So you’ve decided to become a voice actor. Maybe you’ve always been in love with reading, or are a huge fan of animation or gaming, or truly have imagined yourself being the voice of your favorite brand in commercials on the radio and TV.  Now what? With an industry as diverse and expansive as voice over, how do you move forward with purpose and not get caught floundering in the ocean of overwhelm? Voice acting is much more than just reading words into a microphone, so here’s what you need to know before you dive in.

Start With A Voice Over Genre You Love

You’re going to spend a long time building your craft, so start with a vo genre you love. Then make sure you respect and “get” the importance of the genre you choose to explore. If you go off in a direction because you’ve heard that’s where the money is or some well meaning individual told you that your voice would be great for elearning when all you’ve ever dreamed about is animation, you may spend a lot of time moving down the wrong path for your career.   And since you want to be doing it for a long time to come, you will lose heart if you don’t follow your passion.

Cover your Basics

With the rare exception of a Mozart or a Baryshnikov, great artists are made, not born.  Sure, natural talent can come into play, but you wouldn’t attempt to be a visual artist or a musician without studying the basics first. The same is true of voice over. Incidentally, only 5-10% of being a good voice actor is based on your instrument – the rest is what you do with it. Learn how the vocal mechanism works and how to support speech from your diaphragm.  Work to keep tension out of your throat so that you can sustain talking/performing for 8 hours a day.  Learn some daily technical exercises to warm up your voice and improve your breath control. Stay hydrated.

In addition, work to get your diction and pronunciation precise – you can always soften it later. An inaccurate and casual elocution should be a tool in your toolbelt for those “conversational read” moments, not your only delivery style. To improve your diction, tongue twisters are great (Rodney Saulsberry has a great book of them). So is reciting Shakespeare (O, it

offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters).

Don’t let impediments hold you back 

There are ways around sibilance, a stutter, dyslexia and other issues that keep people from reaching their voice over goals. This may involve speech therapy, vocal exercises, practice, and concentration. Don’t let an early diagnosis of an impediment hold you back. I was told I was too sibilant early in my career, so I went to a speech therapist and learned to hold back a little on my breath while saying “s”. That’s also where I learned about consistent air/energy throughout a performance. My daughter Lisa was diagnosed dyslexic at a young age. She powered through, developed great concentration and has nurtured a very successful voice over career.

Acting, Acting, Acting

All voice work is acting, no matter the genre. So find a coach, (or multiple coaches) take classes, workshops, and get training to acquire or enhance your skills. Become part of the voice acting community and lurk in Facebook pages and other forums. Go to conferences, and attend masterclasses. Watch coaches work with other actors. Soak it up – listen and read and learn and after you’ve absorbed a good amount, then interact and ask questions. The best way to improve is to immerse yourself in learning.

Learn how to analyze script. 80% of the time when an actor doesn’t book a job it’s because they either haven’t connected with the person they’re talking to or they haven’t connected with the words/message in the script. Don’t just skim through a script and step in front of the mic and hit record. Read the specifications sent and every word in the script (even the words not intended for you to say aloud like stage directions). Look for the general meaning, the deeper meaning, dig for subtext and emotional cues.

Learn how to talk to someone who isn’t there with you. In other forms of acting we have the advantage of being in the same space at the same time as the actor we’re in the scene with. Not so in voice acting. If there are other actors in the scene they likely aren’t recording at the same time as you. In other genres of VO there doesn’t seem to be another actor – but there is – it’s the listener. And even though you are not together in the same space at the same time, you are speaking to them and so must do the imaginative work to make sure you connect with them. 

Demos and Home Studio

Skills first, demo second. A voice over demo (or two, or three or ten) is a necessary investment in your voice over business. It is a direct representation of who you are as an actor and your ability to perform in a specific genre. Do not record a demo until you can perform well and consistently without a coach honing your every read. You want your demo to be a representation of what working with you will be like in a real booking, so you need to be able to deliver the same performacne quality as on your demo (or better).

If 2020 has shown us nothing else, it is that to be competitive in voice over, you need a solid home studio set up where you can record and listen back. Be sure to practice in your studio. I have an exercise I call “2 Hats” where the first hat you wear is “performer” and you give yourself full licence to create – no critic allowed. Then LATER as you listen back, switch hats, detach from your performance and listen with a (kind but) critical ear and evaluate your performance. A solid home studio let’s you hear what a buyer is looking for in performance and recording quality.

This is not a quick profession to get into. No overnight sensations abound. It often takes years to build the skills and invest in the tools (craft, studio, demo, website, marketing) before you see an ROI and then again before you can become full time. Even then, the average voiceover artist in the US makes about $30-$35K a year. But for those who can’t imagine anything else, it’s a delightful way to make a living.

Spotlight on Running your Voice Over Business – Professional Tips

Occasionally a voice actor will have a knack for business, or a business background or be uber organized and love to tick boxes as much as they love to explore character and performing stories. But more often than not, voice over actors fall short in the running-my-own-business category. If this is the weakest link in your biz chain, this post is for you. 

Full disclosure: I suck at paperwork. It’s something I push myself to do. There’s often an amount of inner conflict, kicking, and teeth gnashing, but hey, as my kids used to say when faced with unpleasant chores, “ya gotta do what ya gotta do.” So, I did what I had to do. My own quarterly and annual taxes. My own marketing (which was my fav part of the business end of the business as I always saw it as an outlet for creativity). My own payments to suppliers, subcontractors and agents. Until a few years ago, when my rate of incoming work exceeded my available hours in a week (it was getting up to 80 – which is unsustainable) and my husband quit his job and stepped in to run my voiceover business with me. Happy day! A former small business owner (19 employees) with a BCom himself, he came with all the bells and whistles I did not. Here are professional tips I’ve learned from him on how to best run your voice over business.

The Key Players on Your Voice Business Team

Though it may feel like you are doing everything alone as a solopreneur, there are some key players that you can add to Team-YOU early to help move your business forward, and some that you’ll add later as you bring in more work to voice and have less time to devote to other aspects of your business. Here are some to consider:

Agents:

Keep in mind that your agent is a business partner – they are in business to make money with you – if you earn, they earn.  So this relationship needs to be symbiotic, or at the very least a B2B equal partnership. Communication with your agent or agents is a key ingredient in that relationship. The better they understand your business – where you’re booking, what genres are your jam, who you’re training with, what workshops you’re attending – the better equipped they are to sell your services to buyers who are looking for voice talent. Let them know about your latest achievements and new goals. 

Cash Flow Note: Often the client is billed by the agent, who will then collect the money, assess their commission and then pay the remainder out to you, the talent.  This can mean your expected payment schedule may have additional time added to it for that processing.  Be aware of that time-table when accounting for when that money will actually get to you.  Also, if your arrangement is to collect from the client and then pay your agent, be cognizant of their cash flow expectations and be transparent about your collections and payments to them.

Subcontractors:

According to Investopedia, “Subcontracting is the practice of assigning, or outsourcing, part of the obligations and tasks under a contract to another party known as a subcontractor. Subcontracting is especially prevalent in areas where complex projects are the norm, such as construction and information technology.”

In the voice over industry, this would include people you hire out for audio editing, video editing, translation, website hosting services or any ancillary services you offer. Sometimes this includes other voice over talent – if you offer casting services or have lists you provide clients of talent for jobs in languages you do not speak. 

CashFlow Note: Keep in mind, many of us expect to be paid right away. I can’t argue, it’s best. But the rest of the world operates on “net” – which can be 15 days net, 30 or occasionally 60. Union payment schedule is net 30 days and then late fees.  The key here is to be transparent and clear about payment terms and when they can expect to be paid.

Suppliers: 

A pure business to business (B2B) relationship, a supplier is an entity that supplies goods and services to another organization. In voice over, this can include Pay to plays, marketplace memberships (including Union dues), subscriptions like Dropbox, We Transfer, Source Connect, Adobe.

CashFlow Note: Make sure you’re paying attention to your usage, especially with tools and services you subscribe to, but perhaps aren’t utilizing. This can be a large outflow with no benefit to your business. For example, I had a LinkedIn Pro account that I wasn’t using but was paying for to the tune of $60 a month! Buh-bye.

Cash Flow (Money In, Money Out)

Ok, so I’ve mentioned a couple of “CashFlow Notes” and you may be wondering what that means.  Cash Flow is all money that comes in and out of your business. In order for your business to be profitable, you have to make sure more money comes in than goes out. Because of the nature of the voice over business, you may have some income on a regular, trackable schedule and other income from new or one-off projects that you’ll need to stay on top of and plan for when that money will hit your account.  More often out-flows are more regular (monthly subscriptions, weekly coaching sessions, etc.) so planning for income to cover those expenses is paramount.

Invoicing and Getting Paid

It is important to invoice as soon as possible after the job is done.  Remember that you are likely one of many vendors billing them and waiting to send invoices until some time after the job can lead to confusion and disorganization.  Do everything you can to be professional and help your client stay on top of their account payables.  Be sure to include the job description, date, PO numbers or any invoicing specifics the client has requested. If provided one, use the client’s format for invoicing and make sure you have the correct person to address the invoice to (the person who hired you may not be the person responsible for paying you). Ed keeps a running template of repeat customers and companies that have specific needs for invoicing – as your business grows, you need to be organized and keep systems to streamline your time.

Speaking of systems, when money comes in, have a system for noting the invoice and the client who paid you.  It is a smart business practice to have some way (accounting software, spreadsheet, a CRM – I happen to use VoiceOverView, etc) to know what you’ve invoiced and what you’ve been paid for every job from every client.

Keep in mind that your clients will have varying payment terms (try to establish this upfront when quoting the job) – some will pay right away, some will stretch it out 30/60/90 days. If the client has missed the agreed upon payment due date, don’t cut them out as customers.  In this very freelance business, you have to be flexible and adapt. Communication is key here. 

Should payment become extremely delayed, remember that collection is persistence.  Some VO artists feel very uncomfortable getting demanding after payments are overdue.  But this is a business, so when invoices are overdue by more than 90 days, how do you collect? Ed sends weekly emails, then daily emails, then threatens to put them on voiceover red flags. If you booked the work on a P2P, while they won’t actively collect on your behalf, they may block them from posting future jobs until yours is resolved. I confess I suck at this. Before my husband got involved, I had $40K in over-90-days-collectibles. Now, it’s maybe $400, if that.

Marketing Your Voice Over Business

Marketing your voice over business is a never-ending activity.  So to be effective, know your wheelhouse reads and focus your energy there first. Focus on where you have the best chance of booking work to get the most return on your marketing efforts.  Pay attention to niche voice markets and make sure that the marketing strategy you select serves your niche. If the majority of your target clients live on LinkedIn, why spend marketing energy on Instagram? Also be aware that just because a market segment is hot (i.e. political in 2020 or elearning in the Covid-19 environment) doesn’t mean you should spend a lot of energy there. Do they share any space in the Venn diagram of the market segments in your wheelhouse? If not, your time is better spent marketing elsewhere.

Some excellent marketing advisors in the voice over world are David Tyler, Marc Scott, Jonathan Tilley, Tracy Lindlay, Anne Ganguzza and Sophia Cruz, to name a few. (Forgive me any VO marketing friends I overlooked here – these are the ones that are currently top of my mind)

Though finding ways to introduce yourself to the ever growing market of buyers (through agents, P2Ps, direct marketing, etc.) is a primary building block of your business, once you begin to book work, the care and nurturing of your existing clients is your top marketing priority. Provide excellent customer service with honest communications, professional interactions and a “how can I be of service” mindset.  This can lead to real relationships with clients, once you’ve worked together and taken interest in each other’s lives, but be selective. I have become friends with a few clients over the years. Ones where our common interests and take on as aspects of our shared industry led to interaction outside of our professional relationship – but that’s rare. Authenticity is key in building trust with a client, but focus on always being professional.

Know Your Value When Quoting Prices

I cannot say this enough – know the market prices for your voice over services. There are some great rate guides out there so use the tools created. Know your value. Are you always giving discounts when requested? Remember you’re not running a charity, you’re running a business designed to put food on your table. And when customers are accustomed to getting discounts because you’re willing to drop your rates too quickly it will be very difficult to move them back up to your standard rates and you’ll always be working for them for less money. It is best to understand what the market rates are and know why you charge what you charge – factor in your experience, the cost of your setup and gear, the overhead of running your business including healthcare and taxes. Devaluing your services just creates a race to the bottom. It is impossible to stay in business this way. 

Communications

A couple notes about how you communicate with clients.  First, I will say again, you are a BUSINESS, so having a weird business email or PayPal name sends a message that you don’t take your business seriously. You’re dealing with business people, so unless you’re in animation or unicorns (Helo Jenn) are your brand, then sparklesunderfidostail@hotmail.co may bring you a chuckle, but will make it confusing to the person who is trying to pay you.

Second, some people send thank you notes or promo items after jobs. I never have. I feel a little uncomfortable doing that. You’ve given them a service sending a thank you gift makes it seem like perhaps you overcharged,  or like a bribe for them to hire you again. To my mind, it sends a message that is not professional. If it’s part of your brand – that’s your choice, but I question whether it is seen as businesslike. Gifts at Christmas or Thanksgiving are different – many businesses send a holiday greeting as a customer appreciation gesture. And a branded promotional item in a promotion, again, is different. But a gift after doing a job? Personally, I wouldn’t.

Recently in a presentation I was asked to put together for copywriters and creatives, we discussed best practices in how to direct and deal with voice actors. Usually, I approach this from a different angle: coaching voice actors on how to best approach performance, so this looking at it from a different lens was fun for me. Actors use exercises and concepts to analyze a script, connect to content and create honest and engaging performances. Many are surprised to learn that much of the “before you begin” process is similar whether the actor prepares for a theatre role, a part in a movie or a voiceover job. Whether you’re a voice actor or a creative who works with them and is tasked with helping them create better performances to lift your words off the page, this post dives into some of those concepts and demystifies secrets of how to talk the language of actors.

Finding Common A Language Between Actors and Directors

As in any field, actors employ jargon that is used to communicate effectively and reduce uncertainty. Understanding and using acting terms creates a common language that can guide a voice actor’s performance and bring you faster results with less frustration.  So whenever you are working with actors, it is important to have insight into how the performance is reached.  This applies to every field where you are trying to direct or guide performers. How many orchestra conductors can’t read music? How many great basketball coaches have never bounced a ball or played the game? None.

Good directors know what makes a great performance because they understand its components.  Once you understand what makes up a good performance, you can work backward and fix what’s wrong or add what’s missing. For example, knowing that a good acting foundation is to be emotionally connected to the circumstances of the character.

Standard “Actor Speak” Terminology

So what, then, is some common “actor speak” terminology that facilitates a great working session between actor and director?  Here are some key terms and definitions.

Content 

The sum total of every item in a script, from the characters to the scenery to the stage directions, descriptions, and sound effects, is the content of the script.  Good actors use a healthy bit of script analysis to unpack that content and come up with details that help bring a performance to life.  In voice over, this could include animation character pictures and descriptions, storyboards for commercials, product images as well as specifications about tone, timber, pitch, accent, perspectives, attitudes, previous ad samples, examples of voice type in addition to the words the voice actor will be speaking into a microphone.  The content IS the story.

Objective 

What the characters want or need within the given moment is that character’s objective.  The actor needs to know this because visceral, emotional energy needs to be directed toward achieving that goal.  Statements beginning with “I want” or “I need” help define objectives.  And all characters in a scene have them, even just the one-liners.  Associated with objective is the Super Objective, which is the overall objective a character has through the play, or film or animated short or commercial (yes, even commercial).  Let’s consider a set of commercial spots for a political campaign.  The super objective of the voice over is to win votes on election day.  The objective within each spot may vary from alarming the electorate about the opponent, to inspiring voter confidence in the candidate.  And sometimes multiple objectives are incorporated within the script to reach the super objective.

Intention 

Intention is a bit different from a super objective, but it is related. The super objective is a very general desire that cannot be acted. The super objective is what you want, the intention is how you go about getting it .The intention is the specific action (or actions) you want to do in the moment, moment-to-moment (even line to line) to achieve your super-objective. Sometimes the voice over is taking those actions, and sometimes the actor is describing those actions.  Let’s say the super objective is to find relief from headaches. The script may describe a progression of specific intentions to find relief from “I want to end my headaches, so I want to talk to my doctor” to “I want to get a prescription for this new drug” to “I want to start this regime to reduce or eliminate my headaches.” These are intentions. The key to remember here is that intentions can be acted, objectives cannot.

Subtext

Subtext is what the character is thinking while saying a particular line. Saying “I love you” and thinking “come here, you big lug” will sound different from saying “I love you” while thinking “I really hate you and want you out of my life” as much as “I love you” while thinking “you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me” will sound different again. This difference comes from the subtext, which the actor chooses based on the content of the script and the context of the character they are playing and the choices they’ve made about their attitudes, perspectives and personality.  

Context

Context is discovered by analyzing what is happening in the scene and what has led up to the moment the character is in.  Working in conjunction with objective, intention and subtext, context gives the other elements the environment for them to draw from.  For example, if the script says “I love spinach” and the context is that the character has eaten nothing but spinach, has a kitchen filled with only spinach and is Popeye, then objective, intention and subtext will mean something different that if the character is a little kid who is trying to make his mom feel good about only being able to serve him spinach (when he’d really like a happy meal).

Back story

This is everything that happened to a character BEFORE they appear in the moment being portrayed.  Let’s take for example a Calgon commercial (remember “Calgon, take me away?”) – a woman has just come to the end of a very harried day, and wants to escape into a luxurious bubble bath.  Her back story might be, the day started with the kids refusing to wake up and get ready for school on time, causing everyone to be late, which caused Mom to rush and spill her morning coffee into her lap in the car.  With no time to go home and change, she had to rush to work where she had back to back meetings all day, which ran late and didn’t give her time to get home and make a good dinner. So she stops at a fast food restaurant, gets taken out for the 3rd night this week, picks up the kids from their respective sports practices, and arrives home to find the dog has barfed all over the couch.  She just wants a break – “Calgon, take me away!” So as you can see, this involves world-building and imagination and commitment to what is motivating everything that happens in the current scene (even if it is one line).  

Presence 

Some call it charisma, some actors think of it as a tool like a volume control they can turn up or down in a performance, but presence is the special sauce that an actor brings with them when they step onstage or in front of a microphone. It’s not always easy to define, but it exists like a  lead line an actor can tighten to draw an audience (or listener) in and then release to let them sit with what the actor has just revealed.   Presence is borne of confidence and commitment to the business of bringing characters to life, and “owning” that moment of performance when all eyes and ears are trained on the actor and want to be transported.

Ad-lib Improvisation 

Improvisation is an important skill for any actor – to be able to riff off the script – staying in the scene and in the character and coming up with on the spot dialogue that the character might also say.  This can sometimes mean phrases and other times mean non-verbal dialogue – “um”s” “uh’s”, snorts, little laughs or sounds that indicate emotion (derision, pleasure, amusement, etc) They are sometimes kept in voice over performances, sometimes not. Often voice seekers are looking for voice actors to “play” with their script to make it sound unscripted and “real” and being able to ask for improvisation helps the actor know they have permission to deviate from or add to the script in front of them.

Method 

Often when an actor is called a “method actor”, the categorization is a refers to a type of acting technique – usually linked to a major acting teacher like Lee Strasberg, or Stanislavski – where an actor fully embodies a character and in doing so, brings forth truthful, organic and emotionally connected performances.  There are other methods as well, like the Chekhov Method, Meisner, etc.

Technical

When speaking about the technical aspects of acting, the focus is on observations of human movement or sound that can be applied to a performance. In voice acting, this might be a rise in inflection or closing a tag line on a commercial ending on a downward note in your sentence. Technical terms also include tempo (speed), pitch, timber (quality of sound).

Organic 

Organic acting refers to feeling/being the character as a part of you as opposed to “putting it on”. Both Strasburg and Meisner approaches lean toward truthful performance – if you need to cry, tapping into the emotions that bring real tears to your eyes. So that the line between what the character is experiencing and what the actor is experiencing is blurred.

Adjustment

A shift (internal in focus, external in technical aspects) to “adjust” to be able to honestly incorporate a director’s suggestion into your performance. Also referred to when moving from genre to genre, like from theatre to film or award show announcing to explainer narration. 

There are many more concepts and definitions. What are your favorites? Are there any that I missed that should be on here?

You’ve spent weeks developing the perfect concept and crafting it into an impeccable script. Now you are about to hire your voiceover talent. Beyond the content of what you’ve written, how do you convey to the artist the way you want them to tell your story? As a voiceover artist for over 25 years I’ve been party to productions with excellent direction to actors and have also had to contend with very poor direction. I’ve seen clear specs (specifications) for auditions and ambiguous or contradictory guidelines, which leave the talent confused about how to give the director what they want. Here are some giving-direction worst-case scenarios and pitfalls to avoid and suggestions for how to communicate better with actors.

 

Specs That Don’t Convey Anything Meaningful to a Voice Actor

Specs that are vague and don’t convey anything meaningful to your voice actor help no one.  Specs like “something we haven’t heard before” or “we’re looking for something different” is extremely subjective and very hard to “act.” Asking for a unique voice is like asking for a unique look. All voices are unique. Just look at voice recognition software – we’re snowflakes. Everyone is unique, so that specification is not helpful. What you want is a unique performance. Not a unique voice. Something that stands out. Something authentic… 

Sometimes getting specific about vocal qualities such as “medium pitch range, nothing too high” or “a bit of a rasp” help guide an actor’s choices. Definite emotional intentions such as “warm and comforting” or “playful and fun” also give the actor something to work with.

When giving reference examples, be clear on what it is about the reference you are looking for from the voice actor.  For example, when giving specifications for age reference, keep in mind that voice age is plastic and often unrelated to the actor’s actual age – Emma Stone has a deep voice and could pass for 45 even though she’s in her early 30’s. I saw a recent spec with an age reference for 35-45 and an A-lister reference to Holly Hunter, who is 62. There’s a disconnect. More often than not when directors share age references, what they really mean is what demographic they (or the client) are targeting. That bit of info is helpful because there are some differences in delivery from generation to generation. 

 

Do You Know What You Want?

Before setting about writing specifications, ask yourself – do you know what you want? If you have a sound for your voiceover in mind, often the simplest way to convey that is with a sample of a voice you like from something else. Good voice actors are adept at creating sound-alikes and will mimic the sample you offer.  If there is something you like about the sample, point that out, for example, “lighthearted tone” or “gritty inspirational feeling” or “down to earth” or anything else specific you can identify and share. The same goes for anything in that sample you don’t like. “I like her attitude, but need more joy” or “a tone like this, but more serious.”

Voice actors are aces at unwrapping or unpacking content to dig for deeper meaning. If you already have sussed that meaning out, share it with them so they can bring you more accurate performances. That being said, every voice actor is unique and will bring their own storytelling talents to your message. 

 

Do You Know What You Don’t Want?

Just as important as knowing what you want, is knowing what you don’t want. Being able to articulate that can be helpful. Again be specific. Refer to tone (clear, gravelly), pitch (high or low), cadence (natural or formal).  If you’ve provided a reference sample, as I mentioned earlier, be sure to point out anything that you want your actor to avoid – “this pace, but not sarcastic,” “this pitch range, but NO vocal fry,” etc.  

It all boils down to specifics.  The more information and ideas you give your voice actor to “play” with, the more likely you are to get well-rounded performances that check your “unique sound” and “looking for something new and different” boxes and the better chance your actor has of nailing what you want.

 

Feedback Do’s

Whether you are live directing or sending direction electronically, feedback is critical to getting the best performance from your voice actor.  Good communication between actor and director will make your recording sessions more effective, bring out the best in your actor, and almost always save you time and money.  

Do tell your actor what is working for you. Knowing what you liked and want to keep in the performance is extremely important for the actor.  This will help shore up a foundation of elements to build their performance from.  For example, if you love their pacing, they can check off that box, keep it the same, and focus on the elements you’d like adjusted.

Do be specific.  I cannot say this enough.  Vague generalizations waste time and money. Speaking in vocal qualities can be more helpful for your actor than in qualities that may vary from person to person in interpretation – “the pitch is a little high to my ear, can you lower it” – is much more effective than “this sounds flighty, can you make her sound more interesting.” 

 

Feedback Don’ts

Also when giving feedback, let’s avoid the dreaded “robotic” word…it speaks to lack of knowledge about how to pull a better performance out of your voice actor. It’s also a sore spot for many voice actors (especially in light of the threat of AI VO). A better direction is to say the performance was “too measured,” meaning the rhythm was too predictable. 

Don’t be rude, instead be sensitive – it takes a lot of chutzpah to act and it also takes humility – a director’s words can crush. In my first Union job when I was a young thing, the director gave ambiguous feedback and after several devolutions, ranted “well, now that’s just all gone to rat sh*t.” I still recall my stomach dropping to my toes and a bitter taste in the back of my throat. How was a comment like that going to help me summon up a “positive, cheerful” delivery?  Shaken, but not stirred, I rallied, but the callous handling of my eager to please (and looking back, bonafide darn good) performance had me second-guessing my work during the rest of the session.  Eroding your actor’s confidence may momentarily ease your tension, but invariably result in the session taking much longer and perhaps not reaching your elusive desired end result.  Encouraging your actor and knowing how to help them bring their best work is just smart business.

Don’t give a “line read.” This is where you say the line how you hear it in your head and want that repeated back from your actor.   The problem with a line reading is that then the actor is concentrating on mimicry instead of acting.  This is compounded when the actor has a good ear and delivers the line the way it was said, which doesn’t match the sound that the director had in their head (the intention of which likely didn’t come out in their unschooled delivery). The actor spends time merely attempting to imitate what they hear rather than creating an organic performance. At this point, the connection with the script and any prior direction you may have given are lost.

 

Tips for Better Communications with Voice Actors

Good communication with your voice actor is the key to getting a performance you love out of any session (directed or not).  The better the communication, the easier it will be for your actor to digest your specifications and deliver their best work.  And ultimately, the less time it takes, the better for your bottom line as well.  Here are some tips to make your collaboration effective and profitable.

• Share with them what you want the listener to feel and remember
• Let them know what demographic(s) you’re targeting
• Describe WHY you’re providing the content – are you solving a problem for consumers, explaining a complex service, introducing a new brand – give your voice actor a reason they’re saying what they’re saying
• Lead with positive feedback before giving a correction – voice actors are human, and humans respond better when you lead with praise, even if you still want adjustments
• Avoid generalities and esoteric direction – “can you do that again, but with more blue tones” may lead to many more takes than “keep everything, but softer.” 

How Voice Actors Can Hop Aboard Online Train(ing)

Growth in eLearning was already on a sharp upward trajectory before COVID-19. The speed of this growth is now exponential like a high speed rail hurtling through both academic and corporate training environments. Technavio recently tweeted that the online education market is poised to grow by $247.46 billion during 2020-2024, and went on to note the extension of containment efforts is leading to higher demand, which is driving significant revenue for eLearning producers. 

A majority (75%) of Instructional Designers (IDs) and content creators alike acknowledge the value and impact of narration (based on an unscientific survey of 110 in a recent FB poll). So how can voice actors hop aboard this online train(ing)?  Here are some things to consider.

 

The Academic Situation

In the academic world, even before COVID-19, education technology went through exponential growth and adoption.  The World Economic Forum saw global edtech investments reaching US$18.66 billion in 2019 and the overall market for online education projected to reach $350 Billion by 2025.

But with the onset of COVID-19 teachers and profs scrambled to turn written content into formats that would suddenly work online. In the spring it became evident that especially in younger grades, zoom classrooms were not working. 

This has resulted in a boom in supporting animation and micro lesson production. Videos, visuals, and audio content break up lessons and activities into formats that hold attention and are extremely popular. This inundation of production has not always come with budgets that would normally be fitting. The lack of funds spent on narration has spawned a lot of DIY narration that miss the mark. That said, despite the influx of a lot of requests for eLearning-like material at audiobook rates, there are still great elearning gigs for voiceover narrators. 

 

Where is Corporate eLearning Going?

In-person corporate training was already on a downswing because of the advantages of online training (in money-saving, time-saving and sometimes greater efficiency). The cost of in-person training is much higher (travel, accommodations, paying one person to train multiple people, multiple times instead of creating one program and reusing it).

COVID-19 accelerated that momentum as well, upending operations for many businesses and moving everything, including corporate education, online perhaps permanently.  As a recent Harvard Business Review article was quoted in Forbes magazine, “When the urgent part of the crisis has been navigated, companies should consider what this crisis changes and what they’ve learned so they can reflect them in their plans.”

The pandemic necessitated the use of online virtual communication platforms like Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, and more and has increased the need for additional training and communication surrounding work-from-home policies and virtual communication standards.  These video conferencing technologies circumvented the need for face-to-face learning and communication. And as businesses quickly adapt, ideas such as eLearning and online training for other areas of corporate development become more common-place.

 

Where Do Professional Voice Actors Fit it?

So where do professional voice actors fit in online training? The same place we always have – as a high-quality solution to engage and inspire learning. Emphasis on high-quality.  Along with the explosion in eLearning offerings, some content creators are trying out AIs as alternative narrators to save money (this is, unfortunately for students, happening more in the academic sector).  To differentiate ourselves from machines, a voice actor’s audio quality and performance must really be stellar. It also needs to be seriously human – because a good machine will easily replace a poor narrator. 

Another point to consider? People are scrambling. Be a resource. To your existing clients and others. An ID I know created an explainer for a product he was selling with his wife (a Mom and Pop solution biz) and asked for feedback from a circle. The male voice on the explainer was not bad for an amateur, but the female voice detracted from his pitch. So I recorded a version for him to use instead and offered that as feedback and for free or as a guide track for Mrs. ID to use to listen to and re-record a better version. This took about 10 minutes of my time and helped a contact who since became a client (not for the explainer, he still went with his wife on that, but) for his eLearning projects.  Being helpful makes and solidifies connections and makes the world a better place.

 

If you’re a voiceover actor with a website, (whether existing or under construction) you need to consider it first and foremost as the storefront for your business. It introduces you to buyers and explains the services you provide. It displays samples of your work and embodies your brand. You want your storefront to attract customers to stay and browse and get to know how you can solve their voice over needs, but in order to accomplish that, your storefront needs to be easy to find. A good SEO strategy can help. 

Three years ago, this was about all I knew about this three-lettered marketing tactic. And because of this lack of knowledge, had the unfortunate experience of being swindled by a company that claimed to provide good SEO services. Happily, I was able to unwind that contract and with help from Joe Davis, owner/founder of Web Stuff LLC (and owner of voiceactorwebsites.com). Since then I’ve had the pleasure of developing a great working relationship with him and in the process received a wonderful SEO education.  In a recent detailed conversation with Joe, I asked him about the best strategies for SEO for voice over actors. Here are my notes from that conversation:

 

Voice Over Website Size

A good place to start when considering what your website should look like is to consider your website’s size.  I’ve had voiceover students ask me if they need more than a one-page website – is it enough to have demos, maybe a headshot and contact information? Joe’s answer to this question is “it depends on the goal you have for your website”.  

If your goal is for your website to be an extension of your business card – a simple, easy place for you to send voice seekers to hear you and contact you, then a one-page website is fine. Make sure your demos are “above the fold” (meaning that a visitor does not need to scroll down to find them) and playable and downloadable, provide information about your services, and make sure people can get in contact with you.

If, however, your goal is a combination of direct marketing and organic search results, and you want to employ SEO to assist you in that goal, then the bigger the website, the better.  Some caveats to that – you still need to make sure your website is mobile friendly and loads quickly.  When you think “bigger”, think multiple pages and lots of text, rather than tons of video content hosted on your website and animated graphics that slow down page load times.

 

SEO As A Marketing Strategy

Because SEO is this “seeming amorphous thing”, as Joe calls it, it can be a bit daunting to non-SEO professionals to employ as a marketing strategy, but for a small business, Joe points out that over time it can be a long-lasting and cost-effective way to attract traffic to your website as opposed to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or paid social media advertising.  With PPC and ads, there is a cost associated with every customer gained that can sometimes be quite high.  With SEO, the results build over time and limit your cost exposure per client.

As in most things, it’s also never good to put all your eggs in one basket (strategy).  For example, Google shopping was, up until a few months into 2020, a paid platform for advertising products for sale, and many companies paid to take advantage of it.  Then Google decided to open up the listings and allow free listings as well, thus opening up that market and exposing those who had paid for listings to competitors who now get to list for free.  Those companies are now scrambling to implement SEO strategies.

A word of caution to voice actors who think they want SEO help but haven’t taken the time to get (at least) a cursory education in what it is.  Unfortunately, there are lots of unscrupulous entities out there happy to take your money and make you guarantees they cannot deliver on.  What happened to me was quite awful to unwind.  Joe’s advice is to keep in mind that no one can “guarantee” a quick and easy result.  The ultimate test of any SEO  – is your website improving in google ranking for the search terms you are targeting in a reasonable amount of time (1 week is not reasonable, 6 months is).

SEO Part One – On-Page SEO

There are 2 general “areas” of SEO – on-page and off-page and they’re basically what they sound like, things you can do on and off your website to improve your ranking.  On-page SEO is easier for a voice actor to implement themselves (if they are maintaining their own website).  

The main focus for on-page SEO is text.  While that may seem counterintuitive for a voice actor, the important element (as far as ranking in search engines is concerned), is text, not audio, video, or images.  Google ignores all non-text items, except for what is called their “alt tag” (basically the text name for the image/audio/video) so be sure to give them good, relevant names (or have your webmaster do it). Keep in mind that humans download audio from your site, so name them appropriately for easy recognition later and SEO (i.e. “Kim Handysides government eLearning demo.mp3” and not “govt-el-demo.mp3”).

When writing copy for your website, Joe says you have to “find a balance between what is good for Google and what is good for a voice seeker”.  What you write should include primary and secondary keywords, but also be informative and engaging for humans reading (you don’t want them to click away after 3 seconds on your page).  Use the keywords that you want to rank for strategically in your “h” tags (headers) and body copy.  Use primary keywords in your H1 tag (the header on your page) and then secondary keywords for H2, H3, etc. tags (the sub-headers for sections of your page).

The more relevant the keywords, the better.  For example, if you have a government eLearning demo and want to attract government eLearning jobs, “male government eLearning narration” will allow you to rank higher than a page that is simply “eLearning narration” or “eLearning”. Keywords should also appear in Title Tags and Page Descriptions (the two items that actually show up in the Google search results page).

I asked Joe how one might stand out in the crowd from the many voice actors who are seeing the trend to SEO and working to leverage it.  His advice is to work with an SEO professional if you’re going after really competitive search terms, but a good source of unique terms may be to ask your clients what search terms they use when they’re looking for talent.  You may find there’s a term you haven’t thought of that you can leverage to rank higher.  

The sweet spot for copy on your pages is about 800 words. Joe feels like 500 might be ok, depending on how competitive your keywords are and 300 is the absolute minimum you should start with as that is considered “thin”. But keep in mind that you can always add to your copy, so it’s ok to start thin and grow.  Links to other pages within your website can also help – for example if you have both a Corporate Narration page and an Explainer Video page, mentioning those services and linking to the respective pages is another good strategy (and organic way to increase the number of words on your page).

Finally, a great acronym for what Google wants to “see” in a website is “EAT” which stands for expertise, authoritativeness & trustworthiness.  The more relative your keywords and the more text on the page, the more Google thinks you are an expert with authority (more on that in a moment).  

SEO Part Two – Off-Page SEO

By far the most important element to competitive SEO is having relevant, contextual backlinks to your website from high domain authority websites.  Joe says to think of Google as part relevancy engine (keywords and related information) and popularity contest (who gets the attention).  When very popular sites that have a high authority score (lots of attention) link to your website, they share some of their score with you.  There are 2 levels of authority, both domain and page authority, but without getting too mired in math, they work on a logarithmic scale based on 100. Moving from 10 to 11 is easier than 11 to 12 and so on.  Most voice over websites have very low scores, so sites that can grow their authority score with these backlinks do very well.  This is also why working with a reputable SEO service (like Joe’s) can help because they often have developed relationships with publications and other sites with authority and can help you get featured or mentioned.

Other Strategies To Consider For Your Voice Over Website

No matter your ultimate decision of whether to have a one-page extension of your business card website or to expand to multiple genre pages with SEO-focused copywriting and internal and external links, there are some other strategies you could employ that can help both your search ranking and your appeal to voice seekers.

• Include Testimonials from clients
• Mention your studio specs and connectivity options.  If you have Source Connect, is it Pro, Standard, or SC Now? Do you also have Skype and Zoom available? Can you connect with ISDN? (Tip: If you have Source Connect Pro or Standard, you have the ability to connect with ISDN for a small fee)
• Client Logos (appropriately alt tagged with relevant keywords)
• Contact Information and Form
• Privacy Policy – to be GDPR Compliant in the European Union, you need to tell users what you’re doing with the data your website collects (and it most likely collects some, even if you’re not specifically gathering it for a newsletter, etc).  A Privacy Policy also contributes to the trustworthiness of the EAT factor I mentioned earlier