Victoria DeAnda–Rich

If your demos haven’t been updated in a while, you may want to consider updating them. You may think they’re still good to use, but they may be costing you a lot of business, and that means revenue.

When You Should Update Voiceover Demos

You should update your voiceover demos yearly. It’s good to choose one month that will be your update month. Many voiceovers choose January since that is the beginning of a new year, but you can choose whatever month is best for you. Perhaps a slower than usual month would provide you the opportunity to create new demos without hampering business.

Some voiceover artists prefer to update their demos much more frequently. Usually, this is when they have decided to venture into a new type of voiceover. For example, a voiceover who often does announcing may decide to dabble in narrating, and then create demos to market that type of work. If this is the case for you, it’s good to update your demos whenever you’ve been able to develop a new skill you can show off to potential clients.

Why You Should Update Your Voiceover Demos

There are many reasons you should update your voiceover demos.

Market Improved Skills

Hopefully, every year that goes by, you gain more experience as a voiceover. Your skills have improved, even if you don’t think they have and by creating new demos each year, you’ll be able to show your current level of skill.

Promote New Skills

As mentioned above, when you update demos, you can add new skills to them. This may bring new, unique projects your way that could lead you down a different path.

Improve Sound Quality

Over the course of the year, you may have improved the equipment you’ve been using. You can use this new equipment to record better demos that will impress prospective clients.

Evolve with the Voiceover Industry

The voiceover industry is ever-changing. Clients are looking for different types of styles and voices for voiceover, and if you continue to use the same demos as you did five years ago, you may not be up to date on the latest demands. Updating your voiceover demos will allow you to show your clients you’re current and able to provide what they’re looking for right now.

Boost Confidence

If you’ve been using the same demos for a while, it’s likely you’ve grown tired of marketing them. You’re saying the same things and showing the same samples. There’s no excitement in it. Creating new demos will help boost confidence because you’re showing prospective clients something new you have done and that excited energy can do wonders for bringing in new business.

Schedule Time to Update Demos

Don’t wait too long to update your demos because you’ll likely not do it.  Instead, schedule in time to create them in the next month. It may take some extra effort and time, but it’ll be worth it when you’re able to bring in a few more clients because you’re showing them how good your voiceover skills are right now.

As you’re searching for the best voiceover artist for your project, you may wonder what you should be looking for in voiceover demos. It’s not always clear to voiceover artist seekers because after hearing a few, they all start to sound the same. Before choosing someone, you must be able to distinguish between them enough, so you can pick the best person for your job.

The following are some of the factors you need to consider in voiceover demos.

Length

You are busy, so you don’t have time to listen to many minutes of demos. Professional voiceovers know this, so they usually keep their demos less than two minutes. Knowing this will help you weed out some voiceover artists who may not have the experience that you need for your work.

Demos should be about a minute long. If it’s just for a commercial, 30 seconds is actually enough to sample a person’s voice. If you’re looking for someone who does work in animation, the demos are often longer because the voiceover artist wants you to hear all of his or her voices.

The Beginning Is Most Important

Professional voiceover artists will put their best voice first. They want to blow you away with what they can do. This means that you should listen to the first spot carefully. This is what you can get for your project. If it’s not what you want, you may need to move on to someone else.

Skill Level

Voiceovers in the industry for a long time know they need to be able to change their voice many times to suit the needs of many people. As you’re listening to the demo, pay attention to how different the voiceover artist can be because that will give you the flexibility you need when that person is working on your project.

Clear Sound

Many times, when people hire a voiceover artist they want that person to produce the work on their own and send it in to them. This means they must have their own studio and equipment, or at least access to it. The voiceover demo can show you if the person has that available. If it’s clear and edited well, you know it was done in a professional studio. If it’s not, you either may have to provide that yourself or it’s probably better to move on to someone else.

Listen to My Voiceover Demos

I’ve been in the voiceover industry for many years. Through these years, I’ve learned what clients want in a voiceover demo. Take some time to listen to mine. I would love to work on your project if you find my voice is perfect for your needs.