Cracking the Code to Voice Over Marketing with Christy Summers

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Hi there, and welcome to Vox Talk, your weekly review from the world of voice over. I'm your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli from Voices. Have you cracked the code for marketing your voice? Joining me today is Christy Summers, voice talent, business coach and founder of Daytime Hero. Christy helps talent manage their businesses and market their voices. On today's show, we're talking all about how you can crack the code and get more job opportunities leading to more bookings with the goal of, you guessed it, making more money. Christy, welcome to the show.

Christy Summers:

Thank you so much, and I love how you ended that. What voiceover actor doesn't want to make more money by marketing yourselves? I've got that secret sauce to share with you guys today.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, that's what we're banking on. That's good. So the first question I have for you, Christy, has to do just around the business you've created, Daytime Hero. I sense there's a bit of a story in there, so what inspired you to start your business?

Christy Summers:

Of course, I love the story so much, basically because I started voiceover in 2020. I am not the tenured voiceover of 20 plus years, which could be good, could be bad, but I'm right along with you in the journey, this post-COVID world, which has changed. And so as I jumped into voiceover, I had a lot of my peers from classes being like, ‘Hey, Christy, can I ask you this?’ And it was, how do I invoice somebody, or what's a great way to reach out to somebody? How did you get your talent agent? And a multitude of people kept asking me these questions, and I would help them one-on-one. And I said, you know what, I can do better than this. I have got 20 plus years of business experience. I have an MBA. Business is my passion. It's just kind of innate within me. I love business. And then there's voice over, which is such a wonderful creative endeavor, which I'm absolutely in love with. So what if I were to combine the two to help a greater amount of people coming into voiceover, really launch their business and be successful? Because the tips and tricks that I were giving to my fellow classmates were working wonders for them. They were able to get more jobs. I've had one. She sent me a card, and she was like, it's because of you. I got a talent agent, and I'm like, oh, that's amazing. And I truly love seeing people be successful in business. And voice over's hard, y'all. Voiceover is hard to get into, to maintain, to really hone your craft, but ultimately to run it as a business. So if I can help just a few people that are out there learning some business concepts behind the greatness that is voice over, that is what Daytime Hero was all about.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

That's amazing. And isn't it lovely that you can take something that was helpful to yourself from your own experiences? Obviously, you were learning along with everyone else at the point and had perhaps some more business acumen than most people.

Christy Summers:

Surprisingly, lots more business acumen than what I have found with voice over artists in general is that it's such a creative vibe that the idea of business is just like, ‘oh, why would I want it?’ I want to create. I want to be behind the microphone. I want to do my auditions. And I guess my perspective is you could be the greatest voice over talent the world has ever seen. But if nobody ever knows about you, then what's the point?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right. How will they know if you do not tell them? Right?

Christy Summers:

Yeah.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

No, I totally - That's amazing. A great insight, because as you say, so many voice actors, I know a lot of people listening right now, all you want to do is sit in front of that microphone and go. You don't really want to be, oh, what's Google AdWords? And how do I do that? And SEO and like, you know, invoicing, let alone, you know, how much do I, do I, how do I do this? Do I have, you know, tax and, oh my goodness, tax is a whole other thing. So I think that's awesome that you're helping people with their businesses, because it is a huge kind of spot of vulnerability, I would say, in a lot of people's careers. It's just not knowing how to manage their business and how to do it well. So you've designed a couple of courses, including one that's on goal planning. And today, of course, we're going to be talking about cracking the code, which is the one for your marketing. So based on what you've seen, Christy, and you've kind of alluded to this, does marketing oneself come naturally to people, or would you say that marketing is an activity that most of us need to learn how to do?

Christy Summers:

I think marketing is an activity that if people could go jump off a cliff, that would be a first option than marketing themselves to total strangers. It is not a normal motion for the majority of people. And specifically creatives, you used a great word earlier, which was vulnerable. Yes, we are vulnerable. This is a craft. This comes from within us and the things that we create, right? So marketing yourself has been viewed different ways. And the reason I say it's unnatural is because most people marketing themselves are thinking, ‘hey, I need to get a job,’ and, ‘I don't want to be rejected.’ And at that point, it's like, well, yeah, marketing's hard, because if you're going up to a customer being like, you need to hire me, they're going, so what? And then you're getting rejected, you know? But if we're marketing ourselves instead of using pitches for what we're doing, what if we marketed ourselves in such a way that we are offering a client a solution to their problem? They are creating big productions with either animation, video, music, voice overs, the last part that goes into a lot of these projects that we're on. And they have a problem. They need a great voice to represent whatever they're doing. And the thing is, we have the solution. We are professional voice over actors. So when you turn it into more of an offering than like pitching yourself, it seems much less fearful because if someone says, ‘hey, no, I don't need that right now,’ OK, well, at least they know you exist, right? It's not rejection. It's allowing someone to know, hey, I can solve your problem if you need me. I'll be over here. And I'll just follow up with you a couple months later just to make sure you still know that I'm here and I can offer you something that helps.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right. You've got to tell them because they don't know about you.

Christy Summers:

Exactly.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

You know, they're not spending their Saturday mornings waiting. That voice don't can I discover this weekend, like, you know, it's not on their radar, right?

Christy Summers:

It's kind of like they're looking for voiceover actors, but they're not necessarily looking for me or they're not necessarily looking for, you know, so that's why they're putting out auditions. That's why they're, you know, trying to hear all these voices. But if you are reaching out to them or finding them where they are looking for you, that is a way to market yourself. You want to make it easy for your potential client to find you.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Right. And that's a whole other kettle of fish that we have to get. We'll get into niches in a minute here and all that. But I find that something else in marketing, because we know that there are, what is it, the four P's of marketing, product, placement, promotion, pricing. You run into with artistic people, the whole idea of thinking of yourself as a product. And that is weird because we're people, right? And it's your voice and it's so like innate and intrinsically tied to who you are. And then the whole idea of packaging it, well, how do I package it? And then, you know, the promoting thing, obviously you do when you figured everything else out. But the pricing, I think pricing is another area that is like, well, how do I put a dollar amount on what I can do? Like how would you suggest that people think about those four P's specifically the pricing?

Christy Summers:

Well, I do think from a marketing perspective, the very beginning, when you have the product, we are a product. I mean, usually you're looking at products or services, you're thinking merchandise versus a service. But we have to know who we are and what we have to offer. Otherwise, how do we know to tell the customer anything about ourselves? If we don't know what we're offering to them, then they're not going to understand what they need to take from us, right? And then from a promotional perspective, well, in a packaging perspective, we need to know who we are marketing to, who are the people that are looking for the service we have to offer. And we can get into a little bit more with that with niches. But when it comes to price, you're right. That is such a huge pain point with voiceover actors. Do I spend five dollars? Do I accept five dollars for this job that's going to take me 16 hours to read? Or do I, you know, how do I price? What are market rates? What are the standards? Huge, huge questions there. There are two very, very good resources out there to help with pricing, industry rates. The first one is SAG-AFTRA, whether you're union or non-union, it's a great reference site to look at some of the rates that are out there. And if you're non-union looking to go to union, having some equivalency with those rates, you're going to be able to bring customers over into union. It's a lot less disruptive to what's going on. That's a whole totally different conversation. The other pricing is the GVA rate guide. They really put off from a non-broadcast, mostly non-broadcast perspective, but non-union perspective, a lot of the rates. So being able to go in there, looking at industry averages, these two groups, these two organizations, SAG and GVAA have really gone above and beyond to do the research of what is an appropriate rate for what we do. And so we have resources out there to help us.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

For sure. And it's good to be able to look to something like that and be like, oh, okay. I think that for creative people, it's always, always difficult thinking about charging for something that you love to do so much you would do for free. That's the whole like, oh, I can do this all day just for fun. But it does have a dollar amount. There is a value. It is a product. And people are going to be using it, be it in a commercial that airs during Super Bowl or someone's corporate phone system or whatever it might be. This is actually being heard and it's advertising in a lot of ways like you're doing is you are the voice of that company or you're the voice of that product. And even if it's an internal kind of voice over like an e-learning training module, perhaps, it's still really important that you recognize that you're doing professional work that deserves to be compensated appropriately. So thank you for going over that. And people can definitely look at the union side and the non, well, the GVAA and those rates. I find that a lot of clients are prepared to pay what the union would suggest is the base, the scale of rate, right? So that being said, like, don't be afraid to quote high and to use that as a guide, but also read the market because if a client comes to you with a budget range that is perhaps a little lower than what that standard rate might be that you come across, like, yes

Christy Summers:

You can feel free to be flexible.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

You could be, yeah, for sure. Or you could think about, well, you know, maybe I will still bid high and we'll see what happens, but not every client, like just so everyone is thinking, these two rate sheets are not necessarily the be all end all, like you're going to have some trial and error and you're going to find throughout your experiences. So

Christy Summers:

Absolutely, absolutely. But just having that general guide to go off of, and if you decide to quote a little bit lower or a little bit higher, depending on what the customer is asking. So every single quote that we put forward is customized to the project. It's not necessarily that flat rate of if it's one minute, I charge this much. If it's two minutes, I charge this much, right? So there's some nuances in there as well, which you kind of have to feel out and trial and error is the best way to do that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah. And for anyone who's curious, we do have some resources at Voices on rates. So be sure to check out what we have at Voices as well, voices.com slash rates. So we'll put that in the show notes. But anyway, obviously that's a part of the conversation that we could probably talk about in an entirely different episode because it is so complex, right? So but you were talking again about product and about packaging and that whole idea of someone having a niche. And I know that this is something you've figured out. But for our listeners here, Christy, why does it matter that they have a niche in voice over?

Christy Summers:

I think in voiceover, a lot of people come forward and be like, I'm going to audition for everything. I'm going to do all the things. And to that I say, you can do anything you want, but you can't do everything you want, right? Which means as we are launching our careers, we need to start out in a niche market because we can't handle all the genres that are out there. But if we start with what is more natural to us than anything else, and we're honing some of those other skills, start out what's more natural. Start auditioning there. Look at your analytics of what you're auditioning for versus what you're booking. What are people hearing out of your voice versus what you've said that you sound like? And that gives you a baseline on where to start because part of voiceover is a numbers game, but part of it's also knowing where your voice best fits. You are not going to have me being some relaxed, chill, party vibe type of commercial. It's just not where I naturally fit. Corporate eLearnings all day long, right? But I chose that simply because I needed to start somewhere. I wanted to start and hone in, and then as my skills improve and as my knowledge of the industry improves, I can start layering on additional genres until I have a full portfolio of work. But if we're going all at everything at the same time, we will be an expert in nothing. We will be average in everything. And you really want to have that niche to hone in because the people who are hiring voices for video games are very, very different than the people who are hiring voices for corporate narration, right? So that helps narrow down your efforts as well to those who are statistically more likely to hire you. It is expensive both with time and money to market yourself. So you really want to use your resources that you have to your best advantage.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Absolutely you do. Just thinking about like, yes, a niche. We all need to know what we're best at and where our money voice is. As you said, you could do e-learning all day long, perhaps not something else, but e-learning you figured out for yourself. So how did you figure that out? Was it through a coach or did you just keep getting hired for the same sort of work? How did you know?

Christy Summers:

It was actually both. It was both. So I actually did a class on voice print, which was super, super helpful, trying out different things. What did other people hear in my voice? What did my coach hear in my voice? What did I think my voice sounded like? And having some descriptive words for that so that I know what I have to offer. I have a, my business background is in tech, in corporate. So I mean, I have some small business background too, but the majority of it is from the corporate world. So I automatically, having spoken in front of many CEOs, formal presentations, I just have a more formal vibe about me that I'm used to, which since I know that about myself, I know what those type of customers are looking for. Secondly, when I first started out, I did audition for some other things, right? Just kind of vary it. And I was marking what was I getting shortlisted for? What was I getting called back? And what was I actually landing, right? And then running the numbers of the booking rate on that. And as soon as I started honing in on a very specific corporate narration genre and some e-learnings, I started booking, booking, booking, booking, and all of a sudden the rate of what I'm looking at is going from, you know, two and a half percent. So that's out of every 100 auditions and maybe landing two, maybe three jobs. All of a sudden I'm landing five, six, seven jobs because I was able to hone in on where my voice was really thriving.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

So were you using like a spreadsheet? Did you have a pie chart? Like how were you tracking the percentage? Because you're like 2% here and for some of us it's like, oh, math, you know, whatever.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Oh, I know.

Christy Summers:

It like breaks the brain, right? So I'm an uber nerd. I love data analytics. I had my own spreadsheet going for a while just to find out. And then there's actually what I use now is something, is a software called, it's a CRM which is a client relationship manager called Voice Overview. Dani States created it. She's a fellow voiceover actor and she created it paired with her husband and it is a great mix of the CRM and audition recording. It runs your analytics for you because you're marking if you're booking the job. And so it actually is a little bit more of a guide and helps you run those reports versus having to do it yourself. And I've been using it for about the last 12 months and it's actually really fantastic and not too robust because most customer relationship managers are huge. But this is meant for voiceover actors, which has actually helped me still figure out my numbers, right? Because I wanted to give it a try to see how it compared to how I was running my numbers. And there's actually quite a bit more that I can look at should I want to, right? So anybody out there who just got a headache from me talking about math and analytics and booking rates, it's okay. There's things that help you with it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Well, very, very good. I appreciate that because Voices, we obviously have a much bigger CRM than any of our individual talent would need to have, right?

Christy Summers:

Of course.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

But when we were starting out as a small business but with a marketplace type scaling, you do think about a CRM that will grow with you. But if you're going to be an individual just kind of freelance doing your own thing, then something like what you've described or even just a free version of one of those bigger softwares that I mentioned, those SaaS companies would actually be pretty good and that software as a service for anyone who's uninitiated and not living in The Valley and kind of going up and seeing investors and all that. So anyway, but all of that aside, I think it's great. Thank you for answering that of just how you figured it was a bit of art and science to know where you sat with your voice. So that being said, in your course, you do say that there are about 13 ways that someone can market themselves and I know that we don't have time to go through all of them right now, but would you mind just sharing a few of those with us?

Christy Summers:

Sure, sure. One of the best ways you can market yourself is have a website. Have a website that is on point. It is simple. It is to the point. It is something that you can use to attract people in to listen to your demos, learn a little bit about you so that they know if you're the type of person that they want to work with or not. So a website is hands down the non-negotiable first way you need to market yourself to get out there. And then within that becomes SEO, which is search engine optimization and the things that you can do to help those people that are looking for you find you. And another great way, Voices.com is a great example of how to market yourself. You guys have a platform that will host our demos that allows us to audition and that gets us in front of producers. And we can create relationships through the Voices.com platform, which is a fantastic way, especially if you're starting out to get access to a lot, a lot, a lot of opportunity. So even if you're not landing a lot of gigs, it's a lot of practice. You're engaged with people who are now seeing your name over and over because they're putting more than one job out there, right? And when you're booking through Voices, you've got a full communication system with your customer and they can reach directly out to you to hire you again through the platform. So by having your profile and filling out your profile in great detail, please, because if you're like, hey, ‘I'm Christy, here's my demo, the end,’ that's not compelling enough. We want to have those details. We want to have multiple demos in order for people to hear different versions of us. Mark us as a favorite and we'll get to work, right?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes. Well, thank you for sharing all of that. I think it was really helpful for people to know just how important a web presence is of any kind, right? Because that's where the clients are looking, unless they're someone who's always worked the same agency for 30, 40 years and just flipping through a Rolodex, either likely online, using Google or another search engine to try to find what they're looking for. And you want to be there at the point of sale, which is essentially one of the marketplaces online. So now that we know a bit more about why marketing and having a niche is important, what are some reasons why a voice actor would not be seeing results from their marketing efforts and what can they do to fix that?

Christy Summers:

Oh, goodness. I would say the number one reason why somebody wouldn't see something from their marketing efforts is due to lack of follow up. And this is specifically really when you're reaching out to production houses, you're reaching out to talent agents, you're reaching out to individual companies, that you are taking the steps to cold market or something like that. I would say the number one reason people are frustrated with their marketing efforts is because they're like, well, I reached out. Yeah. I would say, how many times did you reach out? Well, once six months ago, well, no wonder you're not hearing anything back, right? You have to be able to do two things when you're marketing yourself. One is following up in a non harassing yet consistent manner so that you're staying in front of the people's face. The second thing you've got to do in that follow up is add value to what you're doing. Share an article with them, comment on something that they're posting online, add value to the business that they're producing, that gets their attention far more than, ‘hey, can I have a job?’

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah.

Christy Summers:

Hey, can I be on your roster? That's just not going to be compelling to people. People who are looking for us are only viewing us voice actors in relation to what they're doing. I hate to say it and I'm not meaning to be mean, but they really don't care about you and what you've got going on. They are so wrapped up in the project to get finished and we are a wonderful, wonderful piece of that project. They're looking at us as, how is this person adding value to what I need to get done? If we can express that multiple times in our follow ups to customers, we're more likely to get their attention.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Follow up is key. We used to have this saying we'd write on our whiteboard ages and ages ago at our first office in our home and what it said on the whiteboard was, ‘phone calls close deals’ because they do. You follow up or you talk to somebody or you just keep that communication going, then you're going to see results and obviously not all clients want to be phoned. I can't even think of the number of people who are like, ‘just email me. I prefer text.’ There are different ways of communicating social media through LinkedIn. If you're cold calling and you're not getting through, I know a lot of people don't want to pick up the phones because they're afraid that if they do pick up the phone, it'll be someone selling them something, which is kind of what you're doing. But also just the whole like, ‘what if it's like one of those phone calls where they want to capture your voice print’ and there's a lot of people who just simply will not pick up the phone if they don't know the number that's reaching out. Have you found that to be a problem in your own practice? What do you say about phone calls? Do you think cold calling is effective?

Christy Summers:

It can be, but I would say in regards to how we reach out to people, do your research because most of the time, they will tell you how they prefer to be reached out to. Whether it's fill out this form on my website, whether it's, hey, give us a call here anytime, whether it's emails only and the end, or if that person is active on social media, whether it be LinkedIn, Twitter or whatever, they're most likely very open to messages that way as well. So I think, is cold calling right or wrong? Yes, it's both right and wrong, depending on the customer. And that's where it's our responsibility to know who we are trying to reach out to and communicate with them in a manner that best suits them.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And that's so much like voice over though, Christy, you have to know your audience. You have to know who you're talking to, why they should care, why you're the right person to be giving the message and how you should reach them in a way that matters and will mean something to them. So very good tips there. And we've got time for one more question before we go. And essentially, how long does it take for voice talent to start seeing an uptick in opportunities once they have learned and are successfully marketing themselves?

Christy Summers:

So I have a very precise answer to that. It varies.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Of course, of course. Right?

Christy Summers:

So from the person, I would say once you start hard marketing yourself, it can take anywhere from three to five years to build that full robust business of loyal repeat customers. And three to five years, maybe like, oh my gosh, really, it takes that long to build that solid book of business to where the majority of your motion in your business is not marketing yourself. It's actually client gigs. Yes, I would say it's three to five years. And guys, it's a slog. Like to market over and over, it can be discouraging, but it's something that has to be done. So I would say after about six months to a year of hard marketing, you're following up, you should be seeing some traction in the deals that you're getting. Now is it a full way to pay your bills? That I don't know because what opportunities did the universe grant you? I have no idea because there's everything from, hey, this job's, you know, a couple hundred bucks to, oh my gosh, we need you to do our e-learnings forever. And that's fantastic, right? So it really depends on the opportunities that come our way and the needs of our business to determine what, you know, quote, successful is in voice over.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yeah, I think it also, like it greatly depends on, and I was thinking about this when I asked the question, but just how well you know your own brand and what your niche is and so on, because you could be doing all the right textbook marketing activities and follow up on schedule and being cordial and happy and, ‘oh, would love to work with you,’ but if you actually don't know what your strengths are or why someone would want to work with you or even like, let's say you get your niche wrong and you keep throwing yourself at something that you're really not good at, you will not see results from that that are any good that will make you some money, right? But yeah, I think that all these opportunities that do come to people, I do believe they happen for a reason and that it's not, you know, something that's an accident. So when you're specifically working toward creating a business where you intend to add value and to share your gift with the world, the one that you were created to do, then I think that if you're smart about it, and by smart, I mean like you're thinking like, yeah, business-wise, but also just emotionally, like, is this the work I want to do? Is it what I'm good at and have some feedback from a variety of people that you trust, coaches, mentors, peers; friends and family may not give you the real deal. They might just, you know, not want to, they may sugarcoat. But it's important that we are always just honest with ourselves with what we're good at because no matter how good you are as a marketer, like if your product doesn't stand up to your marketing message, then that's going to fail.

Christy Summers:

Absolutely. And that's why in, you know, Crack the Code to VO Marketing, step number one is who are you and what do you have to offer? Because you cannot go on to market actively marketing yourself until you have that answer.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Yes. And that is an answer I think a lot of people are going to be thinking about this week. So thank you so much for helping us to understand and appreciate just what does go into, you know, doing this properly, how to market yourself and identifying your niche. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Christy, and we're happy that you could be with us here today.

Christy Summers:

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a blast.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And that's the way we saw the world through the lens of voice over this week. Thank you for listening and for following the show. And thank you especially to our guest, Christy Summers, who just gave you a roadmap of sorts for figuring out the kind of work that you should focus on, your niche, and how to get more of that work in your voice acting career. Don't forget to follow up and market properly or market effectively. So to learn more about Christy and her business, Daytime Hero, go to daytimehero.co. That is dot-co, not dot-com, dot-co, daytimehero, dot-co. For Voices, I'm Stephanie Ciccarelli, Vox Talk is produced by Geoff Bremner. We're thrilled that you could spend time with us today, and as always, we will look forward to seeing you next week.