitors posted, which events are coming up and who's worth contacting

What needs a specialist instead

An assistant works from your plan, your templates and your approval. Some marketing work doesn't fit that shape: deciding the strategy, setting and moving ad budgets, designing a brand from scratch, planning SEO, and copy that has to sell on its own.

You have two choices for that work. Keep it with you or an agency, or hire an assistant who already has the skill. We place digital marketing assistants, graphic design assistants and copywriting assistants as well as general marketing support. Say which on the call.

Virtual assistant vs agency vs freelancer

	Agency	Freelancer	Managed virtual assistant
What you get	A team that plans and does the work	One person for a project or a set of tasks	One dedicated person on your hours
Who sets the plan	The agency, with you	You	You
How you pay	A monthly retainer	Per project or per hour	From around $8.80 an hour with Catalyst, billed monthly

An agency suits you when you need the thinking as well as the doing. An assistant suits you when you know what to post and send, and the problem is getting it done every week.

How to keep your brand voice

Set these four things up once, before your assistant posts anything.

1. A one-page voice guide: the words you use, the words you never use, and three posts you liked.
2. Templates for the things you make often: social images, the newsletter and product descriptions.
3. Approval before anything goes out. For the first month, approve every post. After that, approve the week's batch on a Monday.
4. One shared content calendar, so you both know what's going out and when.

What it costs

With Catalyst, a dedicated assistant costs from around $8.80 an hour, billed monthly per assistant, and part-time is 20 hours a week. We put that at up to 70% below a local hire. Recruitment, payroll and equipment sit with us. The virtual assistant cost guide compares the options in more detail.

How to hire a virtual assistant for marketing

1. List the marketing tasks you did last month, and the ones you meant to do and didn't.
2. Pick the first three to hand over. Scheduling, the newsletter and the weekly report are a good start.
3. Write the steps for each one. Our free SOP template gives you the format.
4. Book a free call. Tell us the tasks, your tools and your hours, and meet a shortlist of pre-vetted assistants. Most clients are onboarded within two weeks.
5. Check the first fortnight's work closely. If the assistant isn't suitable, you can ask for a replacement in the first two weeks (clause 7.2 of our Terms of Business).

How to work with a marketing assistant each week

Approve in batches. A 20-minute review each Monday beats a message every hour.

Share logins one at a time. Crewhall, free with every Catalyst assistant, shares a login with one person and revokes it in one click.

Read the numbers together once a month. Your assistant pulls them; you decide what to change.

For a longer playbook on handing over marketing without losing your voice, read how to delegate marketing to a virtual assistant.

Questions owners ask

Can a virtual assistant run my ads?

They can set up campaigns from your plan, upload the creative and report on results. Decisions about budget and targeting stay with you or a specialist.

Will they write my posts?

They can draft posts from your brief and voice guide for you to approve. If you want someone to write from scratch, ask for a copywriting assistant.

Which tools do they need to know?

Tell us yours on the call and we'll look for assistants who've used them.

How many hours do I need?

Start with the tasks, not the hours. Scheduling, a weekly newsletter and a weekly report often fit inside a 20-hour part-time week.

Who employs the assistant?

We do. Under clause 11 of our Terms of Business, every assistant stays with Catalyst and never becomes your employee.

Keep your marketing going in a busy month

Book a free consultation and tell us the marketing work that keeps slipping, or see pricing first.

Sources

• Catalyst, Terms of Business (May 2026), clauses 7.2 and 11, read 7 October 2026.