Voice Acting For Dummies

by David Ciccarelli

  People everywhere admire and are moved by the personal touch. Receiving something that you know has been touched, written by hand, or sent especially to you in the mail means so much more.

  Using your demo

  Being able to hand someone a physical representation of your work is very important. Some people who may want to hire you aren’t comfortable with receiving attachments via email, especially when it’s the first encounter. The best way to do so is by having CD copies of your demo ready to hand out.

  Include a business letter that accompanies your demo that shares that you’re looking for work and have the talent and ability to help meet your prospective customer’s needs. Remember to follow up with the people to whom you give your demo. Many people lose business because they don’t follow up and ask for the business. If you really want to work with someone, follow up to see where they are and how you can serve them.

  Make sure you keep a copy of your demo with you because you may never know when opportunity knocks. Handing someone a demo CD, even though it may seem to be low-tech when compared to emailing an MP3 file to someone, is still a viable and potentially preferred way to present someone with your offering and show them what you can do.

  If you prefer a more high-tech way of getting people to hear your demos, you may consider printing QR Codes on your marketing materials and business cards. (A QR Code is basically a graphical link; see Figure 9-1 for an example.) The recipient can scan the code using a QR Code reader on his or her mobile device to easily access your demo and other material online. Check out QR Codes For Dummies by Joe Waters (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) for how you can easily create a code for your marketing material.

  Figure 9-1: A QR Code can link people to your demo or website.

  Illustration courtesy of Voices.com

  Generating local publicity

  If you have a compelling story, journalists are more likely to write about you. As a result, you want to figure out what makes you unique. Did you just open for business? Did you land a national project? Are you sponsoring a local event? These are good reasons to reach out to trade magazines, blogs, and local media, and pitch your story idea.

  Publicity has an incredible tendency to beget more publicity. After you get covered in one article or you land one speaking engagement, you’ll be amazed at how that piece of publicity snowballs into more opportunities.

  Before you make your pitch, read these different publications to get an idea what they cover. Familiarize yourself with the writers who cover arts, entertainments, voice-overs, and small business. Reporters are interested in human interest angles because they’re the most popular articles with the public. Think about what you like to read and pitch a story accordingly to the appropriate reporter.

  Reporters are busy people. They have tight deadlines and are almost always short on time. They may not respond to every pitch. Keep these suggestions in mind when contacting reporters:

  Reach out a couple times per month, depending on the circumstances of your story. Don’t hound them.

  Find different angles to your story. Don’t send the same pitch over and over.

  Respect the reporters’ deadlines. Avoid contacting reporters during their crunch time when their stories are due. This time varies on the news source.

  Being written about in the local newspaper or covered in some other news source helps you reach people that normally wouldn’t otherwise be thinking about the wonderful world of voice acting.

  If you want to more formally pitch your story, you can draft a news or press release. A press release is an unbiased and objective third-person report of your newsworthy story. Press releases should be about a product launch, website launch, company report, event, or announcement that the public would find interesting.

  If you live in a larger metropolitan center, start a media list, which can be as simple as a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, with the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of journalists at each of the local radio and television stations, and magazines and newspapers. Then, when you have news to share, pull up your media list and spend the day pitching your story. Doing so is worth it, even if a single media outlet publishes your story.

  If you’ve been in the business a while and are interested in enlisting help to promote your business to the media, consider hiring a publicist. A publicist makes it her business to pitch your story to the press and may also line up speaking engagements for you. To find a publicist in your area, consult your local ad club or chamber of commerce. You can also search online to find a publicist who specializes in working with actors and creative types.

  Sponsoring an event

  You can also sponsor an event, such as a conference, seminar, workshop, or other gathering, to get out your business name. When an event takes place, sponsors are acknowledged publicly for their contribution to the event and are able to promote themselves to a degree throughout the program.

  Sponsorship doesn’t have to be expensive. Event organizers often have a community sponsor level typically starting around $250. If the event has a good turnout, of say at least 250 people, you’re basically paying a dollar for each person to see your name.

  You can also consider an in-kind sponsorship, which means that you provide services free of charge in exchange for recognition at the event. Approach the conference organizers and ask if they need any voice-overs or audio production done. Perhaps they need an announcer at the event. Having your name seen in printed materials and having event organizers hear your voice make announcements throughout the event can be a great opportunity. You can also demonstrate your abilities to event attendees.

  However you choose to approach event sponsorship, be sure to ask to have your name and logo in a few key spots. You want visibility on the event website, in the event program, and on any other printed materials. Ask for at least one verbal mention during the event. You can also inquire about setting up a small booth where you can provide more information about your services.

  Joining Professional Associations

  You can promote your business and skills even more by joining one of the many professional associations available for voice actors, radio announcers, actors, recording engineers, and other industry professionals. You can join different types of professional organizations, including unions.

  The following organizations appeal to voice actors. Some are more accessible than others, but we include them all to give you a broad spectrum of your choices to consider when finding an association you can be part of to benefit you and your business.

  Unions and guilds: Unions are organizations of employees that bargain with employers, while guilds are groups of people with similar interests or pursuits, especially merchants or craftsmen. A few unions and guilds that you should be aware of as a voice actor are SAG-AFTRA (United States), ACTRA (Canada), and Equity (United Kingdom). Though joining a union isn’t mandatory, a union may be appealing to voice actors who live in big centers such as New York or Los Angeles because more union jobs are available in those cities. That being said, a significant amount of voice-over work is non-union. Remember, if you join a union, you will not be able to do any non-union work. Refer to Chapter 16 for more discussion on unions.

  Nonprofit trade organizations: These organizations help people learn more about their craft and provide resources. You can join these organizations and network with others who do what you do or people who work in closely related fields. The following are some nonprofit organizations you can join:

  •Audio Publishers Association: The Audio Publishers Association (APA) (www.audiopub.org) is a nonprofit trade association of audio publishers related to audiobooks.

  •PromaxBDA: PromaxBDA (www.promaxbda.org) provides education, community, creative inspiration, and career development for marketing, promotion, and design professionals within the entertainment and information indus
try.

  •Voice and Speech Trainers Association: The Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA) (www.vasta.org) is a nonprofit organization run by volunteers in the profession that provides service to voice and speech professionals.

  •Southern California Broadcasters Association: The Southern California Broadcasters Association (www.scba.com) is a trade organization for advertising agencies, clients, and the community on behalf of radio broadcasters throughout Southern California.

  Chambers of Commerce: A chamber of commerce is a local organization that helps nurture businesses in its area. Any kind of business can join. Members are encouraged to network at chamber events and take advantage of resources to further their businesses.

  •US Chamber of Commerce: Check out www.uschamber.com for more information.

  •Canadian Chamber of Commerce: Refer to www.chamber.ca for more information.

  Following Up with Your Past and Prospective Clients

  If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, more than likely you know that getting repeat business is easier than selling your services to a new customer. As a result, following up with your current client base is an important step to promoting your voice acting talent and growing your business.

  No matter whether you’re brand new or have some experience in voice acting, you want to focus on getting a new (or your first client). The following sections identify how you can call on prospective clients to get new customers. After you get your client, you can ask for referrals that can help you garner new clients.

  Calling on prospects

  Whether you’re calling on prospects to land your first job or you’re simply prospecting to generate some new business, the process is the same. You can stick to these simple steps to help:

  1.Identify and understand who your prospects are.

  Match the kind of work you’re looking to do with the people who will need to hire you. For example, if you’re most interested in doing voice acting for animation, then you need to identify animation producers at video production companies. If you’re interested in recording commercials, then you can focus your time on radio and television stations and advertising agencies.

  2.Create a detailed prospect list.

  This list should keep contact information for all prospective clients, including full name, phone number, email addresses, mailing address, description, last contact date, and any call notes. Refer to Chapter 16 for how to manage this information.

  3.Develop a telephone script so you’re ready to start calling.

  The script is an outline of the conversation you want to have. Your script can have an opening, such as

  “Hi. My name is Peter from Got The Pipes Studio. How are you?”

  4.Respect the prospect’s time by qualifying her.

  You can say something like,

  “You’re busy, so I’ll make this quick. How often do you work with voice actors?”

  Notice the open-ended question. You didn’t ask whether the prospect hires voice actors, but rather how often, which can start a conversation.

  5.Write the script so you ask important questions.

  For example, you can write something like this that directs the prospective client in answering key questions that will let you know how you can best meet her needs.

  “Can I send you an email with a link to my demo? Great!”

  6.Develop a consistent close.

  Your close is important because it sets the tone for how your prospect may respond and also provides options for how she can move ahead. A good example close is

  “Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, you can contact me at (phone number) or email (email address). I look forward to hearing from you and would be grateful for the opportunity to serve you.”

  Follow those steps on your phone calls, and you can turn your prospects into customers in no time!

  Asking for referrals and testimonials

  If your clients are happy, then they’re sure to refer you to others. Sometimes all you have to do is ask. A referral is someone recommending to others that they should work with you, while a testimonial is a brief account detailing a customer’s positive experience working with you.

  You may have heard in life that you shouldn’t care too much about what other people think, and to a great degree, that’s true — just not when it comes to promoting your business or helping others to define their perception of what you offer as a business.

  Repeat business and word of mouth are both amazing ways to acquire new customers and get your voice in front of others who may need what you have to offer.

  So when is the best time to ask for a testimonial? We recommend asking a client for a testimonial right after you have delivered the completed audio. Usually when your client replies to confirm receipt of the files, she has something nice to say about your work or the experience. At this time, you want to get those sentiments in writing to use as a testimonial, with the client’s permission, for promotional purposes, whether it be on your website, as a reference, or in your marketing materials.

  Given that you’re a voice actor and the medium you work in is audio, having some of your testimonials in audio format is a nice feature. Ask your client whether you can record her saying something about you or whether your client can send you a brief clip detailing the experience. Some people are better speakers than writers, so this option may be popular depending on whom you offer it to.

  After you get the testimonial from your client, you can send a standard template like the one in Figure 9-2 to show your client what you’ll use.

  If the client replies in the affirmative, you can then use that testimonial as a reference on your website or in other marketing material.

  Figure 9-2: Send a letter like this to your clients and ask for a testimonial.

  Illustration by Wiley, Composition Services Graphics

  Gaining public acknowledgement in other ways

  In addition to testimonials and referrals, you can build credibility and recognition for your work in three other ways:

  Getting a public feedback rating and review: Most online marketplaces that facilitate transactions give you the opportunity to rate and review your experience working with someone at their site. Ratings and reviews are opportunities for publicity and acknowledgment that you receive if a client hires you online. These ratings and reviews are public, and you don’t have to ask permission to share them because they’re available for all to see on the website you worked through.

  Being featured in a case study: Some companies do case studies, so ask whether those sorts of opportunities are available to you to gain a higher profile on their website. A case study typically consists of identifying the initial challenges you faced before using the service and then detailing how you went about achieving your goals. Case studies document a process but also give insight into your personal experience from start to finish. Although case studies may only be used for internal company purposes, sometimes they’re published and even used in university and post-secondary settings.

  Writing a success story: Did you know that companies love hearing from people they’ve worked with, especially if they were successful? Contacting the editor of a company blog or connecting with a customer service or public relations representative can be your foot in the door to publicity via a larger platform. A success story can be about a great experience, a job you booked, and the like.

  Chapter 10

  Uncovering Voice Acting Jobs

  In This Chapter

  Locating job postings

  Perusing job listings

  Vetting the different job opportunities available

  No matter whether you’ve been in the voice acting business for a while or are just starting out
, if you don’t know where to find the work, then you’re going to be unemployed for quite a while. Even if you know where to find the work, but don’t know what kind of work you want to do, then you’ll also be in trouble. Voice acting has so many different criteria that factor into it, including the vocal requirements, creative direction, and more that if you aren’t sure, you may have a difficult time growing your business as a voice actor. Becoming knowledgeable and being selective can serve you well as you navigate through the thousands of opportunities that may come your way.

  One of the best ways to uncover voice-over work is to have an online presence and have a website or create a profile on an online marketplace. That way, opportunities that match your profile are sent to you for consideration. Chapter 9 discusses creating a website or joining an online marketplace. This chapter can help you find auditions, how to read job postings, and how to determine which jobs are a good fit for your abilities and interests.

  Finding and Reviewing Job Postings

  The good news: With the Internet, voice-over job postings are just a click away. You can find voice-over jobs in quite a few places online, including the following:

  www.craigslist.com

  www.elance.com

  www.guru.com

  www.odesk.com

  www.voices.com

  When reviewing a job posting for voice acting, some bits of information are more important than others. As you gain more and more experience in the voice acting field and look at more and more jobs, you’ll become more experienced at spotting great opportunities that you have a really good shot at landing.

  Later in this chapter in the “Researching and Evaluating Job Opportunities before Auditioning” section, we discuss how you can make objective decisions regarding whether you should audition or not. In Chapter 16, we explain how thinking like an agent can help you answer the decision whether to audition or not. These sections run through what you should keep an eye on, starting with the most important pieces of information. You can then use this information as you peruse the postings.