Top 10 Marketing Tips for Voice Over Artists

You might be the best voiceover artist in the world, but if nobody knows about you, nobody will hire you! The question is – how do you tell people that you’re here and available?

There are lots of ways to market a small business, and a lot of them are either free or low cost (in monetary terms – though they all require some time input).

Here are some that I’ve tried and found to be effective, but it’s not in any particular order and is not an exhaustive list by any means.

1. Have a decent website. I started off with a site I built myself on a Wix template. It was ok, it did the job as a place to send people to, but nobody ever found it organically. My second website was a low cost site (around £500) that was built for me. It looked better, but I didn’t have much control over the content and I found it difficult to make changes (and for some changes I had to pay the developer more money). The site that I have now was built for me by Choose Purple – it’s a much bigger (and more expensive) site, but it’s a much better showcase of my work, and I can update it myself whenever I need to. It is also much better in terms of SEO and people do actually now find my website through a Google search.

 

2. Once you’ve got a website you need to keep it up to date. Google doesn’t like sites that haven’t been changed recently because the information may be old. I tinker with my site every few weeks, adding new testimonials, or links to work I’ve done, and I also add a new blog post every month, which all helps with the SEO.

 

3. Collect testimonials from happy clients. People like to see proof that you’ve done a good job for someone else – it makes you more trustworthy. Use your testimonials on your website and in social media posts.

 

4. Write a blog. Not only does it help your SEO if you blog is part of your website, but it also gives you content to share on social media – either as the full article, or broken down into several posts. A blog helps to establish you as an expert in your field – which is what your clients want!

 

5. Send emails to people who you’d like to work with. Make sure your email is about them, not about you. You need to show empathy for the problems they might be facing – and just maybe you can help them solve it. If they don’t respond to this first email, follow up – people are busy, and they may have intended to respond but not had time, and then forgotten. Jonathan Tilley runs an excellent course on email outreach called League of List Builders. I highly recommend it.

 

6. Curate a mailing list of clients and prospective clients, (always ask someone’s permission before you include them and make sure you are following GDPR) and send regular emails to the list. Make the content interesting for your followers – don’t just talk about your work. Give them some behind the scenes information – people love to know about how voiceovers are recorded, or what makes a good script, or what equipment you use.

 

7. Attend networking meetings. This has never been easier as so many are online now. Find a group you like and go as often as you can. Networking works best when people get to know, like and trust you – and that takes time. If you’re not sure how to network effectively I have an online course that takes you from zero to networking hero and I run it a couple of times a year. In the meantime I have created a handy infographic that gives you my top reasons to network. You can request it here, and this will also add you to my mailing list so you’ll be the first to know about forthcoming courses and free marketing webinars.

 

8. Use social media. There are many platforms and it would be a mistake to try and be active on all of them – just pick one or two and do them well. Try and figure out where your clients are – that’s where you need to be. So, if your target market is games developers and they are all hanging out on Twitter, that’s where you should concentrate your efforts. If you are on more than one platform, make sure the look and feel of your headshot/branding etc is consistent across all of them, so people know that it’s definitely you. A consistent brand is a more trustworthy brand (imagine if a few Coke cans looked different to the others – you wouldn’t trust the contents!).

 

9. Attend expos and conferences – not just in the voice over industry, but your clients’ industries too. If you can get yourself invited to speak then that’s even better, as once again it establishes you as a voice of authority and a leader in your field. Expos are a great way to meet lots of people and talk to them about what they do, and how you might be able to help them.

 

10. Write a press release for local newspapers, magazines and radio stations. If you’ve been nominated for, or won an award, or you’ve done some really interesting work (that you’re allowed to talk about), why not tell the press? If your business hasn’t been in the press before, they might be interested in your career path and how you came to be a voiceover – it’s not a very common profession and people are often interested to find out more about it.

 

My final tip (I know, this is number 11, but I’m giving you a bonus!) is to be consistent with whatever marketing you choose to do. If you want your marketing to work you have to keep doing it – it’s no good just writing one blog article, or one social media post, or sending out a handful of prospective emails – you have to KEEP doing it!