Key Elements to Master for a successful voice-over career

As a child, you were fascinated by the animation voice-over of your favorite cartoon characters, or maybe as an adult, you kept getting compliments about your voice for being something astonishing and right out of commercial or a movie narration. Whatever be the thing propelling you, but you wanted to use your voice to make a career for yourself and build a life. So, you got a voice coach, trained yourself, learned various modulation techniques and other skills, and now you are out in the world alone looking to start your career. But this is not the easy part of being a professional voice-over artist. The reality of the voice-over market is starting to scare you and you are losing all hope. But do not give up yet. You were not able to make it to a good level because you were focused on not so fruitful and career-building things. Here is Voyzapp’s list of essentials to put your efforts on for building a successful voice-over career – These are your key elements that if worked on properly make a successful voice-over career.

Capability –  Create demo reels showing all your capabilities, your vocal range, and modulations, but most importantly, your signature voice. While training with the coach, you must have figured out your signature voice, if not then figure out as soon as possible. Signature voice is the most natural voice that can come out of you without any hindrance and at any time. It creates the most important and baseline for your vocal capabilities. It should not be stylized or modulated; it should just be the one you can give out most naturally. Even if it's not your natural voice, it should definitely sound as it is. The more of you are present in your works and demo reels, the more demand you will get. Ensure that your signature voice is authentic or at least sounds authentic. Keep in mind that your exclusivity and distinctiveness are what sets you apart from the rest.

Marketing – As a voice-over actor, you also need to have marketing skills like promoting, keeping records, etc. The fact about any market, not just the voice-over market is that it is not going to come to you, you have to reach out to it. You cannot rely on things like one day your talent will be discovered. You sure might be one of a kind super talented person, but you also have to make sure you keep meeting more and more people and making them aware of your talent. Your talent can only be discovered if you are in front of the right people. Adding to that you should make ways for interested people to reach you, like business cards, social media, websites. So, in short, you have to put yourself out there and show people why you are worth buying.

Technical Soundness – If you are on your own, you must know the technical aspects like voice-over recording, editing, etc. If you do not have these skills you can easily learn them. Practice those skills of processing, editing, mixing, sound to create a good voice-over reel. Gaining familiarity with the recording software will be another feather in your cap as you will be able to deliver voice-over recordings to the client in different formats.

Planning & Managing – You need to lay down a roadmap, detailing where you started, where you are, and most importantly where you want to go. So, plan out your ideas, visions, aim, goal, whatever you want to call it. If possible, create a realistic timeline – things you want to achieve and the set time frame for it. Now work on your skills and keep meeting people and marketing yourself, while updating your work portfolios. Never say no to a job unless it's really that bad and keep building relationships with your clients and prospects. Keep track of your contacts and clients and keep them updated with the new ones, as these are your most useful marketing tool.

Apart from these four prudent pillars, you should also watch out for –

1. Promise only what you can keep, nothing superficial.
2. Be professional, return e-mails and calls.
3. Be approachable and open to suggestions and feedback.
4. Always deliver before or on time.
5. Always under-promise things and deliver more.
6. Having open communication, it's about fulfilling clients’ needs, so listen and understand their requirements.
7. Always do a follow-up with your clients and as them to provide you with a testimonial, if possible, it could help you land more jobs.

Well, the voice-over industry is quite like any other industry, you need to keep pushing yourself and not give up. Maintain your relations, create a new connection, and stay focused. Creating connections is however quite important and beneficial here. Since, if you have good connections, you can have referrals, and that means more work and more people to create connections with. You can also register yourself on various voice-over marketplaces like Voyzapp – the fastest-growing voice-over marketplace. It acts as a bridge between the artists and clients makes finding the work easy. 

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