Using a job board, social media posts like Twitter and searching for a freelance voiceover job is something everyone can do.
It’s both good and bad. You think you’d be awesome at the job, but probably a handful of others will think they are too.
Today let’s take the road people are less likely to travel on.
Knowing how to identify hidden opportunities, where there are less eye searching and vying for the same role, here are some hacks for you to find voiceover jobs from well-paying clients who are under the radar.
1. Check Out Agencies
Most voiceover artists when they start out, they think of finding jobs on Play 2 Plays (P2P) or thinking they need an agent. Many ignore Agencies.
(Not Talent Agencies), but Agencies such as, Content Marketing, eLearning Agencies.
These are some of the best potential clients because they usually offer video production services and will have a need to find voiceover talents for their video productions. for ongoing voiceover talents.
Instead of only getting paid once, you can develop a relationship with a few and get new freelance voiceover gigs for months or even years into the future, as there will be a need for ongoing voiceover talents.
So how can you get work from agencies? Well, you could contact them directly and ask if they have an internal voiceover roster.
The other way is to keep checking their “career” page:
The Content Marketing Institute maintains a detailed database of agencies. Click here to check it out.
Want to voice for clients in your niche who pay top dollar?
Well, you can either wait until they post a casting notice, then compete against everyone else who applies…
Or you can be proactive and take initiative to look for these ideal clients.
One of the best places to find ideal clients is in the portfolios of successful freelance voiceovers in your niche. You can spot your fellow colleagues by following various voiceover FB groups because you’ll start to notice who have been in the industry for a long time.
Make a list. Studying who they follow on social media and/or who follows them, or checking out their website, you can identify clients they’ve worked with in the past.
These clients are ideal targets because:
- You already know they directly hire voiceover actors instead of going through a platform or agencies;
- You know they have years of experience working with freelancers, so they’ll be easier to work with;
- And you know they pay decent wages, otherwise the successful voiceover artist wouldn’t work with them.
When you find a potential client you may be interested in working with.
Visit the client’s website to make sure you’d indeed be interested in doing voiceover for them. If everything looks good, add them to your list of potential leads. Follow them on social if they are active there. Engage with them.
Do this over and over again to help you narrow your search on legit client leads. When you’re done, you should have a big list of ideal clients to reach out to.
Another way to find established voiceover work is to get trained with people with clout in the industry.
Many successful voiceover artists need help with certain aspects of their business. They could use someone to help them with business administration side of things.
Of course, they could pay someone to do it, or do these tasks themselves. But if they are already successful, they’d much rather outsource these tasks to someone to do.
That’s where you come in.
By offering assistance to a successful voiceover artist in your niche, you can save them time and help them make more money in exchange for coaching and getting well-paid high profile audition opportunities.
Often, successful freelance voiceovers have to turn down work because they are fully booked or client’s can’t afford to pay their rate. Instead, once they trust you, they can pass a work / audition opportunity off to you.
They can also help you by critiquing your work, giving you tips on how to succeed in the industry, and endorsing you to casting directors and talent agents.
So how do you start such an arrangement?
It’s not easy, and there’s no direct path. But your best bet is to sign up for coaching or buy one of their courses. When you become their student, they become invested in your success.
If you are a fresh voiceover artist and have some video/audio editing skills, one of the best places to find and create opportunities for your own project is with companies/products you already use.
At the end of the day, most clients don’t care about your experience or credentials. They just want to hire competent voiceover artists who can follow direction, complete projects on time, and deliver high-quality audio.
Your job is to convince them YOU are that Voice Talent!
So, if you’ve ever come across a product or service you purchased and had difficulty making sense of the information/instruction leaflet they’ve included to set up / assemble the products, then you can pitch to your prospective clients.
They are exceptional prospects because:
- You’re already familiar with the product/service;
- You’re their ‘ideal client’ (ironically). The fact that you are already using their product shows you are in their target market. This means you know how to speak to their audience;
- You have an acquainted relationship already with these businesses, you bought their product/ service
Bonus! If the company has an active presence online, where they have a blog or producing video content they make even a better lead.
You can write a video tutorial on how to use their product to achieve a desired result.
Contact someone in the company via email or LinkedIn, and tell them you’re sharing it with your audience and share it with them and see if they’d like to use it.
Even if they don’t pay you, you’ll add another sample to your voiceover portfolio while slowly building your relationship with a prospective client who may keep you in mind for future work.
When browsing potential companies or blogs you’d like to collaborate with, if you come across outdated or archaic videos or content that could be transformed into a video content or perhaps something flawed or weak in their video.
You can bring this to their attention and offer to spruce it up or fix it to establish a relationship with them.
Perhaps you can even collaborate with another freelance video content creator and together improve their outdated content together demonstrating your value.
Send an email to your target explaining what you did.
Tell them you came across their website, noticed something that could be improved upon and thought you could help them out.
If lucky, some may offer to pay you for your work but don’t try to sell them anything upfront. Some may not but you’ll have given them a reason to keep you in mind for future projects.
Remember, your end goal is to establish a relationship. The real power of this is you’re creating a relationship by being helpful and showing value upfront. It works best when done for free.
If clients like your work, most will happily refer you to others.
But some clients may be hesitant to refer you to others because they want to keep you to themselves.
Others might need a bit of motivation.
A simple way to provide is to sweeten the pot with a referral deal.
Tell clients that for every referral they send your way that turns into a job, you’ll give them XX% off their next project.
Covers the 3S’. Short. Simple, and Sweet. It’s a Win-Win.
Just one thing. Honor your word.
When you see an ad for a company that is hiring for positions where their job involves hiring voice actors, this is an “opportunity flag”.
Some job titles to look out for, Head of Instruction Designer, Content Marketing Manager, Creative Producer.
Tip: Use keywords for top-level roles, ie. Head, Lead, Strategist, Manager, etc. or Or use LinkedIn’s “Experience Level” filters to narrow your search
This is a sign a company is either investing more in developing more eLearning curriculums or in content marketing etc. And it’s likely they’ll need more help which would including hiring a voice talent to bring their projects together.
Rather than waiting for the company to post an ad seeking for voice talents, take the initiative and reach out to the company (or even their new hire).
First, use LinkedIn to monitor job ads seeking content producers and instructional designers, etc.
With LinkedIn, you can use filters to narrow your search by job role, job type, and industry.
The best part about using LinkedIn for this strategy is you can set a job alert and it will automatically notify you of new job postings.
Read the job alert to get a sense if it may be a good lead. If it indicates that the individual will be responsible for producing and sourcing third-party services it’s a good source of potential work.
Look for key words that gives you any indication of the company’s strategy, i.e. ramp up, build, expand in the area content marketing or curriculum development etc.
Once you’ve identified a few good prospects, add them to your pipeline. Monitor who’s who and start crafting your cold email / pitch. You can read more about this Here.
Which tactic resonates with you the most. Take it and start putting it into practice.
Photo by: Kristopher Roller
