How To Measure Your Success in 2024

How should a voice actor measure their success on Voices?

In this article

1. 1. Can You Explain the Voices Talent Success Funnel Above?
2. 2. Why are Likes More Important than Listens?
3. 3. What Part of the Success Funnel Do Talent Get Hung Up On the Most?
4. 4. What is the Typical Funnel You See Talent Using Instead?
5. 5. Why Should Talent Refer to Voices’ Funnel?

Much of that question is answered after understanding how Voices works, and how a voice talent can take advantage of the platform’s capabilities.

Many voice talent have difficulty understanding what they should spend the most time on within Voices: Is it Booking jobs? Invitations? What about Listens and Likes? Or how about Responses?

That’s why we’ve created a handy Success Funnel for talent on the Voices platform. 

Invitations > Responses > Listens > Likes > Bookings

This funnel, we believe, should be how you measure your success in 2024, but also what you should focus on and weigh accordingly.

We caught up with Evan Wiebe, Senior Account Manager for Premium Talent to talk about your strategy for success on Voices in 2024, and why sticking to our funnel will help you.

1. Can You Explain the Voices Talent Success Funnel Above?

“A voice talent’s core moneymaker is frequently auditioning. If you don’t have a weekly or daily goal, that’s your first task: Create a goal and stick to it! We would recommend at least 5 per weekday submitted,” Wiebe explains.

“This is the foundation of your funnel. Out of those auditions, the reality is that not all will be listened to by the clients, which is normal. A good listen rate is 75% or higher. Out of those listens, you want to reach at least a 5% shortlist/like rate (those terms are interchangeable). Top talent can sometimes reach a 20% shortlist rate, so if you are already reaching 5%, work to increase that to 10, 15, etc.” he says.

“A good booking rate is three to ten percent of your submitted auditions. This can depend on how selective you are. The idea is to be aware of your funnel and your audition goals so that you can track your success and make adjustments if you aren’t hitting those thresholds.” 

2. Why are Likes More Important than Listens?

“A good listen rate is foundational to the like/shortlist rate. If you have a lot of likes but low listens, auditioning earlier and sprucing up your portfolio will generate even more likes and bookings,” Wiebe says.

“If it’s the other way round though, with high listens and low likes, good on you for your quick timing and a solid portfolio, but you may need to investigate  issues with audio quality, direction, performance, or suitability for roles, which may be leading to a low shortlist rate.”

3. What Part of the Success Funnel Do Talent Get Hung Up On the Most?

“I’ve noticed that talent are sometimes frustrated with anything less than a 100% listen rate, and while I understand the frustration, that’s just a reality of online casting: clients historically listen to most auditions, but not all,” Wiebe breaks down.

“I also notice talent spending perhaps too much time and emotional energy on single auditions, rather than remembering their big-picture, weekly/monthly audition goal. Also, many voice talent aren’t aware of the averages or thresholds for success and thus have no rubric for their own success. If you have a 60% listen rate, and you perhaps didn’t realize that it’s on the low side, then you wouldn’t know to adjust your strategy accordingly.”

4. What is the Typical Funnel You See Talent Using Instead?

“I find a lot of talent quit before they would have seen success, because they aren’t aware of the larger picture, or maybe they didn’t give that extra effort in the beginning to accept the learning curve. I’ve seen great-sounding voice over talent stop auditioning after 20 or 30 submissions,” Wiebe recalls.

“Perhaps they were expecting more likes or more bookings, but as we know there are so many factors that all have to line up. Perseverance is key to reaching those high shortlist and booking numbers, it rarely happens in the first few dozen auditions.” 

5. Why Should Talent Refer to Voices’ Funnel?

“There’s a mysterious element to a funnel like this, and it’s something that can only really be experienced if you’ve given it a shot. Daily, weekly, or monthly audition goals sound boring or cliché to most of us,” Wiebe concludes.

“But the people that truly do it can tell you that the building blocks, slowly and surely, come together, and the momentum starts to build and grow, almost as if your overall effort becomes greater than the sum of its parts.”