Marketing-- well-done marketing-- isn’t just a one tactic plan. A marketing plan for your voiceover business should consist of many channels, media, and platforms. You cannot solely rely on pay-to-play sites. What if they decide to change their pricing structure or suddenly shut down? You don’t want your business to sink with it. Same goes with your talent agent. Agents are great to have but they should be just one tactic in your plan. You need to find ways to consistently find and connect with new clients over time. One good way to do this is through strategic, effective and long-term email marketing.
Before you even begin to think about how to find new clients and engage with them, you need to change your mindset about what email marketing is and how it’s going to work for you.
1. This is a long-term email marketing strategy.
This is not an overnight, quick fix, instant gratification type of thing. You need to be realistic about how long this will take. If you don't get bookings right away you shouldn’t think to yourself that, “this isn’t working” or “what am I doing wrong?” You need to be patient and keep at it.
2. It is going to take work.
I will go into more detail in later posts about this work, but just know, this tactic is not a turnkey solution. However, there are always fabulous people (like the BOSSES) that are here to help you.
3. You want your audience to request information from you.
This is similar to passive and active advertising. Billboards, print ads, and TV commercials are passive. Meaning, the user doesn’t interact with the advertisement. They just see the ad. In most cases, they don’t have a choice whether or not they want to see these ads. However, with active advertising users choose what information they want to receive; i.e. liking a certain brand on Facebook, following someone on Twitter, and opting in to receive emails from a company or person. Let me say that again. They chose you. (I will go into this later.)
4. This is different than hunting and collecting email addresses.
One great marketing tactic is to search Google, LinkedIn, etc. for potential buyers and send them a direct email. For example, you can search LinkedIn for marketing directors or executive producers, find their contact information and email them your demo. This is definitely a great option and one that should be included in your marketing plan. However, these people did not give you permission to send them an email. Yes, they posted their email to their website or have a public LinkedIn account, but they did not “sign-up” to receive emails from you. This tactic is not wrong, it’s just a different approach to a long-term email marketing plan.
5. They might not need you right away.
Remember the people you are reaching out to may not need your services right away. Think about the email marketing messages you receive as a consumer. I really like Wayfair (the home goods online retailer) but I’m not always in the market for new furniture. However, when I am, I pay attention to those emails that come to my inbox. Wayfair knows this and sends emails on a timely and consistent basis. Your buyers are the same way. They may not need your services at the same exact time, but they may need you in a few months or even a few years. This happens all the time. Just the other day a buyer contacted me ten months after receiving one of my email messages. They didn’t need me ten months ago, but when they did they remembered me from my email campaigns and contacted me. Love it!
6. You own your mailing list.
Let me just repeat this one more time. You. Own. Your. Mailing. List. Social media can be great, but let’s face it you don't own Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. They can and will adjust their algorithms whenever they want. Even if you have thousands of followers on Facebook, a good percentage of them probably won’t even see your posts. Leonie Dawson, an international best selling author, and insanely successful serial entrepreneur, recently wrote a blog post about why she thinks businesses should move their efforts from social media to email lists. She states that even though she has 130,000+ likes on Facebook, on a good day, less than 1% actually hear from her. “By contrast,” states Leonie, “if I send an email to my mailing list, I have about 15-20% open rates. If you have a smaller mailing list, you tend to have even higher open rates.” If you feel inclined, take a few moments to read Leonie’s blog post on this subject. It is certainly eye-opening and informative.
There are a vast array of tools out there to help you be a successful voice over marketer. And the learning curve can be fairly steep. Sometimes it’s hard to weed through all of the different tactics to figure out which ones work for you. Good news is, there are lots of people who are here to help you - including the Bosses! I love email marketing and I love voice over! Take a deep breath and lean on someone that has been through this and can help you see the forest through the trees. Contact me today to see how I can help you on your way to success.
Keep on Rocking Your Biz,
XOXO
About the Author: Anne Ganguzza is a full-time voice talent and award-winning director and producer who works with students to develop their voice over and business skills - including VO demo training and production. She specializes in Conversational Commercial and Narration styles, including Corporate, E-Learning, Technology, Healthcare - Medical, Telephony, and On-Hold. Located in Orange County, CA, Anne offers private coaching and mentoring services to students in person and via Skype, ipDTL or Zoom.