Comments on: Are on-line casting services for you? https://karencommins.com/2008/01/are_online_casting_services_fo.html Atlanta Audiobook Narrator Tue, 28 Mar 2017 14:47:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Karen https://karencommins.com/2008/01/are_online_casting_services_fo.html#comment-142 Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:23:51 +0000 http://example.org/are_online_casting_services_fo#comment-142 WOW, Evan! THANK YOU SO MUCH for writing such a detailed, thought-provoking comment on my blog! I love the analogy to the Chinese restaurant, especially your sentence about the multitude of good Chinese restaurants surviving and thriving in New York due to their marketing strategies. You sound like you love marketing as much as I do, and I’m sure that your efforts will bring you much happiness and success.

Thanks again, and best wishes in your voice-over career!

Karen

]]> By: Evan Wright https://karencommins.com/2008/01/are_online_casting_services_fo.html#comment-141 Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:12:07 +0000 http://example.org/are_online_casting_services_fo#comment-141 Several years ago, I worked for a brilliant marketer named John Sie, a man who was Chinese-American, for a then-new company called Showtime Pay TV. John called his style for marketing “The Chinese Menu Theory”. He explained that, as if you went to Chinatown (NYC), and ordered food, you typically ordered a selection from several categories as laid out on the menu, e.g. Vegetable dish, meat dish, rice dish, etc. Patrons would typically order too much food, because it all looked so good, and the average take out bill would be around $50 – 60. Compared with another NYC delicacy, – pizza, where you’d order a slice or pie with toppings of your choice, the average order is around $10 – 15 per person.

If you were an investor in a restaurant, you would naturally be attracted to the cash flow of the Chinese restaurant. And patrons are attracted because of “all of those choices” according to John. It has little to do about your preference of Chinese over Italian.

But looking behind the Chinese menu, you will also be able to tell, from a marketing standpoint, the most profitable and popular items of your restaurant, and adjust your marketing accordingly, by making “daily specials” or “house specialties” or something as simple as putting those items at the top of the menu list.

Apply this theory to marketing yourself for voiceover work. Try EVERYTHING on your marketing menu, including subscriptions to the casting services. As Karen mentioned, this is an INVESTMENT in your business. And your clientele will be attracted to you due to the “choices” on YOUR menu, in the sense that you have multiple methods in marketing your name and talent out there in the world.

If it doesn’t stick on the wall (referring to the Chinese menu’s choices posted on the wall for its patrons), then its not right or working for you. Don’t give up, try something else. A rice dish, or a seafood dish. Give yourself a multiple set of choices when marketing yourself as a voiceover talent. You will find that your “patrons” can have diverse tastes. Adjust your “marketing menu,” as you find what works best for you in attracting and maintaining clientele within your voiceover-service specialties.

There are a multitude of good Chinese restaurants in New York City. They all are successful in staying in business, because of how they manage and market their menus, according to John Sie. All of their food is basically the same!! The more successful ones build their business based on quality and reputation. And that’s what’s necessary in the voiceover marketplace.

In the voiceover world, do not be afraid to try, modify, delete, re-emphasize your marketing strategies. Be flexible and experimental. There are many tried-and-true marketing techniques, but you will never know what is best for YOU.

Throw it on the wall, and see what sticks.

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