Finding Colleagues.

I recently found a treasure trove on the internet – a list of this year’s winners of advertising awards in one of the industry sectors in which I specialise. Although my approach to marketing in the early months in the voice-over business was of the shotgun variety (e.g., compiling a database of production companies and ad agencies by region, or even just using huge free lists that I found for the entire U.S. and beyond), now I have a much more targeted approach. The awards list is a way for me to learn with relative ease which agencies are serving my market and get me together with the people who need what I have to offer.

Plenty of voice talent are able to do some of everything, whether it’s commercials, corporate narration, audiobooks – but marketing to everybody is probably not in one’s best interest. There is something that each of us does best; why not develop that and market to that strength? Everyone needs a way to rise above the crowd and the people who need us need to see a reason why they should choose us over someone else. Similarly agencies need to make it easy for clients to see why they should choose them over another agency – which will also make it easier for satellite professionals to find the agencies to whom they can be of most use and determine quickly when we don’t need to contact someone.

I’ve looked at literally thousands of production company and advertising agency websites in the last year or so. It’s amazing how many different ways people have thought of to present the basic elements such as Clients/Specialties, Services, Portfolio, Staff, Testimonials and Contact Information. A (I won’t say “the”) majority do a good job. Then there are those who like to hide the information in layers so visitors have to dig for it, using names that do not immediately conjure up the thing they’re supposed to represent. And how about the sites where information just starts whizzing around and you have to grab what you’re looking for before it disappears and you have to wait until it comes around again, like toy ducks at a shooting range?

Somebody stop me! Relevancy check…. What would make life easiest for me as a colleague-scrounger would be the ability to tell within the first minute of landing on a website whether this is a company that uses services like mine, with the specialties that I have to offer. I guess nobody ever said it was going to be easy. This is Darwinian selection. Anyway, I’m growing fat on my list of awardees–I have nothing to complain about (it’s the heat-sorry). I marvel that after months of scouring the internet almost daily I’m still turning up so much good information. Hard to imagine life before the World Wide Web.