As a voice over artist you may pick up work in a number of ways. This might include pay 2 play sites, being a member of a voice over agency, the contacts you have established with studios and your own hard work through marketing and networking.
Let’s take a look at networking for a moment. The chances are that when you have met people at business networking events they’ve asked you what you do. You’ve told them you’re a voice over artist and they may look a bit blankly at you. Once you’ve explained what you do they will probably still look blankly at you or they will think it’s a pretty cool thing to do, which of course is true! What they probably won’t be able to do is understand how they could ever work with you or how they could refer you. This is because they will assume that you work in radio or TV and unless they are planning some kind of commercial then why should they use you?
This is when you need to be more creative in how you explain your services. Another way of explaining voice over services is by calling it audio marketing. Now every business does some kind of marketing so now you have something that they can relate to.
If you are networking with people who are outside of the industry it can be a good tactic to describe what you do as audio marketing. Please see below a list of topics you could talk about which will make what you do more meaningful to them:
- Website welcome messages and website narration in general
- Creating podcasts
- Providing narration for business PowerPoint presentations
- Providing narration for business videos
- The benefits of audio when it comes to NLP (neuro-linguistic programming)
Once you start to explain that using audio can reach those people who prefer to listen than read and that audio on video and podcasts can keep people on their website longer and generate more interest, this is when they start to see the benefits. They suddenly see how they could potentially use you or maybe know somebody else who could benefit from working with you.
Making the connection between voice over and how it can be used as part of an integrated marketing strategy is key to creating interest at business networking events and it can lead to opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have presented themselves.
What are your thoughts? How do you explain what you do at networking events? Please share your experiences here.