You probably already know Voice123.com, Voices.com and VOPlanet.com, the main marketplace voiceover websites, where you have to pay to receive new job notifications and to have additional available features in your profile. The subscription prices vary from U$199 to U$299 per year.
That’s a good opportunity for businesses, but the problem is that the majority of costumers from these sites ask for “custom demos”, without mentioning hundreds of low budget proposals. As a producer, a custom demo is a valuable tool for us to choose the ideal voice. On the other hand, for the voiceover talents, that presents a headache.
Whenever we, the Produlz.com team, are searching for new talents, we ask them to record personalized samples for us so we can measure the quality of the audio. This helps us prevent unpleasant surprises when we do the final recordings. Of course, the voiceover artist`s aren’t always selected when we receive the first sample, so it’s important to try a few times so that you can create a bond with the costumer.
Ir order to stay calm and avoid losing time with custom demos, these are our recomendations:
1) If the costumer asks for a custom demo, don’t waste your time sending any old piece of your portfolio instead of the text requested. You will probably be eliminated and you may receive a bad review. In the worst case scenario, the customer will never want to receive anything from you again.
2) Verify for whom you are sending this custom demo. How many projects have been posted by this customer so far? Did he listen to all the samples posted in the past projects?
3) If you have already submitted more than three samples to the same costumer, do not answer his invitations for a long time period. Avoid forgetting these names by making a list and keep it up to date.
4) Do not waste time applying for jobs that have already received over fifty samples. Your chances will only be 2% if the project is really going to happen.
5) When you send a custom demo? Watermark it. A watermark is a noise you add to the audio that is low enough so costumers can hear you clearly but makes the audio unusable as an official voice job.
If you want to run away from the custom demos and low budget projects, make your own personal website or take some time to work on your Voiceover-Casting.com blog. Not every customer wants custom demos or are looking for professionals through Voice123.com, Voices.com and VOPlanet.com. A great way to make your site or blog well visited is “Google Adwords“, where you can plan on campaigns using specific keywords and then you pay for clicks. Choosing the right words and you will have nice feedback.
We’re excited to hear your opinion about this subject! See ya next time!
Fernando Areias
Great advice, Fernando!
Fernando,
For a few days now, I have been reading various blogs; and, for the first time I seem to be enjoying them.
Admittedly, as a past member of Voices.com; a current member of V123 ( with a pending renewal ); and VO Planet, I have been following the various rips on all of these organizations.
First, your comments regarding custom demos has finally inspired me to jump into the pool. Items 1 through 5 are pretty much spot on.
Item #1 is a no-brainer; and so important.
Item #2 verifying the source of the request (professional credibility, number of responses reviewed …. BUDGET) absolutely. And, thankfully at least some of that information is available on V123 ( ya’ gotta give them that ). Further, if you can believe even part of what you read on their site, it is possible to get a little background on the posting individual/company ( number/percentage of posts read; length of time with V123, etc. ). You just have to look for it.
NOW, if they could just do something about the page with “Prices you can expect”!! And, the feedback section in the “Outbox” !!!!!! There must be a way of adding a filter to that, allowing one to remove the rejections; and, I must admit that those “considering” and “maybes” sometimes make me a little suspicious, if you know what I mean.
Item #4 … I believe that there is some credence to this, especially if you combine this information ( also available on V123 with some searching ); but, there is always that little voice in the back of your head saying … “just maybe the one doing the reviewing of demos will skip past some of the less desirable voices and land on mine”. Yeah, I know and pigs will fly. It is a tough call and I usually follow the percentages ( roughly ) which you mentioned.
Item #5 .. Regarding watermarks, I would rather just give the client an edited version of the copy if possible, as I feel that it gives the client a good feel for the spot; but they still can not use it in this format. I do like the watermark idea though!
With regards to Voices.com ( nice people ….. ) and VO Planet ( also really good folks who are very fair and reasonable ) … perhaps later.
For now, back to production.
Cheers,
Bob North