No matter where you’re at in voice-over, it’s important to spend time connecting with new potential clients. When I first started out in voice-over, I put in a lot of elbow grease to build a base of clients who would regularly need my voice – thus providing me with a more consistent work (and income) flow. But, this industry is always fluctuating and evolving, so we shouldn’t get too comfortable! Setting aside time to reach out to prospective clients is an essential part of a successful voice-over career.
If you don’t know where to start or are out of ideas, you’ve come to the right blog! There are tons of ways to pick up new gigs that you might not be familiar with. I like to classify this part of my job as a voice actor as either passive or active outreach.
Passive outreach is any new client that reaches out to you on their own. Maybe they found you online somewhere, heard about you from a friend, or stumbled upon some of your own work. It’s nice to gain new clients this way, but there is still a little work involved in order to set yourself up for success! In order to attract new clients passively, make sure you’ve done the following:1. Created a VO website for yourself that showcases your skills and clearly details how to contact you. Two of my personal favorite examples are www.kpmvo.com and www.miabankston.com. There are lots of online resources to help you build your own – Wix, Weebly, Strikingly, and GoDaddy, to name a few. Do a little research and find a website builder that works for you.
2. Have active social media accounts on sites like LinkedIn, Instagram, and especially Twitter. Connect with people, participate online, and keep your information up to date! You never know who will see you there and reach out. I often have friends from high school, old coworkers, etc. find my social media profiles, learn that I’m a voice actor, and then reach out to me because their company needs a new phone voicemail system or e-learning narration. Twitter also is host to hundreds of casting calls. You will quickly find new auditions by staying in the loop with the voice-over community on Twitter!
3. Hype yourself up! When you’re meeting new people in person, tell them what you do! There is so much work out there for voice actors, and you never know who needs your help. Word of mouth can make a huge difference in picking up new clients, so don’t forget to let people know about your skills!
Active outreach can look a bit different here, but still involves things like social media. It’s good to have set yourself up first to receive new clients passively before you start proactively contacting people. Once you do, here are some tips:
Cold emailing/cold calling: think about your local community. Are there businesses, animation studios, colleges with film students, restaurants, etc. that you can think of that might be in need of a voice actor? Plenty of these places might need things like a phone tree voice, an e-learning narration, a character for a film project, an announcement speaker, and many other voice-over jobs that you may not have even thought of. It’s relatively easy to find business inquiry emails or general phone numbers online. Craft a brief respectful email or call script for yourself to let local organizations know about the services you can provide, and reach out!
LinkedIn messaging: this is a similar idea to cold emailing people, but you can make a lot of progress with this concept on LinkedIn! Connect with peers who work in creative or marketing roles at businesses you think your voice would be a good fit for, and send them a LinkedIn message. I’ve done this plenty, and it’s highly effective! You can even use the same sort of template you created for cold emailing.
Pay-to-play voice-over sites: This is the big one nowadays for auditioning. There are dozens of great websites out there with quality voice-over work waiting for you. Audition, audition, audition! Auditioning is still a form of active outreach to potential employers, and an essential part of our jobs! Voices.com, CastingCallClub, Backstage, VoiceBunny, Voices123, and Bodalgo are just a few of many examples. Get involved on those sites, and start getting booked!
Applying to agencies:AIf you feel it’s right for you, you can also consider applying to voice-over agencies. Agencies who take you on as new talent will send you tons of high caliber auditions with big name brands. Research agencies in your local area or in the closest city to you and start by applying there. This process takes a lot of time, and it may be many months before you hear back. Stay determined and regularly apply to new places – the rewards will be worth it!
Although some of this work isn’t quite as fun as acting and auditioning, it’s important to make time for. Searching for new clients in these ways has been a critical part of my growth as a voice actor, and it’s the only reason I’ve been able to make this a full-time career. If you have other creative ideas for finding new work, I’d love to hear it! Feel free to share with the community in the comments of this blog!
Check out our free PDF with pro-tips from real working voice-over actors here!
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