Marketing/Branding

The Radio Imaging Panel At OneVoice Conference USA

July 5, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

Why I wanted to Do It

So if you asked me when I got into voice over what I dreamt of doing, I would have told you that “I want to be a Disney princess,”or “I hope to book a target commercial.” Never did I utter the words, “I want to do radio imaging.” Why? Because I had no idea that this genre of voice over even existed, or what it meant to be a female radio imaging voice for a station. I actually attended a GVAA webinar that J. Michael Collins did on radio imaging and a light bulb went off in my head. All of this energy, enthusiasm, and passion that I was constantly having to tone down for my conversational commercial voice over reads was what made me perfect for radio imaging! That enthusiasm was the essential ingredient for station liners, stingers, promos… anything necessary in imaging!

Over the years, I have worked really hard to build my radio imaging business. Each station that i work with I found on my own and I negotiated the contract on my own. I have small stations all over. Some I work with on monthly retainers, some on quarterly retainers, others as needed. Some I do everything, from copy writing and voice over to coordinating the mix-down and production of their work. For others, I am just the female voice of the station. When my VO besties and I decided to meet up in Dallas for the OneVoice Conference USA this August, we planned to do a panel about our accountability group. For me, that is a big part of who I am, but that is not all that I am. I wanted to be able to share with others my unique path into a genre that I very much love.

In Good Company

The team at OneVoice put together an all-star panel for Radio Imaging. I am elated to be on stage with these folks. In addition to me, the others include Randy Thomas, Joe Cipriano, AJ McKay, Paul Cartwright, and Brent Williams. I have to say, to be up there with Randy blows my mind a little. When J. Michael and AJ did my first multi-format imaging demo back in 2017, and I asked how to get started in radio imaging, JMC connected me with Randy. She suggested that I fly out to LA for her VO Mastery conference, which turned out to be amazing. Since then, she has been a mentor to me. While there, I took a master class with Joe Cipriano in promos. It was incredible. I had been a working pro for quite some time at that point, but was new to radio imaging. To be on a stage with them means so much. If you don’t know, in addition to voicing countless radio stations around the country, Randy has announced the Oscars, the Super Bowl, and the Tonys! Joe Cipriano is a man who typically needs no introduction, but just in case you’ve been locked in a broom closet, he has been the voice of Fox and CBS for over 25 years. AJ McKay is a well known talent, coach, and creative director and has worked with the best in the biz! Paul Cartwright is a well-established British talent, now based in LA, who has worked with top brands. And finally Brent Williams it the creative services director of Z100 in NY!! The Station I listen to every day! So yes, this radio imaging panel is one that you will want to watch!

What Do I Have to Offer

When I first looked at this line up, I was ecstatic, then I got nervous. Then I realized the very reason I was nervous is why I need to be on the panel. You see, unlike people like Randy and AJ, I did not work into radio imaging because of a background in radio or work as a DJ. I know lots of brilliant talents… Issa Lopez, Chad Ericson, Josh Goodman, Jeff Berlin… who all started as DJs and got into imaging. I am different. I came to voice over in my mid-thirties. I have always booked a lot of commercials. I love doing commercials. I have a ton of energy, and I needed to find what else was in that category. I love working with my radio stations for imaging. From CHR, to Christian, to Oldies to Adult Hits, I am happy in many formats. But you can’t just record a demo and hope that the universe sends you work. Having work in imaging requires consistent, daily follow up. It takes commitment and hard work. It takes determination. Talent and the ability to voice the liners is only a small part of booking imaging work, especially for those of us not from Radio. So I am on this panel to talk about how a determined, hardworking, focused, ambitious voice actor built a solid radio imaging business all on her own.

5 Top Questions Your Should Ask a Demo Producer

March 22, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

Getting Started

For us voice over professionals, few things are more exciting than doing a new demo! It’s up there with booking a huge commercial campaign, getting signed by an agent, and seeing an old friend. Why is a new demo so exciting? A voice over demo means opportunity. It is a new moment for us to say here I am, listen to this. This is what I can do for you! As a full-time, professional voice over talent, there are plenty of other female voice over actors booking lots of commercials. How do I make myself get noticed? The demo. So who you do your demo with, the coach and producer you choose to spend your time and money with matters, a lot. I have worked with some of the top coaches in the field, and I can tell you that I have had outstanding experiences and I have had experiences hat should have been better. Now that I am work as a voiceover coach and am on a demo production team myself, I am trying to educate my students along the way, so that they understand what to look for and how to advocate for themselves. Here are some questions you should ask every single time you do a new demo, whether it is a commercial demo or another genre:

What is your script selection process like?

In my mind, the demo script selection process should be collaborative. The coach should work with you to find scripts that show both your range and are appropriate for your brand. If you have dream VO clients, this is the time to include those scripts. So for example, if you are doing an automotive demos, and you love Audi, you would include an Audi script. If you are doing a commercial demo and you love shopping at target, why not include a target spot? The scripts should not simply descend from above on demo day, be handed to you, and recorded. They should be meaningful to you and they should show both your range and what matters to you. They can be an interesting glimpse into your interests too! So, it is very important that you can easily talk to your voice over coach or demo producer about the scripts that you have.I find it to be the ultimate irony that we use our voice to speak for others, but often, even when we are making investments in our own business, if can be so hard to advocate for what makes the right sense for us. The strength of your demo very much depends on your scripts and you should love them!

2. How will the Demo Session Go?

Whether you are recording in person in a recording studio or remotely via Source Connect, ipDTL, or Zoom, the Demo Session is extremely important. It is your day to shine. Put frankly, you should be the star and by put on a pedestal on demo day. Nothing else matters except your ability to rock every spot. Since you have likely worked with your coach before, by the time you get to the demo, they should be able to bring out your best. There should not be any drama. I have worked with some coaches who move very quickly from script to script and some who spend a lot of time going through each script so they have lots of options, but at the end of the day you should feel amazing about your session. Anything short of that is not ideal.

3. Where do the video clips come from?

The world of video demos presents voice actors with an exciting opportunity to market yourself. Whether you are new to VO or new to a genre, having a video demo either gives you an instant bod of work in voice over or it immediately enhances your existing body of work. The catch, though, is that you cannot simply take an existing video or commercials and dub over it. That is not legal and violates all sorts of copy write laws. Instead, video producers, like the team that I work with at All Systems Go AV, need to pay to belong to a content library where they are legally and lawfully accessing the content. A video demo by any other means can get you into trouble.

The exception to using branded content is if you are putting together a video reel of actual work that you yourself have done. If you are the actual voice in the video, and were part of the team, you can then have a reel produced using the branded content! Those are amazing marketing tools and are legitimately yours to use.

Take a look at this demo. Ever single clip here is legitimately used from a content library my team pays to have a membership from. These logos, while they may seem familiar to you, have been altered more than 30% from the original, and are also legitimate to use. Every video demo should be done this way so that you are never at risk of having to remove it.

https://youtu.be/qBE2CK8h0D0

Laura Schreiber Commercial Demo 2021 Produced by All Systems Go AV (https://youtu.be/qBE2CK8h0D0)

4. Deliverables: What is part of the package?

Different coaches price demos differently, so you are often not comparing apples to apples. Some coaches include some sessions, a video demo, and an MP3, others are charging for an MP3 only. You need to be very clear about what you are getting from the coach for their fee. When my team does a video demo, it includes necessary prep, script selection, the video demo as a whole and in parts, and the MP3 as a whole and in parts.

5. Is the demo producer flexible with the order of the spots?

This is really important. Demo producers typically send you their preferred order, but at the end of the day the demo is yours to live with and their preferred order matters less than your preferred order. I personally have had demo producers make changes without any fuss, and I worked with others who refuse to make any changes at all and insist that it must stay the way it is.

Who do You Take VO Advice From?

March 3, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

https://youtu.be/pQ6A40S07Xs

Who should you take VO advice from? (https://youtu.be/pQ6A40S07Xs)

The Seed Was Planted

Back in 2015 I heard Bill DeWees say something ot the effect of “be elective about who you take advice from” for your voice over business. This stuck with me. I have always solicited advice from Bill, because I think he gives very sound guidance, but there are not many people beyond my husband and a few in my inner circle that I trust for true guidance. With the new addition of Clubhouse on the social media front, I think we have to ask ourselves who is really qualified to advise us about our voice over business, and who do we actually want to take guidance from. There is a slippery slope of participating in the dialogue and identifying as an expert when someone is actually far from it. Yesterday I sat in on some Clubhouse sessions during my lunch hour. As a seasoned professional in voice over with years of experience, I can easily evaluate which information has relevance and value to be and which should be tossed out immediately. My concern, though, is that for those who are knew to the voice over industry, they will look to both Clubhouse or social media in general in lieu of much needed coaching and not know enough to filter out the mis-information. So, this begs the question, who should you be taking advice from in voice over?

Coaches

The job of a voice over coach is to teach voice talents to succeed. Whether a coach is working with you on your craft, or on building your business, a good coach can be trusted to help you build a solid foundation for your business. When I work with students, I always work on both professional development as we work with various scripts, but every session also works on business goals as well. Whether you are working towards a demo, or marketing a new demo, voice actors often need direction to help move their business along. The right coach will help you with your individualized goals.

Agents

There are talent agents who cast voice actors all over the counts, and they, too, are outstanding for career and rates advice in voice over. A good agent not only secures industry leading rates, they also direct you reads and let you know when you are on the mark and when you need improvement. An agent has both business savvy and a good ear, so if you are lucky enough to be on their roster, work with them! Seek their guidance and build a rapport. You can learn so much for a good agent. Both you and the agent benefit from you learning as much as possible, so they would likely want to help as much as they can.

Established Voice Talents

Advice from established voice talents is very valuable. When I say established, this is not necessarily an amount of time. Instead, a good indicator of how a talent is doing is their client list. If they are booking a lot with brands we all know and love, that is a goos sign indicator that they talent knows what they are doing and you can trust them to give sound advice.

I have blogged before about my accountability group, but I cannot stress enough how much this group has helped me daily to grow my business and make better choices. They have pushed me beyond boundaries I would have never thought to challenge, and they have made me look beyond. I am so much better because I am in the company of these women.

I have also blogged about voice over conferences before, but this is another great way to interact with voice actors. Typically you can learn so much from those who present at conferences. You can also meet others and build relationships with many at the conferences, and these bonds endure, even during the pandemic.

Many voice actors offer guidance on social media. On Facebook their are groups for voice actors. For those of us who have been in the industry, we know who is new and who is established, and we can determine who we want to listen to. If you are knew to voiceover, please be discerning while online.

Conclusions

As professional voiceover actors, we put so much of ourselves into our businesses. It is not just the time we spend training and building our booths, but we invest a lot financially too. Between the equipment, the demos, and the websites, starting a voiceover business is no small venture. So please, do not just jump on the bandwagon of every ninny with an iphone. Scrutinize your options and be clear about who you are following and who you take guidance from. As a voice actor and business owner, you have choices. Choose wisely and safely for yourself so that you can build a consistent and sustainable business.

Rebranding my Voice Over Business and Website

February 21, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

Why Did I Need A Change?

As a professional voice over actor, I think a lot about the vibe that my clients and my industry friends get when they visit my website, my virtual storefront. Back in 2015, I worked with the amazing Anne Ganguzza and Sara Waters to come up with my original branding. I loved it. As a new business, it was the perfect look. It was refreshing and upbeat. The colors were spot on and it was timely. I was building my body of work, and for a while the site worked perfectly.

While this logo matched my original branding, I never loved it. It did, however, match everything so it worked well on social media.

I worked with a separate graphic designer to do my first logo. I had heard from lots of people in the industry that having things like a microphone in your logo was very “over-played.” At the time, I listened. I went for a simple logo that matched my branding. The problem was that I never loved the logo. I never loved the font. I soon realized I never loved the font on my website, it just did not feel like me. So I chose a different fond on my logo, but I too felt like that was just off. For years I chose to only have my logo on items like invoices and rate cards, but nowhere else. It was beautifully done, it just was not me.

Over time, I am proud to have built a strong voice over business. As a working mom, I want clients to see the fierce passion with which I approach every project. While I am upbeat and happy, and do still love pink, there was an edge that my previous branding lacked. I almost felt that version was what you would expect if you know me briefly, but I wanted people to see all sides of me, so it was time to rebrand and really show folks who I am and what I have to offer.

Starting With My VO Logo

The logo redesign matters a lot to me. Just as often as I work with agents and video production companies, I am also often hired by law firms or accountants who need new phone systems or explainers and they want to work with me directly. I wanted clients who were in no way connected to VO to look at my logo and know what field I worked in.I felt very strongly about this. Frankly, if I could have had a microphone, sound booth, wave form, and headphones all on my logo I would have!

I was thrilled with the way Sara incorporated my favorite colors, leopard print, and a microphone. This font also represents my personality well.

I had all of this in mind and had to decide who was going to do the work. I have had a very close friendship with my website team at Voice Actor Websites. If you know Joe Davis and Karin Barth, they are incredible people and very good at SEO. I had no desire to change that. While they do have artists on their team, I was considering bringing someone else on board. I just wanted something different. I began reaching out to lots of different folks. When I spoke to Sara Noto of Notobella designs, we clicked. She just got it and I knew I wanted to work with her on the graphic elements of the site. I connected Sara, Joe, and Karin, and we were in motion.

Sara was a delight to work with. She asked questions that no one else asked. She asked me what my favorite flowers were and what my favorite shade of pink is. I was elated. I knew the direction was the right one. She began sending options of logos, and I was so excited. We got where I wanted to be very quickly and from there everything fell into place.

Choice I Had To Make

As I said before, there were elements of my previous branding that I loved. I loved a lot of the pink. I did not love the contrast between the pink and the black. Instead of the bubbles I had before, we whose to do something that combined my favorite flowers and leopard print. Again, I wanted this to have some edge to it, while retaining some warmth.

I was also worried about my SEO. The reason I wanted Sara to work with Joe and his team, was that Joe explained that any changes I made could effect my SEO, and that was frightening. So, every design element was made with SEO in mind.

It All Came Together

I am thrilled with how my voice over branding came together. As a female voice actor, it’s hard to come up with something new and different. There are so many great sites out there. I decided to be myself, despite the advice of some of the other designers I spoke to, and I am so thankful I did. There are some big changes on this site. For

This is me with my precious dogs in Philly, and I was thrilled with the choice to use personal photos.

example, the photos used were take in my booth when I was speaking at an eLearning conference via zoom last June. I love that they are action shots and I have my headphones on. The new picture on my contact page has both of my dogs and was take by my sister at my parents’ house in Philly where I grew up. I love this photo and it means so much to me. We also got rid of the sliders at the top which should reduce the load time. The other item that was eliminated was my instagram feed. I have mixed feelings about this, because I thought it was fun having it there, but I think it is more important to have a client-centered site and think about what they need to see when they are casting a new project.

Making changes can be hard. Everyone seems to have an opinion, even when you don’t ask for it. I think if you intend to re-brand, wait to make the investment until YOU know what YOU want. After all, the purpose of the brands is for you clients to know what makes you stand out from your competitors, so if others impose their opinion on you and their ideas take over, you will never get the branding you love.

Why Voice Actors Need Their Own Brand

September 27, 2020 by Laura Schreiber

…. When We Are the Voice Of the Brands Everyone Knows and Loves

Brand Identity

When I started working with my first voice over coach, Anne Ganguzza, I loved her website. It made her standout not just from other voice over actors but from other coaches. It was bold, it was easy to navigate, and it established Anne as a professional. In large part, because of the brand that Anne created on her website before ever speaking with her I trusted that Anne was a voice over professional and if I worked with her I would be successful. This is no accident. If you met Anne Ganguzza, then you know that she is a branding genius.

As voice over actors, daily we play both the role of the talent and the role of the small business owner. Immediately in 2015 I decided that not only would I coach with Anne but I would hire her to help build my brand, as I needed to learn all that I could from her. She hit the nail on the head, working hard to get to know me so that the brand that we built for Laura Schreiber Voice is truly a reflection of the work that I do and what I bring to my clients. As a working creative, we are in a unique role because we ultimately get hired by other brands to represent them, but it is in solidly establishing our own unique brand that we can distinguish ourselves from others in our industry. According to Forbes article from March 2018, “your brand often acts as a function of your reputation and visibility.” As a professional voice over actor, it is essential to establish your brand so that your clients will get to know you as an individual and will trust you as a professional.

Your Website

As a solopreneur, your brand begins with your website. It is your store front. Clients can listen to your demos, see samples of your booked work, and find out how to contact you. Those are the basics, but the fun begins when you use your website to do two things: show clients how you are different than other voice over actors and how you will best meet their needs. Kristin Wendys of The SelfEmployed.com advises “Think first with the eyes of a client and analyze what he is looking for, what are his biggest concerns, and what problems he needs to solve.” Some voice actors have brief summaries so that clients can quickly learn about their services, but much in the way that I am very chatty, my website is overflowing with long narrative explanations that I hope will help my clients connect with me.

Your Logo

Visual images help create your brand and your logo is very much a part of this. I have both an avatar that I love and a Laura Schreiber Voice Logologo. I use them both differently. My logo is on official correspondences like invoices with my avatar is on my business cards, thank you notes, return address labels, stickers… all marketing materials essential to establishing my business brand. According to Entrepreneur, “Simple branding is best, especially if you can make an association in people’s minds that helps them remember you.” My hope is that the feeling that people get when they see my logo and avatar will help build our connection. Everything associated with my brand is very pink and matches.

Why Clients Need To Understand Your Brand to Relate to You

The more clients feel that the know you, the more they will trust you and want to work with you. They want to know not just that you can do the job, but that you will make their life easier because they trusted you to do the job over someone with similar abilities and qualifications. It is wonderful to meet clients in person, but now more than ever this is not often possible, so your brand helps clients get to know you!

What Your Brand Enables you to Do When Marketing

As small business owners, building a brand that clients recognize enables them to hire us directly in lieu of going through a casting site or a talent agency. This direct rapport, booking through our website without our middleman, is the goal of our branding. If we are savvy enough to create a unique brand, we have an opportunity to book voice work directly. According to Forbes in October 2019, “By definition, brand familiarity is the process of creating brand presence by providing awareness, emotional connection, value, accessibility and relevant differentiation for your audience. Building strong brand familiarity is one of the most significant hurdles companies face.” If you are getting direct bookings, this is a great sign you are doing a good job with your brand and if you are not you likely need to keep working on it.

Here are some useful links if you want to research more about branding for solopreneurs:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/349667

https://www.forbes.com/sites/yec/2018/03/15/how-to-build-your-brand-as-a-solopreneur-in-2018/#3ce49ef69631

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223070

https://www.theselfemployed.com/10-branding-hacks-for-solopreneurs/https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/10/22/to-convert-more-customers-focus-on-brand-awareness/#f5d566d20759

How the Ability to Upgrade My VO Website Represents my VO Journey as a Whole

July 19, 2020 by Laura Schreiber

The Importance of Amazing Website People

Laura Schreiber with Team for Voice Actor Websites and Kim Handysides and Shelley Avellino — It was a true joy when Karin Barth, Joe Davis, Kim Handysides and her husband Ed, and Shelley Avellino came to visit!

If you are in voice over and you have never met Joe Davis and his right hand woman Karin Barth of Voice Actor websites, that

would surprise me. They are incredible people. I don’t know what the average professional voice actor’s relationship is like Joe and Karin, but they are warm, trustworthy, and brilliant with everything from website design to SEO. If our website is our store front in voice over, it is essential to have a solid relationship with the folks who run your store front. Having a solid relationship with people like Joe and Karin is so easy, they are two of the kindest, hardest working people I have every met. I can think of dozens of examples of times when I have had “emergencies” and they have been supportive and helpful, and one time when I changed my email signature (which they of course designed and coded) and I could not get it to load in my iPhone, Joe offered to fly from Florida to New York to help. Now that is customer service. So to say that I am appreciative of the team at voice actor websites and that I depend on them would be accurate. It would also be accurate to say that the success of my business is intertwined and inextricably linked to my voiceover website. Consequently, the journey I have taken with my voice over website is representative of my voice over journey as a whole.

https://youtu.be/2_RNm68QpPE

Voice Actor Websites Team- What Makes A Great Voiceover Website (https://youtu.be/2_RNm68QpPE)

How it All Started

Laura Schreiber With Brad Newman and — Here I am with Brad Newman of Upper Level Hosting and Nazia Chaudry at VOcation

It all started with a single scrolling webpage. I did not know about Brad Newman, sadly, years ago and I had to deal with host gator hosting and that is another long story, but I am also so very thankful to have hosting with Brad now and have the joy of his outstanding customer service at Upper Level Hosting. Anyway, I had one scrolling page. There was a menu at the top and if you clicked on it the cursor would jump to the section selected, so it felt like there were multiple pages, but really there was just one page. When my page was first created, I was very concerned with branding. I worked with Anne Ganguzza and she came up with the concept you see today. While branding was on my mine, SEO was not. The initial website that launched in March 2016 looked amazing. I was so proud. It was breathtaking.

Initially I did not Do Anything On My Own

When I started my business, Sara Waters designed the site and Joe was in the picture, but he was not the entire picture. At some point early on he ran the show. The transition was seamless because I cannot pinpoint a moment in time when the transition occurred, it was juts my friend Joe running things and before I knew it the more I worked with him the more he and his team became my friends. I did not do a single thing for my website on my own. NOT. ONE. THING. Here is a list of basic support I got from the team at voice actor websites:

adding client logos
adding testimonials
adding and/or updating demos
adding/posting blogs
SEO services
eSignatures
marketing materials
social media banners and updates

I was extremely dependent on Joe’s team. First, once I tried to do an update myself and made a big mess of my page. Next, it saved me time to have them do it. Time they were doing these services is time that I could be in the booth recording or simply doing other things. I lacked a skill set that they all had, and their expertise was extremely reassuring. Not only was it reassuring, but it helped me to establish myself as a professional in my field.

The Big Upgrade

Home-NEW

In 2018 I made a huge website update. I went from a single scrolling page format to a multi page format. I had amassed an impressive body of booked work to post. I also had worked with so many coaches by that point and had so many professional demos produced that I really needed different pages for each genre so that I could showcase the demo and booked work I had done in a more spectacular, attention getting way. What I did not understand when I initially started the process in 2015 was that my single scrolling page, as beautiful as it was, would never have the SEO that the multi page site has. Joe and his team coordinated efforts. I began writing content and organizing all the video clips. Voice Actor Websites continued to help my professional dreams come true, my store front made a huge leap that year and the website truly became a place to show where I was professionally and all that I can offer my clients.

The Bold Move: Learning to Do Some Things in Word Press

After YEARS in the industry, I have gotten better at time management. I love learning new technology related to anything in voice over. So, I became curious about the workings of Word Press. I wanted to understand the magic that went into adding a logo or inserting a testimonial. I started small. I started by posting my blogs. But one day it occurred to me, if I could post my blogs, then surely I could learn to do more. Karin spent a good bit of time teaching me how, step by step. I made note cards and I was really excited. More than that, I was inspired. I decided to make a bold move and add an entire page to my site.

Covid Response and Emergency Management

I did have one little hiccup when doing it, when I added this page I somehow made my commercial page disappear, but Joe fixed it!

Taking Ownership

I am extremely thankful for all of the support I have gotten from Joe and Karin of the years. Having a team of people who are wonderful like the team that Joe has built has helped make success possible for me. I have no doubt that as time goes on there are many services I will need to pay them for and many lessons I will need, but the sense of pride that I got in being able to upload my own client logos and add content as I want to meant the world to me! As small business owners, voice actors wear a lot of hats. For me, my website was the wild west, and feeling that it is not such uncharted territory fills me with so much joy.