Self-promotion is a phrase that makes voice actors flinch, and not just the new ones. It's a strange thing. Here's a profession made entirely of people who communicate for a living, and a startling number of them go quiet the moment the subject is themselves.
Maybe it's upbringing. Most of us were raised to be modest, and even a confident performer feels a twinge at the idea of talking up their own career. Or maybe it's the picture the words conjure: handing out business cards, cold calling studios, knocking on agency doors with a demo in a padded envelope. Nobody wants to be that person. So they don't promote at all, and wonder why the phone is quiet.
As a freelance voice actor you have no marketing department. If you don't promote you, who will?
The good news is that you have complete control over how you market yourself. The bad news is that you have to do it. That sounds daunting and it needn't be, because the first step isn't a campaign. It's being ready.
The whole plan
- Be readyTrain until you're reasonably competent. Not perfect. Perfect never turns up.
- Do the work, wellEvery demo, every audition, every small job is the campaign. Be good and be easy.
Start by being ready
Invest in proper training and push yourself until you're reasonably competent. Not perfect. If you wait for perfect you'll be waiting for years, and you learn far more from working than from preparing to work. The more you do, the better you get, and the better you get, the more you do.
Then notice something: self-promotion is already happening. Every time you step up to the mic and record a demo or an audition, the quality of that work is telling clients what kind of professional you are. That's marketing. It just doesn't feel like it.
Three small promotions you can do this week
If the word still makes you itch, start with things too small to feel like marketing.
- Tell one personSomeone who already likes you and knows people: a former colleague, a friend who makes videos, a cousin who runs a business. One message: "I'm doing voice over now, here's my demo, if you ever need a voice." That's it.
- Finish one profileThe marketplace profile you half-filled in. A bio that sounds like you, the demo in the right category, a photo where you look like someone people would enjoy working with.
- Reply to one threadIn any voice over community, answer a beginner's question you actually know the answer to. Helpful, specific, no pitch. That's how reputations start.
The professional attitude is the campaign
Do your best work every time, even on the small jobs. Be easy to work with: answer quickly, take direction gracefully, deliver when you said you would, name the files the way they asked. It's remarkable how far a reputation for being good and being pleasant travels in a business this small. People talk, and producers would rather rebook someone they liked than gamble on someone they didn't.
There are a thousand ways to market yourself, online and in person, and the next read lists the ones worth your time. But the first way, and the one that makes every other way work, is simply this: do the voice over, and do it well. You're not afraid of that. You're already doing it. Everything else is just making sure the right people find out.
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