A Glimpse of Things To Come

Good Morning Fellow Orators,

Today’s post is a collection of news items related to me or the Voice Over industry in general. As you know by now I am in the middle of moving and revamping my blog. By moving the blog to my own servers this will give me a little more flexibility to provide some value added services to the Voice Over community.

New Blog Features

Some of the new features in the blog will include:

1. A Scam alert section where people who have fallen victim to Scam artists can submit that person’s name or company name and get a chance to warn other voice over artists from being victims as well. This section will probably be a little controversial which is why I will need that a scammer’s name be corroborated by at least 2 VO artists of repute before the scam artist is placed on the permanent list.
2. There will be a Seminars & Workshops Section where I will have a calendar of upcoming seminars and workshops listed there. The free seminars and workshops will be listed for free and the paid workshops can be listed in that section for $10 per listing. This section will also include conferences and any VO related events that can benefit the VO professional
3. I will add the ability to follow a comment thread if you have commented on any of my posted articles. This request seems to be popular and several people have requested it.

I am in the process of beta testing the site with a few of the regular readers and so far the input has been positive. If you would like to be a beta tester and preview the new site and give me feedback and improvement suggestions email me at the address in the sidebar.

A Message from Ed Victor (Aka the Big Gun)

I’m subscribed to several voice over groups on LinkedIn and one of them called ” The Working Voice Actor Group” sent me this message by their administrator Ed Victor…

Hey everyone, It’s been a while and I haven’t had much to say as of late. Nothing to really stir up any kind of meaningful discussion. Over the past year we’ve bantered around everything from unions and agents to the pay to play web sites. Always good for a rousing debate!
You see, when I do initiate an announcement/discussion I really want to get group members thinking, participating and offering very thoughtful comments and advice. And as you may have surmised, I like to base my discussions on real events that have affected me and hopefully you, as working voice actors as well.
So, as the year draws to a close I am taking a good hard look at my return on marketing investment. I mean, besides equipment – that’s probably what we spend the most on. At least I do.
So here’s my assessment of what I will and will not do in the coming year and perhaps you can discuss what has or hasn’t worked for you.
1. Ads on Facebook – Nope…big waste of money. Lots of curious people clicking on my ads and costing me money. But no work. Same goes for Linkedin. Even more expensive and zip on the return.
2. Pay to Plays – Nope – they don’t work for me. Maybe they work for you. I didn’t renew one and won’t renew the other. The auditions clog my mailbox and its getting ridiculous to even win a job.
3. Management – Nope – they can’t do anything more than I can on my own. Big Agents aren’t signing so what’s the point.
4. Ads in Trade Publications – Nope. Again, big waste of money for me.
5. Email blasts. Yep. Works every time. I get at least one gig or at least a qualified audition every time I send one.
6. Blogging – Nope. Hasn’t done anything for me.
7. Webisodes – on the fence. Lots of time and effort and zero marketing return. It may move me up on Search Engine Optimization but hasn’t really done anything to increase work.
Well that’s about it for me…now what’s your marketing strategy for 2010.
Let er rip!

You can read the discussion here.

If you have any comments or suggestions for the new blog (suggested features that is) then please leave a comment and speak your mind!

Taji