In this day and age of the voiceover business, it's rather challenging to make a comfortable living if you're not willing to put in direct marketing efforts. Yes, your talent agent can provide you with a lot of work if you're well trained and have solid demos, but these days, most talents who succeed are marketing directly to voiceover buyers.
I have an excellent agent in Minneapolis who provides me with a great deal of work, but a large percentage of my annual income is from my own marketing efforts. I'm constantly reaching out to production companies, advertising agencies, eLearning businesses, video production departments inside corporations, and even small businesses. Direct marketing works but two keywords can make the difference between getting work or not; Consistency and persistency!
Over the years, email marketing, cold calling and Linkedin connections have paved the way for a good living doing voiceovers. You need to be able to sell yourself in a way that doesn't come across like you're selling! It is key to showing interest in a client's business and engaging in conversations about their product or what they offer. Don't spend the entire phone call or email talking about you and your golden voice! They will hear that on your professional demos. I keep saying professional demos because too many talents will attempt to slap together demos on their own when they haven't even trained in voice acting or audio engineering. Demos are your calling card; if you don't have voice acting or audio engineering experience, they absolutely have to be produced by a professional demo producer.
Keep your business cards on you at all times. You never know when you might run into a voiceover buyer when you're least expecting it. For example, I met one of my best eLearning narration clients on a plane to NYC! We hit it off and had some great conversations about business. It turns out he was the creative director of an advertising agency. I gave him my card as we departed the plane and he called me a few months later with a gig! He's hired me more than a dozen times since.
What should be on your business card? Your business name, phone number, email address, logo and website address. The website address is a must because this is where they will listen to your demos. Gone are the days when we could hand someone a tape or cassette!
If you're interested in being trained by the experienced coaches on our team and want to get a demo produced, please review our voiceover course options on our coaching programs page.