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For Voice Over Talents

Professional Voiceover SEO Marketing Tips for Voice Talent – Part 2

Part 2 of an Interview with SEO Expert, Jason McDonald of JM Internet Group

Professional Voiceover Actress Debbie Grattan chats with SEO Expert Jason McDonald about how professional voiceover talents can improve their website ranking through SEO (search engine optimization). Check out Part 1 of this article first.

Jason McDonald on Affordable Voice-Over SEO Tips, professional voice over marketing
Dr. Jason McDonald is founder and Senior SEO / Social Media Director of the JM Internet Group. He comes to the Group from eg3.com, where he has been Senior Editor in charge of content since 1994.

Dr. McDonald has extensive online journalism and teaching experience. In charge of eg3.com’s SEO and PPC strategy, he built eg3.com into the oldest and largest web portal in embedded systems with over 25,000 monthly users and over 35,000 registered eLetter subscribers. He also teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area at AcademyX, DeVry, and Stanford University (Continuing Studies).

SEO Expert, Jason McDonald: The fourth thing you need to focus on is having a way to add inbound links to your professional voiceover website. Easy pickings for that are Google Places, your local listing, Bing, being a member of various associations, Chamber of Commerce websites, etc. Make sure you’re getting other websites to link to your site. I always recommend people create a habit of asking for inbound links every chance they get.

Professional Voiceover Talent, Debbie Grattan: Just to clarify… Inbound links are different than reciprocal links. Is that right?

SEO Expert, Jason McDonald: Yes, and that gets a little bit complicated. It’s like a politician getting votes — you definitely want to get other websites to link to your website without always having to do a reciprocal link. One of the mistakes many businesses make is they don’t have a systematic always-looking-for-links strategy. So they think, oh I need 10,000 links and they just give up because it’s overwhelming. If you just have ten links and your competitor has three, then you win. It’s always relative. You don’t have to run faster than the bear, you just have to run faster than the guy you’re hiking with!

Professional Voiceover Talent, Debbie Grattan: I get it!

SEO Expert, Jason McDonald: Finally, we come to number five, where we get into social media. At least start to think about doing things with Google+, a little on Twitter and posting to Facebook. Google looks at what’s called your social mentions. Is your website being talked about? That social part of the search can be very important.

Debbie Grattan: What is a good social media strategy for a professional voiceover talent? Is this really something we need to focus on?

SEO Expert, Jason McDonald: The short answer to should social media be important? is: Absolutely! You’ve got to fish where the fish are. You’ve got to go to the area where people might be in the mindset for engaging with your type of service. So for instance, to the extent that this is a business relationship, that’s where LinkedIn is probably your more important social media platform because that is more geared toward business. Even if you go with the minimal stuff – at least have a LinkedIn profile. Try to build your connections so that when someone starts to think, “Oh I need a voice for an upcoming professional voiceover project,” they easily think of you. Social media can help you stay top of mind with your clients and prospects.

I think the first thing to do is identify which platforms make sense for your business. Where can you come into contact with your target customers? LinkedIn is a good platform if your have a more serious professional business service to offer.

Facebook is sort of weird, because on the one hand, it’s the largest platform, but on the other hand, the mood people are in when they’re on Facebook is more about fun, family and friends. So to the extent that you can have a persona for you company on Facebook that’s about those things, it can be a good platform. Some businesses are very Facebook friendly. Others are not. So, Facebook is a bit of a question mark for this industry.

The next one I see a lot of potential for with professional voiceovers is YouTube. What’s cool about YouTube is it can be sort of a supporting role for a website. So if I land on your website and I’m curious about you as a professional voice over talent, YouTube’s got the platform installed. I can click on a YouTube video inside of a webpage or blog post and I can really get to know you and what you can offer. Even something as simple as, here’s Debbie with her headphones on, recording some stuff… Even though you’re an auditory service, the picture’s worth a thousand words. The engagement’s worth a thousand words.

The other thing I think about YouTube that I don’t think people fully appreciate is human beings are wired for facial recognition, face to face contact – there’s something very powerful about looking into a computer screen and seeing another person looking back at you and saying, “I’m a professional voiceover talent and this is how I do it.” It’s very personal.

You get a feel for a person through video that you cannot get otherwise. So I would not only have your completed projects, but also some behind-the-scenes footage of you doing your job. It’s very interesting because you get a good sense of the artist and you see them enjoying making their art.

Debbie Grattan: That’s a great point. That’s something I hadn’t thought of.

SEO Expert, Jason McDonald: It’s very powerful to have it be not too slick, but have authenticity. I think you could have both of those and do very well for a professional voiceover business. I think we feel like if we’re going to do video, that we have to be perfect and sometimes there’s a tension between the slickness of the perfection and authenticity. Authentic is more important on YouTube than slick.

Read the final installment of this interview and also be sure to check out Part 1 of Professional Voice Over SEO Marketing Tips.

Part 1: Professional Voice Over Marketing SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 1

Part 3: Affordable Voice-Over SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 3

Filed Under: For Voice Over Talent

Professional Voice Over Marketing SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 1

Part 1 of an Interview with SEO Expert, Jason McDonald of JM Internet Group

Professional Voice Over Actress Debbie Grattan chats with SEO Expert Jason McDonald about how professional voice over marketing SEO tips can improve voice talent website ranking through SEO (search engine optimization).

Jason McDonald on Affordable Voice-Over SEO Tips, professional voice over marketing
Dr. Jason McDonald is founder and Senior SEO / Social Media Director of the JM Internet Group. He comes to the Group from eg3.com, where he has been Senior Editor in charge of content since 1994.

Dr. McDonald has extensive online journalism and teaching experience. In charge of eg3.com’s SEO and PPC strategy, he built eg3.com into the oldest and largest web portal in embedded systems with over 25,000 monthly users and over 35,000 registered eLetter subscribers. He also teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area at AcademyX, DeVry, and Stanford University (Continuing Studies).

Debbie Grattan, Professional Voice Over Actress: Can you give me a sense of a big picture look at what the best professional voice over marketing strategy would be for a voice over talent looking to improve their SEO?

Jason McDonald: To begin with, I think you have to divide your customers into groups. That’s Marketing 101, right? Customer segmentation. There is one group of people who have never heard of you or even perhaps the whole professional voice over industry, but they have a need for your voice over service. Those people are generally going to go to Google and do a search. So, I think that SEO (search engine optimization) is a very important part of the overall strategy if potential customers are going to be searching for what you are selling.

Now, the question becomes, “What keywords or key phrases are these people who are searching going to use?” It is imperative that you know what keywords are most often used by your professional voiceover clients and customers, so that you can optimize your site for those words and phrases and get to the top of search results. It takes some time, effort and a little brainstorming to get a good solid list but it’s a critical step.

Finally, once they click over to your website, then you get to phase two, where there has to be something on your website that’s engaging, and that makes them want to kick the tires and find out a little about you. This is where I think a lot of people fall into the trap of not realizing that you have these two groups: 1) People who know you or come through word of mouth and 2) people who don’t know you and are searching. I think that conceptualization is really important to the process of developing a good internet strategy.

Debbie Grattan: We also have another group of people that know me and have worked with me, but maybe only once. What is the best strategy for that group?

Jason McDonald: Exactly. You have people who’ve used you one time or they’ve requested a voiceover services quote and then you’ve got to stay in touch with them so that they think about you the next time they have a need for professional voice over services because they’re busy too and they might forget about you if you don’t stay in touch.

Debbie Grattan: Looking at the list of keywords, what would you recommend for professional voice over actors to focus on?

Jason McDonald: I would use a systematic approach, rather than pulling them out of thin air. There are free tools on the internet that will be helpful for this. The most famous one is Google Keyword Tool, which posts the results of a 24/7 survey of how people search the internet. It will give you the volume of how many people are searching any specific keyword or keyword phrase.

The first thing you’ve got to know is what those keywords are for your business. It’s like going to the Olympics — You have to know what sport you want to get a gold medal in. You have to know what keywords you want to rank high in before you do anything else.

Once you know those keywords, the next important thing to do is get them into the “title tags” on your website. It’s the biggest bang for your buck. Probably the most common mistake that businesses make is that they don’t have good title tags on their website. They’re trying to show up for “female voice over talent”, but their title tag says something like “Home” or “John Smith”. You’ve got to get those title tags working for you.

Third is decent content. Most websites just throw up ten pages and call it a day. Google rewards sites that have lots of content. This is where we need to get in the rat race. You need to stay on your keyword themes and you’ve got to create a lot of content and keep creating it with some consistent frequency. In my classes for my students, I say, “Let’s set a goal of a thousand pages indexed by Google.” There’s usually an audible gasp or groan and people say, “Oh my gosh, how can I ever get a thousand pages?” and I say, “Well, if you get one blog post per day; it doesn’t have to be a ton of content, but you have 365 pages per year right there.”

Please keep reading this interview:

Part 2: Professional Voiceover SEO Marketing Tips for Voice Talent – Part 2

Part 3: Affordable Voice-Over SEO Tips for Voice Talent – Part 3

Filed Under: For Voice Over Talent

Voice Over Actor Marketing Do’s & Don’ts

Part 3 of an Interview with Marketing Expert, Cheril Hendry of Brandtailers

Professional Female Voice Over Actor Debbie Grattan chats with Marketing Exec Cheril Hendry of Brandtailers about which specific qualities of a voice over actor stand out most from her perspective, including what to do and what NOT to do when working with producers.

Cheril Hendry, CEO of Brandtailers
Cheril Hendry is CEO and owner of Brandtailers, a digital-focused marketing firm that started as a traditional advertising agency 21 years ago. Today, she spends most of her time helping clients move into the new and often challenging world of online marketing and brand management.

Over the years Cheril and her team of agency professionals have worked with clients of all sizes, using their expertise in brand-tailing (the combining of brand messages with retail marketing for better ROI). From national work with automotive clients including Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Infiniti and more, to marketing campaigns for Red Robin, San Diego Chargers, MagLite, Carls’ Jr, Ikea, Wahoo’s and more, Hendry’s experience brings together a strong history of marketing focus on the consumer.

Debbie Grattan, Voice Over Actor: Are there particular qualities of a voice over actor that really stand out (not only in the voice and the delivery, but also in the person and their professional abilities) that make you want to hire them over and over again?

Cheril Hendry: Well, it’s always nice to have some good variety on their voice over demo, to hear their versatility, because that gives me the safety of knowing that if what I need is slightly different from what is on their demo, they can still deliver a read that will be on target.

I would suggest you always put that natural sounding delivery (discussed in previous article) at the top of your demo. If that’s really what 80% of the people are looking for, then that’s what I want to hear first. I don’t find that is done on most demos that I listen to. Usually it’s more of the traditional, classical type, character voices at the beginning of demos and I recommend you adjust that.

Debbie Grattan: Is there anything that a voice over actor does that really annoys you or is a big “no-no” in your book?

Cheril Hendry: I’ve noticed one thing that seems to be fairly common with some voice over actors and it’s innocent but it’s a little frustrating. We’ve moved to voiceover talent having their own home recording studios, and you can literally do a series of spots and get it done with really talented people in 10 or 15 minutes. Sometimes I think that the talent feels guilty for being able to do what they do so quickly, so they keep me on the phone for 30 minutes talking about, “how is this and how is that” and “I traveled here and I traveled there” and they just want to have a conversation.

So, I would prefer a voice over actor who’s like this: “Hi, how are ya? Great! How’s the kids? Fine. Let’s do this. Ok, great! Have a nice day! Bye.” It seems that I get so many of these people who just want to talk for 20 minutes! I don’t want to be rude, but, they don’t need to do that!

Debbie Grattan: I think in the old days when voice over actors used to go into a studio, there was that sense of sitting around, having a cup of coffee and chatting a little bit then you get the work done. We are so isolated now-a-days, sometimes those ISDN sessions are the only opportunity during a day when we get to hear another person’s voice besides our own! But, that’s a good word of warning and something I’ll have to watch myself!

Are there any other general trends that you think would be useful for voice over actors to be more aware of or to implement?

Cheril Hendry: Obviously, you have to have your own website. But, it’s a combination of search and keeping your name out there. I recommend you have a blog. I don’t know how much voiceover talent thinks that way, but that’s a great way to expose your skills through something other than just a website with demos on it.

You can tell stories (get the clients’ approval, of course) about why the voice was done the way it was, what the product is about, things of that sort. Especially for larger products and bigger budgets, you’ve got people out there who really want to understand how that works.

The other thing is there’s a basic expectation that if you’re dealing with a professional voice over actor, you expect them to have their own recording studio, you expect them to be able to coordinate their own work, etc. The more of that they can do, the more convenient and easy it is for the producer. I like working with voice over actors who make my job easier.

I actually had to have a talent go into a studio last week and we had to do all the coordination with the studio and I thought, “Wow, it’s been a long time since we’ve had to do something like that.” I wasn’t even sure those studios were out there anymore. Now it’s all about speed and how much we can produce in the shortest timeframe.

Debbie Grattan: What is your opinion on newsletters, postcards, email newsletters and those types of marketing activities for voice over actors?

Cheril Hendry: Sometimes a newsletter feels like too much of a burden to read. I wouldn’t mind getting an email maybe once a month from talent saying, “here’s my latest work… did this for Coke, did this for Ford, or whatever.” Just to keep your name in front of that person and to know that you’re successful and you’re busy and you’ve got a lot of clients calling on you.

It’s always nice to see the face behind the voice, so I do still like getting postcards that have a picture of the voiceover talent. It just makes it a little more personal.

Be sure to read parts one and two of this interview:

Part 1: “Marketing Trends to Watch for Voice-Over Talent”

Part 2: “How a Voice-Over Actress Can Approach New Producers“

Filed Under: For Voice Over Talent

How a Voice-Over Actress Can Approach New Producers

Part 2 of An Interview with Marketing Expert, Cheril Hendry of Brandtailers

Professional Voice-Over Actress Debbie Grattan chats with Marketing Exec Cheril Hendry of Brandtailers about how a voice-over actress can best position herself to take advantage of the current marketing trends (discussed in Part 1 of this interview) and good ways voice over talent can approach new producers with whom they’d like to form a working relationship.

Cheril Hendry, CEO of Brandtailers
Cheril Hendry is CEO and owner of Brandtailers, a digital-focused marketing firm that started as a traditional advertising agency 21 years ago. Today, she spends most of her time helping clients move into the new and often challenging world of online marketing and brand management.

Over the years Cheril and her team of agency professionals have worked with clients of all sizes, using their expertise in brand-tailing (the combining of brand messages with retail marketing for better ROI). From national work with automotive clients including Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Infiniti and more, to marketing campaigns for Red Robin, San Diego Chargers, MagLite, Carls’ Jr, Ikea, Wahoo’s and more, Hendry’s experience brings together a strong history of marketing focus on the consumer.

Voice-Over Actress Debbie Grattan: How do you see Voiceover Talent Services fitting into this new marketing paradigm?

Marketing Exec, Cheril Hendry: I can answer that two ways… From a creative perspective, what I’m really seeing is the style of messaging is becoming a lot more down home, natural, that focus on truth, trust and transparency. It’s less slice-of-life in narrative versus trying to make something feel real.

So from a voice-over actress perspective, there’s a certain quality that good voice talent has these days which is, “Don’t give me the announcer voice, give me a voice that tells me you’re talking to me like a real person talking to a real person.” And we’re seeing a lot more spots coming to fruition that way and being more successful.

Debbie Grattan: I know that at Brandtailers you do a lot of automotive advertising, which traditionally tends to have a more hard sell announcer voice over style. So, are you seeing this trend even in the automotive industry?

Cheril Hendry: Not as quickly as we’d like! We’re trying to lead that charge. But, it’s interesting, when you look at almost any automotive manufacturer at the national level these days, it’s always a celebrity that’s the voice over talent. And, they’re very low key, very natural. You usually have to listen to the spot a few times to even recognize who it is. They’re trying to use the credibility of who the celebrity is and then just do a natural low key spot.

Debbie Grattan: Let’s talk about a voice over talent in relationship to producers like yourself. I presume you have a stable of “go to” voice talent that you work with more frequently, but for a voice over actress who has never worked with your company before, what’s the best way for them to approach you as a new producer?

Cheril Hendry: What advertisers and people like me want to know is, did the prospective voice over talent take the time to really search us out? Do they really know what we’re about and what we might be looking for?

So, instead of doing the generic email that looks like it’s been sent to a giant list of producers, to really take the time to scope out who Brandtailers is, the types of clients we have. Send me an email from that direction with some kind of a teaser saying, “I really think my voice over style, my type of performance would work well with your type of clients.” It’s a more personal approach. An email and then follow it up with a phone call. That’s good enough for me. That will get me to listen to their voice over demo at least.

Debbie Grattan: How many voice over actress and actor inquiries do you receive? Is it a fairly regular thing or not so much?

Cheril Hendry: Not so much. I think it’s gotten into a mode where a lot of the voice over talent just posts their content on the right places online on the web and they let it be found rather than going out and pursuing production company contacts.

Debbie Grattan: Does that work for you if you’re looking for a specific voice over actress that you don’t already have in your talent pool? How would you go about searching for the right voice?

Cheril Hendry: Usually, we do the John and Joe thing (discussed in part 1 of this interview “Marketing Trends to Watch for Voice Over Talent“). I would call you and ask you who you might recommend as a good voice over actress or actor talent. I would call our producer and ask him who he would recommend. And we might go to a few of the different websites and listen. But, you’re right, we do have our slew of voice over talent we’ve found we like over the years. But it’s always nice to get a fresh voice and hear something new. And, that type of person needs to be a little more proactive in getting their information to us.

Read parts 1 and 3 of this interview:

Part 1: “Marketing Trends to Watch for Voice-Over Talent”

Part 3: “Voice Over Actor Marketing Do’s & Don’ts“

Filed Under: For Voice Over Talent

Marketing Trends to Watch for Voice-Over Talent

Part 1 of an Interview with Marketing Expert, Cheril Hendry of Brandtailers

Professional Voice-Over Talent Debbie Grattan chats with Marketing Exec Cheril Hendry of Brandtailers in Irvine, California on how marketing has changed in the past few years, the newest trends for social media and viral advertising and how voice-over talent will benefit from those changes.

Voice-Over Talent Marketing Trends - Cheril Hendry Interview
Cheril Hendry is CEO and owner of Brandtailers, a digital-focused marketing firm that started as a traditional advertising agency 21 years ago. Today, she spends most of her time helping clients move into the new and often challenging world of online marketing and brand management.

Over the years Cheril and her team of agency professionals have worked with clients of all sizes, using their expertise in brand-tailing (the combining of brand messages with retail marketing for better ROI). From national work with automotive clients including Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Infiniti and more, to marketing campaigns for Red Robin, San Diego Chargers, MagLite, Carls’ Jr, Ikea, Wahoo’s and more, Hendry’s experience brings together a strong history of marketing focus on the consumer.

Debbie Grattan, Voice-Over Talent: Cheril, can you give us an overview of how marketing has changed over the past 5 to 10 years?

Cheril Hendry: It has changed quite dramatically. I love to tell this story because I think it really explains a lot. When you look at the world that existed before advertising, you would make your purchase decisions by talking to your friends and neighbors. For example, you’ve got John and Joe, who are farmers and they’re talking over their mutual fence about where John got his tractor and John tells Joe “You gotta go down to the local place in town and buy there because they have the best tractors, they take good care of you, have great service, etc.” So, Joe goes there and buys his tractor primarily based on John’s opinion and recommendation.

Then the world of advertising comes along and you have ads in newspapers, radio, television and now the internet that are all trying to tell you where to go and how to buy and what you should buy. But, with the internet and the way that social media especially has changed things in the last few years, it’s really come full circle. Advertising as we know it is almost no longer in existence. It’s very weak in terms of it being able to influence people. And, really what’s happened is we’ve gone back to John and Joe talking to each other over the fence and asking for opinions of who you can trust and who has the best services or products. The only difference is, instead of it being one John and one Joe, John can ask ALL of his friends and all of his friends can respond to him. So, that’s been a very interesting shift to watch happen over the past several years.

Debbie Grattan: Does that type of shift concern you, given the business you are in?

Cheril Hendry: As much as that reality might sound frightening for the owner of an advertising agency, I actually think it’s wonderful because there are still opportunities for smart marketers. This trend feeds into the whole “truthfulness, trust and transparency” approach that businesses can use to market themselves more effectively in today’s environment.

Debbie Grattan: How does that change the way you do business then? If you’re looking at broadcast advertising (newspaper, radio, tv) are you now moving more to social media forms of advertising?

Cheril Hendry: We are doing a lot of social media but it’s beyond that. Actually my agency doesn’t like the term “social media,” we call it “online brand management” – I think that gives a better picture of what it’s really about. Everybody is going online now to get information about products and services before they make a decision, so the online world is really where the marketing exists these days. You need to be able to manage, protect and grow your brand online just as businesses have always had to do offline.

I’ll give you an example from a class I was teaching last night. We were looking at the top ten most shared commercials online in 2011 and most of them were very virally oriented and were something that people would want to share with a friend because it was something that they believed in, or it was something that they thought was funny, or something they thought was very truthful and open and trustworthy. A lot of the commercials were more than 30 seconds long which is a refreshing thing for the voiceover business and for advertising, where you don’t have to be limited to 30 or 60 seconds anymore. Some of the production quality was not nearly what you would see on a Super Bowl commercial but, that almost added to the credibility of it.

The shares were huge! When you look at the numbers and the way these types of messages are going around online… To pay for that kind of viewership on television these days would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, but with viral videos there’s no media cost in doing that right now.

So, it is a huge shift that is still in its infancy as far as I’m concerned. I think right now we’re probably the equivalent of when television first came out and people are trying to figure out “how do we advertise on this new medium?” I think we’re still trying to figure that out with the online world. There is a lot of opportunity for our agency and for our clients.

Read Part 2 of this interview, “How a Voice Over Actress Can Approach New Producers”, in which Cheril gives some specific voice over talent marketing tips and talks about market positioning for voice talent.

Filed Under: For Voice Over Talent

How to Master Voiceover Narration – with Ed Victor

The final installment in a 3-part series, female voice over talent Debbie Grattan and voiceover narration powerhouse Ed Victor touch on narration, home studios and voiceover agents.

Debbie Grattan, VO Pro: What is it like to be a heavy-hitter voice talent working out of a home studio?

Voiceover Narration Talent, Ed Victor: In a nutshell, it’s great! However, there are some geographic aspects that I get to deal with living where I live. Florida is a right to work state, which means they hire non-union people and they prefer to hire non-union people for many reasons. Even though I’m in Florida, approximately 90 percent of my work is outside of Florida.

When working remotely as a voice talent, I believe you simply must have an ISDN voice over studio because you need to be able to connect easily to stations and studios all over the country.

How to Master Voiceover Narration - Interview with Ed Victor
The Big Gun himself, Ed Victor, left an award-winning career in advertising to establish himself as an international voiceover sensation.
Today, Victor is under contract with networks and television stations worldwide and is the voice actor for commercials selling everything from beers to banks to cars.

DebbieG VO Pro: Do you find it to be a hindrance working from Florida?

Voiceover Narration Talent, Ed Victor: Absolutely. Yes, because in New York they still send voice talent out on castings, and many voiceover agencies will not bring on new voice talent unless you are able to physically be in the city. The same holds true in Los Angeles, although I think the paradigm is shifting a bit in L.A.

On the plus side, when I get an audition at 3 o’clock west coast time, I have all night and all the next morning to finish it. That sometimes gives me an extra edge on the competition.

Debbie Grattan: Do you believe you need big voiceover talent agency representation to book the big jobs?

Ed Victor: I do find that to be true. You need to be a big fish if you want to swim in a big pond. Major agencies will not use pay-to-play sites for voiceover talent because it’s sacrilegious.

To get the coveted big jobs, you need to get into a major voiceover talent agency in one of the major cities. If you’re casting for packaged goods, you go to Chicago. If you’re casting for theatrical spots, you go to New York. If you’re casting for movie trailers, you go to Los Angeles.

Debbie Grattan: Narration voiceovers are the bread-and-butter for many voiceover artists. Are you doing narration work in your studio?

Voice-Over Actor, Ed Victor: I have done some voiceover narration for National Geographic recently, a job I found through my agent in Sydney, Australia. I also do a ton of corporate industrial narration which definitely helps to pay the bills. I’m not really doing very much with documentary style voiceover narrations, at least not right now.

What makes narration different from other voiceover work is that you need to sound like you know what you’re talking about. A voiceover talent needs to have some “acting chops” if they want to be successful doing narration.

Debbie Grattan: Are certain types of narration inherently meant for a male versus female narrator?

Voice-Over Actor, Ed Victor: I think it just depends on the copy, the audience, or the market you are trying to reach.

I just did an audition for Exxon to be their new voice and the specs were for a “40-60 year old male or female.” That’s pretty wide open. I think the specs also said “endearing, friendly, voice you would listen to.” It can be tricky to try to get inside of the mind of the person casting to try to figure out just what they are wanting. I think that many times they aren’t even sure what they want until they hear it.

Debbie Grattan: Do you have any masterful tips for voiceover artists?

Voice-Over Actor, Ed Victor: Part of the reason why we hear well-known celebrity actors is because they understand instinctively what is needed to drive the spot. When you hear Peter Coyote for Apple, it sounds so simple. Everybody thinks they can reproduce it (and maybe they can), but when you’re taking just some words on a page into a booth and the director says, “Go,” you are starting from scratch, a total blank slate. You have to create it on the spot and the talent and ability to do that is what separates the wheat from the chaff.

When I get a piece of copy, I like to think it through. I try to put my own personality and spin on it. That’s one thing my agent keeps telling me to do: “Be yourself, be yourself, be yourself.” There’s going to be that person that hears some characteristic that appeals to them, whether it’s the tonality, the way you deliver, or how you inflect.

It’s no different than Peter Coyote. If you listen to his voice quality, you wouldn’t think he was a great voice talent. He just feels and understands the copy. That’s the key to bringing something to life. He does it beautifully. He’s a master.

Debbie Grattan: Thanks, Ed, for sharing your thoughts and insights. I’m sure your voiceover career will continue on to new heights and I wish you as much success as you can imagine!

If you missed part 1 or 2 of this interview you can read Ed’s marketing advice for voice actors from his perspective as a former advertising executive and learn about landing voice over actor opportunities overseas in part 2.

Filed Under: For Voice Over Talent

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Debbie Grattan is a top-rated professional female voice over talent with more than 22 years of experience delivering voice over services worldwide. She regularly records commercial voice overs for radio and tv as well as infomercial voice overs and direct response marketing for children’s toys, health, fitness and beauty products. Other specialties include female narration voice overs for corporate narration, web videos, tutorials, explainer videos and technical medical narration. Debbie also provides phone-related voice over services including phone prompts, messages-on-hold and outbound phone marketing for companies in the United States and Canada.

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