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Occasionally I will share some of my insights, experiences and (mostly) mistakes 🙂 about marketing my voiceover business so you can do as I say, not as I do.

In other words, my mistakes show you what not to do – your mileage may vary.

Today’s topic is the oft discussed (here, at least, if not elsewhere) email signature.

The topic is important to voice talents because so many of the daily emails we send out to clients, prospects and even vendors give voice actors an opportunity (via our email signature) to share our business with them, even in the most mundane email communications. People can and do check out email signature links sometimes – we’ve all done it.

Note that I mentioned the email signature as part of daily emails.This would be different from an eblast or mail newsletter which serve a very different purpose and sometimes are produced via 3rd party providers, like MailChimp, etc.

Nope, I’m just talking about daily emails.

So what are the options?

Well there are tons of email signature options and I won’t be drilling down into all of them. I’ll give a real top line look at the most popular options and then discuss what I have done.

Some voiceover folks use a very simple, do-it-yourself email signature that just uses the font of their email, it includes their name, company, website and maybe a phone number. Simple, clean and super free.

Next step up from that are some free services, tricks & tools that allow you to add signatures in gmail and outlook (which are two of the most popular email services). You just have to do a little research to find the specs (ex: the optimal email signature dimensions for gmail are 170 pixels high by 200 pixels wide, etc). Again…it can look fancier, still have links and it’s still free.

But I think sometimes these formats aren’t universally readable on all email platforms – which makes me nervous. I could look unprofessional and not even know it with some of the cheap trick tools.

The next step up from would likely be designing an email signature in Canva. Canva (and other marketing support, design-based web sites) have sized email signature templates. They give you some more artistic control (cool designs) for email templates but links cannot be featured – at least in the designs I saw using free Canva.

And free Canva is the one I have been using for a while now (maybe a year) for my email signature block — it looks great and it conveys information, but you can’t put in links.

The “no links” part had been bothering me for a while. Why?

I really want users to be able to easily and immediately access my email and website information – the faster they get to my website, the faster they have access to all that information.

I want media producers to get to my website so they see all the information I have provided for them to make a smart voiceover talent decision…which would be hiring me, of course.

For some years, I had an email signature with links that I got via Wise Stamp, a company that provides a multitude of plans for email signatures for individuals or companies with scores and scores of  employees. The services for many of these plans can get very involved (think tracking of email opening, lead generation, etc) and with every additional service the cost goes up.

I’ve just used the basic Wise Stamp email signature templates with links, in the past. I liked it because to was always formatted correctly, it worked well with Outlook and GMail on sizing, it didn’t seem to have a problem working on the various email platforms of anyone receiving my emails (they need to be able to read it, after all) and the customization was variable, attractive and easy. It was also of course not free – unless you wanted Wise Stamp branding on your email sig (which was *verboten* in my marketing brain).

Although not free, Wise Stamp usually had a discount price offered so it made it OK. When they dropped the discount over a year ago, I went over to Canva.

The link issue, however (as I mentioned earlier), was becoming something I thought more about. Gnawing at me.

Wise Stamp recently had another discount offering (not as good as in the past)…but it had links. Ok.

So for the next year, I’m going to see if I sleep better with links in my email signature.

Tags: marketing, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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If voiceover talents are honest with themselves, we really aren’t as good as we should be about keep our stores clean, fresh and repainted.

As voiceover talents will tell you, our “stores” are our websites, the heart of our voiceover businesses.

What do we miss?

We forget to update information (outside of voiceover demos, which we are “pretty good” about updating), we forget to update SEO information and stories and/or changing out graphics and on and on. We just get lazy.

Then we voiceover business owners get hit with an idea (like a 2′ x 4′ across the back of our heads) about fixing something on the website and we’re off to the races.

And FYI…alot of the stuff we change is stuff many folks would never ever notice or likely even care about…because you’re living your life, not ours.

I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon (first non-football Sunday of the year) but my idea for voiceover website renovation struck me on Friday.

I was talking with my web developer then about an a new idea I had (more on that in weeks to come…tee hee) when I noticed something, when looking at one of my demo pages.

From 2016 to 2022, my logo featured a handwritten font with my tagline “Your Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent” in a Segoe font.

I created a brain fart of logo in 2023 quickly shifting to my current logo at the start of 2024.

But that Segoe tagline font (2016-2023) was the font I used for my 2020-designed voiceover demo page banners.

So what I noticed Friday was that I had NOT updated my voiceover demo page banners to include the new, correct font from my 2024 logo.

EEEK! ARRRGHH! ZOINKS!! Marketing disaster! (Not really).

And I know you don’t care but this is MY story so just read. It’s a blog for goodness sake. 🙂

So this weekend, I set about redesigning (renovating) all the voiceover demo page logo bars for my website:

I wanted to keep the same general design, fix the “Your Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent” font and then freshen up the font and color design. You can see ALL of the new voiceover demo banners below.

The last page I fixed was my Political Demo page.

While I was looking at that page, I got to thinking that I probably had not been as clear to the political consultants and political commercial producers who visit my Political Commercial demo page about what spots I will do and will not do.

As I have long stated, while I hold no political party affiliation, I will only voice for candidates or political action committees who support the Pro-Life platform.

In an effort to respect the time of those (from any party) looking for a political voice talent, they need to know that about me right away and adjust their attention as needed.

So I decided I need to create a graphic that highlighted my rule that would sit at the top of the page. That has now been added.

There are a couple of other things I may need to add with the web developer’s help but I feel this was a very productive weekend voiceover project that didn’t require any visits to Lowes or Home Depot.

Well done me. 🙂

THE 2020 vs. 2025 BANNER COMPARISON….                                                     

CHARACTER VOICES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMMERCIALS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E-LEARNING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EXPLAINER VIDEOS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIVE ANNOUNCER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MESSAGE ON-HOLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NARRATION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POLITICAL COMMERCIAL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RADIO IMAGING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TV PROMO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: blogs, branding, marketing, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Sometimes the random voiceover business thoughts that shoot through my brain are actually pretty good ones.

This week, for example, out of nowhere came the memory that I had seen a few voiceover talents who have actually put their local city time on their websites.

The concept being that voice talents, like me, work with ad agencies, video production and recording studios all around the globe. We need to communicate our time zones with the studios so producers can coordinate recording schedules faster and more efficiently.

So the question was posed (at first in my head) about if and where to publicly share post a voice actor’s local time zone.

I wanted to solicit opinions from my respected voiceover friends (as opposed to my DISrespected voiceover friends – who are often times more fun to hang out with…for that very reason) as to their thoughts on posting one’s local time – if they did it or not and why they did it or not.

Off to the private Friends of FaffCon Facebook page I went. Many voice actors smarter than me reside there.

While many noted they posted it somewhere on their voiceover website (not always on the front page), the idea that had eluded me was to include my local time zone in my email signature. Many folks included that idea in their response to my query and I thought it was wonderfully simple and effective.

I either have very smart voiceover friends or I am just dumber than an ox.

Either way, as you can see from my now revised email signature above, now my clients know what MY time is.

Tags: commentary, marketing, social media, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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When other voice talents call me about their marketing or how to do marketing, there are many things I try and remind them.

Yes, I hammer on the importance of database and ALL that entails. Marketing plans too. And in reality, the anxiety and eye rolling that these points cause for many voice talents lets me know quickly that they really aren’t cut out for small business or micro business ownership.

But for those who still seem engaged after those two previous points, for those that want to learn more, I try and focus on two more things: be adaptable to change (change is OK) and know that you will make marketing mistakes (and don’t spend the emotional effort beating yourself up about your mistakes).

In my conversations with people, they can really be hard on themselves and feel like they’re failing. They feel like they have to get everything right…folks, it’s not going to happen.

So if you are one of those people, let me share with you the insignificant but maybe helpful (for you) story of my voiceover email signature.

At the beginning of 2024 I did a couple of things for my voiceover business:

1. I created a new logo for my voice acting business that better reflected my voiceover brand in many ways
2. I dropped my paid voice talent email signature tool (it felt like money wasted) and opted for a static design that I created for free from the templates available in Canva (my Canva signature is living proof that such templates make design like this idiot proof — says the idiot)

What you see in the graphic is the email signature that I created in February 2024 and then in July 2024…so 5 months.

Within that 5 months (again, just 5 months)….this Certified Marketing Executive and business owner for 40+ years made the following changes to the tool that is my email signature:

1. I took the logo design that I created (shown in February) over to my graphic designer and I think you can clearly see why it’s worthwhile to hire a professional (so the signature has an updated logo) — that’s the CHANGE
2. In my information ON my email signature in July, you’ll notice there is an additional line of information that was OMITTED, LEFT OUT and FORGOTTEN in the February email signature design – my voiceover credits (that’s the MISTAKE)

This last part is a significant omission/mistake because many media producers – whether they like to admit it or not – prefer to work with voice actors with national brand credits. It’s not that Chico’s Bail Bonds is not a respectable account (and I have voiced for many smaller brands) but if you have those recognizable credits, it gives you a leg up in the eyes of some hiring producers.

But this experienced marketer, this “certified wizard of marketing” (I just made that up), this guy WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER left off the V.O. credits line from a marketing tool that is easily one of the most visible in my marketing arsenal.

How could I make such a mistake??

Because I was recording voiceover work, because I was producing audio, because I was fielding client calls, because I was sending out emails…because I was and am overwhelmed and I-made-a-mistake.

It’s going to happen and I am truly not beating myself up over it. You should not either – but I KNOW many of you are…knock it off! 🙂

So to summarize:

Yes you can and occasionally should (if warranted) make changes to your marketing – even if it’s only 5 months old – be open (but not a slave) to change.

You are also going to make errors in your marketing…some may even cost you money. Whether they do or not, stop the self-loathing and negative talk. Every darn body makes mistakes.

You. Are. OK.

Hope this helps.

Tags: voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT….in my voiceover career 😉  – I’ve learned from many great voice acting teachers but I also feel some of my best professional learnings have come from my fellow voice actors during workshops and discussions.

One of the best examples of that for me was the FaffCon unconference events. They were awesome but FaffCon – with its wonderful uniqueness – is not coming back.

However, the unconference format (which FaffCon founder and fellow voice actor Amy Snively adopted) is about to make a major comeback in the voiceover industry and I am here for it.

World Voices (WOVO) board member George Washington, III met with Amy some months ago and Amy agreed to train George in the unconference format. While Amy will not be part of the event, WOVOCON (WOVO’s annual member conference) will adopt the unconference format in 2024.

This is not Faffcon redux – this will be its own event within the walls of a very popular and well proven voiceover conference format.

MY big news is that, similar to the role I had at FaffCon, World Voices President Dan Lenard has asked that I join George Washington as co-host the WOVOCON Unconference in Chicago on October 18-20, 2024.

A very nice honor indeed and I appreciate it.

Why does the unconference meeting model make me so excited for the 8^th WOVOCON in Chicago?

I am happy because the WOVOCON Unconference format is 180^° different from all the other voiceover conferences out there, both in presentation and spirit.

Does that mean the other conferences are bad? Nope, they are, generally, just not for me for — so many reasons, on so many levels.

The WOVOCON Unconference has nothing BUT fresh perspectives, discussions and topics. You pay one fee and that covers all your learning from association members. Simple, clean, effective.

I think this new opportunity wrapped up within the WOVOCON Unconference is a great gift to all the members of World Voices. I hope you’ll join us.

Tags: voice actors, voice over training, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, WOVOCON by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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You know how we all know stuff that other folks do not seem to know or are at least unaware of at that moment?

And yes…we’ve each been that person that didn’t know or was unaware (I know I have).

So anyway – I‘m just going to throw this out there for small or micro-business owners that might need this reminder – cause we gotta help each other out.

For most print marketing purposes (yes, I know there are exceptions) – print on BOTH sides of a sheet of paper.

What made me post this was (and I think over the decades I’ve posted this message before) AGAIN TODAY got an unsolicited flyer in my mailbox from a window cleaning service (printed on nice paper, attractively typeset, etc.) that was only printed on one side.

I believe that was a wasted marketing and branding opportunity (also I threw the flyer out because this kind of forced, unwelcomed marketing  – jammed in my mailbox – I find annoying as h-e-double hockey sticks).

But now back to the more valuable, overall marketing lesson.

Flyers, business cards, mailer inserts, postcards (that one should be VERY obvious)—point is whatever the printed piece — use the space you are given on the sheet of paper to get your message and branding across to your audience.

This does NOT mean you have to fill the entire document (front and back) with every darn thing. No, no, white space is still your graphic friend.

But you can use both sides judiciously, creatively and memorably to get your brand, message and call to action across to your audience.

If you’re going to shoot your shot…don’t leave any ammo unused.

Hope that helps.

Tags: commentary, marketing, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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