Man, old man, you can spend a whole afternoon going down a rabbit hole about predictions of the future of voiceover in our industry and come out having not a damn clue what to do next. Depending on what you read and who you talk to, you might need better acting, you might need better SEO, you might need a new pay to play subscription, or you might need a whole new career. Meanwhile, the next morning comes and your mortgage doesn't give a damn about your prior reading material. Two blog posts I've come across very recently, this week as a matter of fact, when we're taping this, offer something a hell of a lot more helpful than just another round of industry panic. The first one by Tom Deere called The AI Voiceover Disruption looks at changing work patterns, changing industry, and questions the effectiveness of conventional direct marketing. The other one, J. Michael Collins The Great Voiceover Realignment in 2030, talks about how AI assisted search and relationships will change the hiring process as we get toward 2030. Now I've got a ton of respect for both of these guys. Both of them have been doing it way longer than I have, and I always appreciate their perspectives. And I encourage you to read both of those pieces, and the links are in the description and show notes. And both of those pieces, reading them, has sort of goosed me into talking about why I believe that traditional direct email marketing for voice actors is still highly effective, still an invaluable part of a voice actor's business is especially when the market is changing and especially so rapidly. But first, we have our free resource, our free source of the week for you. And this week it is the invisible funnel flow chart. Get the invisible funnel funnel flow chart, he said three times. Download it now and move beyond just cold pitches and start booking real gigs by building real relationships. Get the free download now. Link is in the description. Go, go get it. Do it. So my position generally starts with what can we do? actually do in such a fast-changing industry. Identify buyers whose needs fit the solutions that we provide, introduce ourselves to those buyers with relevance and value, and earn their trust over time so that when a project comes up, we're top of mind and we get a swing. Now we can improve that process while still improving our craft and making ourselves easier to find. Now Tom Deere's emphasis on Acting, voice acting, the craft of acting is absolutely on point. Marketing gets you considered, it gets you in the door, but your craft, your acting, your professionalism, that's what warrants that consideration in the first place. And JMC's point about clear positioning is just as helpful. Buyers need to understand immediately where you fit and what you can deliver. And those ideas are inextricably linked together. A producer needs both a capable actor and a way to find that capable actor. And direct outreach, in my opinion, gives us the best way for people to make that connection. But before we get into tactics, we need to get really honest and understand what the data is actually telling us. The 2026 VoiceCrafters survey tells us essentially that 74% of us believe that we've lost in work in some significant way to AI. That they had definitely or probably lost work to a synthetic voice. Now, separately, 72% of the respondents said that over the last three years their rates had either stayed the same or increased. Now the study is self-selecting, meaning the people that signed up for the study literally selected themselves in, but the study acknowledges that. But those two findings, in tandem, deserve attention. And what that means is that You can still maintain a stable rate card even as income may drop. But charging the same amount per project doesn't help you a whole lot when you're getting less projects in the door. But these two figures in and of themselves don't test direct marketing or even discuss which prospecting approaches are the best moving forward. They just describe the respondents' experience with work and rates. So we gotta be careful about Using the data to a answer a question that was never asked. Tom also cites an Apollo.io study that reports increased sales email volume alongside declining reply rates. In other words, we're sending more emails, but we're getting less replies. And so it's entirely legit to question if simply sending more email volume alone is a solid strategy. And therefore generates more business. But that study exists inside a surrounding guide from Apollo.io that recommends adapting outbound sales around research and relationships, multiple channels, and measurement. And Apollo very clearly warns against excessive automation and indiscriminate email volume. We should also remember that at the end of the day, Apollo sells outreach software, so they have a vested interest in this study for sure. And the typical Apollo user is not a voice actor. And in transparency, we use and teach Apollo.io in the VO Marketing Master Plan. And we also warn about too much automation and volume for volume's sake. But still, there's a huge, huge difference between talking about declining a response rate and saying a particular channel can no longer produce worthwhile business. Averages alone can't tell the average voice actor whether a given approach is even worth their time. You have to look at the actual approach. So if you download a huge giant list and you reach out and introduce yourself as a talented and versatile voice actor, attach everything you've ever recorded and constantly ask people if they have any work, well, I'll give you this you've given yourself a lot to do, but you haven't given the prospect a reason to give a damn. And that's where direct marketing begins and ends for me. The reason we used to call it a VBR, valid business reason. To contact this prospect. Do they produce work that uses voiceover? Who handles that work? Do they hire independent talent? Can you deliver something relevant to its projects and its expectations? An email address in Apollo or LinkedIn or any other software does not answer those questions on its own. A contact database can help you locate one hell of a lot of people, but you still have to decide whether approaching any one of those people makes actual sense. So imagine um A video production company that specializes in patient videos. And if medical narration is a real strength of yours, then that gives you an absolute plausible and compelling reason to reach out to those people. You can point them directly to your relevant work and show them that you have a command for. Medical narration in this case. Yes, command of you grammar Nazi. Now imagine sending that same producer a sprawling introduction covering audiobooks, automotive, animation, your love of silly voices, live announce, commercial. Yeah, all of that might be true, but now you've offloaded the job of figuring out why you're relevant to them onto them. Relevance, relevant outreach, reduces that work. The buyer can quickly and easily understand what you offer. What problem you solve, why you reached out, and whether taking the next step is worth their while. And that's also why personalization needs substance. Mentioning somebody's college or their college mascot or congratulating them on a LinkedIn anniversary, which we all have access to, does not establish professional relevance. Understanding what they produce, what challenges they're faced with, what problems they encounter on a daily basis, what their pain points are. And what actually keeps them awake at night is a hell of a lot more effective than throwing generic information at them to show you did your homework. Good, you found their profile. Good for you. And direct outreach also lets you make intentional choices about where you spend your time and effort and attention. You can research a particular industry, a particular production specialty, a geographic market, let's say you want to stay close to home, or even a particular type of buyer or persona or avatar, then you can adjust your approach based on what you learn. And that flexibility matters when demand in the market shift. If a particular segment or genre is constantly telling you that, hey, you know what? We're using synthetic voices now. Sending more of the same pitch to those people is not going to reverse those production decisions. You need to reconsider at that point the opportunity, your positioning, andor the buyer personas that you're pursuing. No genre label guarantees protection from AI. That's just not the way it works. You've got to evaluate actual companies and actual projects. Look for those situations where your performance Your collaboration, your client experience, and your reliability and being easy to work with has a real effect on a buyer's decision. Relationships won't make you immune to budget cuts or to market changes or to technological change, but relationships can give you the ability to Develop a conversation and understand a client's priorities and demonstrate the value that you bring to them far beyond the fact that you have vocal cords and an internet connection. And we also need realistic expectations around timing. A producer can absolutely love your demo and not have a damn thing for you this quarter. Their production calendar didn't get a copy of your revenue goals, nor does it care. In a recent VO Pro community digest, uh, one of our members talked about the fact that after about three weeks of consistent outreach, they got their first warm lead and got on that client's roster. Now that's a modest example, but it is specific and it shows the journey from introduction to actual consideration. It is an evidence of a paid booking, and I'm not gonna make it out to be. At least not yet. But it does show why we should take stock of those. of that intermediate progress, what we call wins, while continuing to track whether those wins lead to actual business later on. A reply, a request for other demos or samples, an invitation to stay in touch are all really good significant wins. Now none of them pays a bill, particularly on their own. But it's the stacking and tracking of those intermediate wins, those intermediate steps that allows you to understand where opportunities move forward, where they stall, and what needs more attention. And follow-up absolutely belongs in that process with a little bit of judgment or discretion. A relevant sample or demo, an update that's relevant to that particular prospect's work, or checking back in when they asked you to can provide a great reason to reconnect. Repeatedly demanding a response or asking do you have anything for me yet? Is just a shitty experience for the prospect. Respect a no, respect communication preferences, and recognize when just continuing to pursue and pursue and pursue is eating up more time than it's really worth. Persistence, yes, but that requires evaluation and decisions, not just a calendar reminder. Now I built my business on direct email outreach, and so yes, that absolutely biases and shapes my perspective. But that doesn't let me off the hook for evaluating how the market is and and the present results that it's producing. And obviously I teach direct marketing too to voice actors, so I have a responsibility, I believe, to look at it honestly rather than just. Blindly defend everything that somebody might throw at it. We should always be asking which prospects produce relevant conversations, which conversations lead to viable opportunities, and which opportunities turn into profitable ongoing clients. We need to account for research and follow-up time because any process that just keeps us busy and doesn't produce business results needs to be thrown out the window. And just because you're struggling doesn't necessarily mean that your marketing is bad. Even vetted, experienced voice actors with good marketing encounter periods of weak demand, long established rosters that they can't break into and get on, or more often, just bad timing and projects that may not even get funded. And we need to mentally leave room for those realities rather than taking every single rejection as a personal. Judgment. It's almost always not about you. And the most practical thing to practice is diagnosis. Look at the data. Check to see whether your messages are actually reaching people, whether those people hire what you offer, and whether your actual demos support that case. Look for patterns across your efforts. Sometimes the best next move is more outreach. Sometimes, sometimes it's a different market segment or buyer type. Sometimes it means leveling up your skills or finding a different source of work. If you look at it honestly, your business will benefit from that honesty. And that measurement and that honesty should extend way past The first invoice. Any given client might hire you one time, repeatedly, they may refer you to another buyer. And all three of those outcomes have different value. And understanding those patterns helps tell you where to focus moving forward. And be careful about actual attribution and where you attribute the source of your work in your brain to. And I'll give you an example. You might reach out to a client, so they'll get your email. On another day, they may unsolicitedly visit your website. Another time they might hear from uh a colleague about you, and then months later they reach out. Ask specifically how they found you and what prompted them to reach out to you. Real, actual, real world buying journeys are a lot messier than these neat little boxes we try to put them into as marketers. And that brings us to JMC's argument about discoverability. His recommendation to make your expertise clear and to support it with evidence is 100% spot on. Relevant demos, credible experience, and helpful information all help buyers evaluate you. Now, Google's own guidance says that standard SEO practices are still very much relevant, and that appearing in AI overviews or in AI mode doesn't require additional optimization. Now that guidance concerns Google's property specifically, but it still speaks to the value of a useful, accessible website. You should be investing in that, giving a prospect enough information to understand your work, share relevant demos and samples, and contact you easily without having to hunt all over your website to figure out how. Now, JMC also hypothesizes that maybe in about five or six years, the early 2030s. Nearly ninety percent of all work that's outside of the casting agent and our casting director and talent agent ecosystem will be found by inbound discovery. And he openly acknowledges the uncertainty around that and that it's just a hypothesis. I personally would treat that as a possibility to prepare for rather than use as a forecast around a reason to give up building relationships proactively. Now, if discovery does increase dramatically, like JMC thinks it will, then having a strong online presence will benefit you even more than it does now. And if discovery turns out to be uneven between now and then, then that's even a better reason to keep building those relationships proactively. Now building both using both strategy does not strategies gives you more ways to create opportunity as the future unfolds. And it also recognizes that we all start from different positions. Somebody with shitloads of credits and established visibility is starting at a very different place from somebody newer in the career who's still trying to build and establish those assets. Now both of course can strengthen Their discoverability, but the newer voice actor has to find a way to introduce themselves and build relationships while those assets and that credibility is still developing. But those activities can support one another. Your email gives a buyer a real reason to visit your website. Your website provides evidence. A conversation helps you to clarify fit with the buyer. And good work can lead to repeat business and social proof and testimonials that all and referrals are. That'll all lead to future work. And lastly, you don't need to get married and declare your loyalty to any single marketing channel. Use direct outreach along with casting opportunities, along with your agents, along with networking and referrals and taking care of your clients. Choose what works for you based on your skills, based on the market, and based on results that you can actually observe. Now what do you do with all that? For the next working week, I want you to narrow down one buyer category or one persona, one avatar that you either already understand or that you're prepared to do research on. Identify a small group of viable, plausible prospects within that avatar, review their work, ID the relevant decision makers, and write a short introduction that makes your fit really easy to see from the jump. Then check the genre specific page or the demo or the Homepage, whatever you're sending them to, and ask yourself, does it support that evidence that you put forth in your introduction? Can they quickly hear the relevant work? Is the next step clear? Your outreach and your online presence both should be telling a consistent, cohesive story. Record what happens in your CRM and schedule your follow-up and give that time the give that process enough time, rather. To produce really useful information while still staying flexible enough to adjust your messaging or your cadence or your follow-up or even your targeting. The goal is to figure out which of those activities deserves your continued ongoing time. And that's the thinking behind the target, reach out, grow framework within the VO Marketing Master Plan to develop a Sound, repeatable way to identify viable clients, start those conversations with those viable clients, and begin to build and grow those relationships. The tools are secondary. They can change, but your approach should be responding in an ongoing way to what buyers actually need. Now, if you'd like help putting that into practice, you can explore the VO marketing master plan and Join the wait list if you so choose. We can take a changing industry absolutely seriously and still keep building successful, viable businesses within and despite those changes. Tomorrow morning still gives you a chance to make relevant, value-driven introductions. If this video helped you, if you got a lot of value out of it, then give us a like. A subscribe if you're listening to us on the podcast, especially Apple Podcasts. We'd love a follow. A review would be lovely. If you think it'll help another voice actor, then please, by all means, share it with them on social media or by email or however you choose. Because the more we have these conversations, the more we exchange opinions and strategies and insights, the better, stronger industry we're gonna have for ourselves, for our clients, for the people that we love and we're charged to take care of, and hopefully, maybe even. A little bit better world for all of us. Thanks so much, and we'll talk to you again soon.