Marketing Strategy for Voice Actors

Marketing doesn’t feel like productive work because after you send a bunch of emails, you don’t get to submit an invoice. Not right away, anyway.

In other words, it’s not recording a booking.

Truth be told, for most people, it’s also not much fun.

This, of course, is another reason VO’s don’t want to do it, procrastinate on doing it, try to find other people to do it for them, and look for “easy” fixes which - between you and me - don’t really exist.

This is also why one of the most common questions I’m asked about marketing is, “how much time should I spend doing it?”

In almost all cases, they’re hoping I’ll say something like, “15 minutes a day should be just fine.”

Sorry. I’ll never tell you that.

When people ask me this question, I seldom answer in time. Instead, I answer in leads.

Marketing Math

Let’s say you reach one new lead a day, five days a week. Let’s further assume you enjoy two weeks of vacation each year.

That looks like 1 x 5 x 50. Which equals 250.

Many of you have likely heard me talk about marketing math that suggests cold marketing will – on average – produce a 10% response rate and ultimately, if you’re working it, a 3-5% conversion rate. That is to say, 3-5% of your cold leads will eventually book you for a job.

This means, if you’re reaching 250 new leads in a year, approximately 12 will hire you.

Can you build a sustainable voice over business with 12 bookings a year; one job a month?

Now, what if we up it to 5 a day.

5 x 5 x 50 = 1,250 and 5% of that is approximately 62 potential bookings; five a month.

How about 20 a day?

20 x 5 x 50 = 5,200 and 5% of that is approximately 260 potential bookings; 20 a month.

How Much Time Should I Spend Marketing My Voice Over Business?

The answer to the question isn’t an hour a day value. Not in my opinion, at least.

The answer is more about a leads per day value.

How much work do you want? A little or a lot?

How much time should you spend marketing your voice over business each day? As long as it takes to reach the number of leads you need to book the amount of work you desire.

Between you and me, 20 a day is a great number!

That being said, if you really want to know a timeline... when you get really efficient with your email marketing, using strategies like the ones I teach in Voice Over Marketing Playbook, that should work out about two hours a day.

Keep sending those emails!