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Every business has a brand and as Mitch Joel will tell you, every individual has a personal brand.
In the case of voice over, most folks are one person shops so the individual voice talent is often the brand. And by virtue of their sole proprietorship, their personal brand is often front and center.
BRAND = PROFITS
How prospective clients and even the general business community or passersby view your brand impacts your bottom line. You’ve got to understand this as fact. If you don’t, the rest of this post will be meaningless.
We are only aware of about 1/3 of the opinions people have of our brands (my very rough estimate, no science here) meaning that 66% of opinions on our brand – that thing on which we base our livelihoods – never makes it back to us.
We don’t know what potential clients are saying about our brand – personal or otherwise (yikes!) – which is why we must be ardent stewards of our own brands.
So when I see web examples of really poor branding (in my opinion) my head starts to throb. Not in anger or anything like that -more like pity because I know that I am hardly the only person who’s noticed these mis-steps. And they are too often so easy to fix/avoid.
LET’S SEE THE BODIES
Now of course, you want to see (and thereby have me “out”) the sites and their owners I will reference here because you’re also the person who slows down to gawk at accidents, I know. Well no dice.
It’s hurtful to single out someone specifically and that’s not my goal nor is it the point of this post.
“But,” you ask, “isn’t it hurtful to speak badly about a person’s branding even vaguely?”
Yes which is why I won’t be speaking badly about anyone. I will be pointing out mis-steps in branding and design which you can be sure to avoid. I will do this without specifically “brand-spanking” the sites that incited this post (I call copyright on brand spanking!).
“Yet by not being specific, aren’t you speaking behind their back, you backstabbing bastard?!”
Firstly, watch your language, potty mouth 😉 . Second, the point here is to get everyone to look at their own web sites and branding more critically. For some readers, the concept of branding is totally new. If you see some of yourself in any of my forthcoming comments, get offended if you wish but that would just be a waste of time. Rather see if you might want to at least think of revising your branding or presentation. Branding is an ever evolving process anyway…on-going analysis is always good.
CLUTTER IS NOT CONTENT
The first site is from a fairly well know media professional and educator. The site looks like it was designed in 1997 and really hasn’t changed much. There’s a blog that isn’t really a blog, text in sooooo many different colors that the Rainbow Coalition may sue for copyright infringement and its almost nothing but miles and miles of copy in 8 point font. It is jumbled and disorganized (to the eye) and if there is great content somewhere in there, you’ll burn your retinas trying to find it.
Note I said this media professional is an educator – credibility must be one of the hallmarks of his/her brand. Smart and somewhat sophisticated must be some of the other immediate impressions. They seem to be using a do-it-yourself web program and have put no thought into web design. Bad idea.
Based on this site, I could never train with this person even if they were the Albert Einstein of voice over. It would never be apparent how talented they might be. And isn’t that the saddest part of all…one who might be enormously talented gets ignored because (personal opinion only) their brand, their persona sucks?
Ours is not a bricks and mortar business, as it used to be. Often the web is the building. The wrapping paper matters and assuming that using the Sunday comics will be good enough for a web design (as is the impression I get with this person’s really bad design choices) well, that is a really bad plan for branding.
Simple, clean, uncluttered design is best. Among the most simple and effective voice web site designs out there are Bruce Miles and Dan Nachtrab. Certainly, their great voices are what sell you but their personal branding is professional – in two very different ways. Both enjoy good SEO success too.
BRANDING AND POSITIONING
Now let’s chat for a minute about how you position yourself in the voice over market place and how that fits into branding. This is going to be a sensitive area for a lot of industry people because the site I saw tonight positioned itself on being one the cheapest voice over service out there. They said they were “good” but their primary point of difference was low price – clear as a bell.
Point of fact, not opinion: every business has a low cost provider and there’s money to be made in them thar hills. Full disclosure (more on the opinion side of the fence here): I have a tremendous bias against such providers in any business because I think it lessens the value of an industry. And (completing the disclosure) I have, on occasion, shopped at Wal-Mart.
I think that low ball providers in voiceover are so bad because technology has given birth to thousands of talentless hacks who think they are voice talents and are willing (it seems, anyway) to pay their clients to let them do their voice work. “Cheap” is becoming synonymous (if not a standard expectation) with the voice over industry and that devalues everyone’s product. (Let the battle begin on that little paragraph).
The individual whose site I referenced this post was not talentless. The voice I heard was a fine radio voice doing spots – nothing bad there. The design was not awful either. It wasn’t inspiring but it did seem functional and that won’t hurt his branding. The mis-spellings on the copy might (says this author, who is a terrible proofreader) .
POINT OF DIFFERENCE
Back to the brand’s major point of difference: cheap. While maybe profitable volumetrically (and God bless ’em for putting food on the table – that part I get and respect) I heard a level of client on the demos and saw a level of client in the testimonials that I kind of expected. Not exactly Chico’s Bail Bonds (that of “Bad News Bears” fame) but in the neighborhood. When you say you’re the cheapest, there will always be a certain client you attract – and many more you won’t.
Check the synonyms for the word “cheap”. I don’t want to be high priced Harry but I know the value of my talent and of my brand. Cheap and its associated meanings are not something I think are worth promoting. There are tons of branding options – stay away from cheap.
Thanks for reading.
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Tags: announcers, commentary, marketing, search engine marketing, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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