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
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