In my experience, Pay to Play (P2P) sites are a great way for voice artists to find new voiceover clients.
If you’re not familiar with the terminology, “pay to play” refers to websites where there are rosters of professional voice talents who pay an annual fee to have the opportunity to peruse and audition for specific jobs, posted by voiceover clients. These jobs range from production companies, advertising/marketing agencies, and often, end clients.
Two P2P sites I’ve used are:
- Voices.com
- Voice123.com
…and there are more out there but these two keep me plenty busy with auditioning and booking jobs.
Find a Range of Jobs and Voiceover Clients on P2P Sites
The kinds of jobs one can find on a P2P site range from a voicemail recording for a business with a $100 price tag, all the way up to national commercial spots. Voiceover clients run the gamut from users who hire professional voice talent all the time, to one-time users, who may want a professional talent for something like recording their outbound phone message.
I created this video with a client I metd on a P2P site.
The client had a clever idea in mind: take what would have typically been a rather dry and boring topic (how to get your manufacturing plant running more smoothly), and spice it up with some creative silliness around how there’s a scary element skulking about the plant floor, ready to wreak havoc at a moment’s notice and without warning. The video offers a great solution to assist with this… Ta da!
You can probably find all kinds of articles about how to take full advantage of a P2P voiceover site. For voice talent who are not represented in markets by voice talent agencies, or who do not have a stable of regular voiceover clients, sites like these certainly offer the opportunity to practice auditioning skills—and hopefully book a job from time to time.
Cultivating Long Term Voiceover Clients from P2P Connections
The success I’ve had with P2P sites comes mostly from finding a client, and then continuing to work with them well past the one job they’ve booked me for via the P2P site.
Just last week I was chatting with a long time friend and owner of a production company I had worked with many moons ago… He is now doing voiceover work and he asked me if I’d take a listen of his demo and share some feedback. I get that request a lot and, quite honestly, usually the demos of new voice talents are not so hot. But, in this case, his voiceover demo was excellent! He mentioned that he had landed a few rather high profile clients just by doing the P2P approach.
Contrast that story with a blog post I read this week by friend, colleague and successful voiceover talent, Paul Strikwerda, about how he was leaving a major P2P site because it just wasn’t working out for him after over 3 years of trying.
So, it just goes to show you… what works for one person doesn’t work for another person. We each have to find our way on our voiceover talent path. The road is winding, and P2P sites might be a welcome rest stop or even destination for aspiring and also veteran voiceover artists.
