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Web Stats: It Doesn’t Hurt To Know
Who’s Hitting You – And How Often
By John Florian
VoiceOverXtra  Being in voice-overs today and not having a web presence – or even several of them - is like forgetting to turn on your mic. Talk, talk, talk … but who hears?
If you don’t have the time or money yet to create and host your own web site, an easy alternative is to join one or more online voice-over marketing services, where you can post a profile and your demos.
Some of these voice-over marketplaces even offer to create exclusive web pages for you.
Indeed, web marketing has become essential for voice seekers to find you.
WHO’S HITTING YOU NOW?
Savvy web marketers take this a step further – checking who visits their web sites and how often.
Why bother?
 To answer this, we turn to Rick Gordon (pictured), voice talent and owner of Commercial Voices.com (CV) and e-LearningVoices.com - two online meeting spots for voice seekers and voice talent … Rick, I’ll ask you about analyzing web traffic. But first, let’s set the stage. You offer personal web sites to CV members?
Yes, every Platinum member receives a five-page web site with 5mb of audio hosting and direct contact information.
You can take a look at any one of our members, and you’ll see what they get (http://commercialvoices.com/talent.php)
In addition, they get a link to real-time stats on who is visiting their pages – the IP address, date and time.
And if any member has another product or service related to voice-over, they qualify to get a “Grads Cap” beside their name on the main talent page. This is what I call the University of Voiceover.
And I’m sure you recommend that voice talents have a web presence.
Many experienced VO talents have a presence on multiple web sites.
This business is all about promotion, talent, longevity and you being selected as the flavor of the month or project.
You mentioned direct contact between the voice seeker and talent. You encourage that?
Right. There are direct links to the voice talent’s email and personal web site, if they have one.
Why? Because some clients may want to contact the talent directly to request a demo, or perhaps to ask about pricing.
This is a direct contact – no middleman involved.
There are no records kept about this, other than the stats that indicate someone has contacted you via email from the email address on your CV contact page.
CV does not promote “casting calls” as do other sites. Casting calls here are a bonus. Rather, we focus on the big picture – developing long-term, lucrative relationships with clients.
OK. Now for web site “stats.” What’s the value of checking them?
The stats show that our members are getting hit and heard.
The interesting thing to learn is what IP addresses are looking at multiple pages on your web site.
For instance, this indicates that the voice seekers consider the talent to be an interesting person, and that the visitor wants to know more.
Same with demo pages. If someone visits them more than once, you know that he or she is listening intently.
That would be encouraging …
Certainly. Perhaps the visitor is copying and passing along the information to colleagues or superiors. This data is more or less used as an indication of acceptiveness. For encouragement.
Am I getting different visitors? Which pages are they visiting? Do they come back?
Rick, is this something for newcomers to voice-overs, or is it more applicable to the longer-time performers?
I don’t encourage newcomers to do this if they have no knowledge of the business.
It would be a waste of their time and money, and it wouldn’t reflect the kind of experienced talent we have been hosting for over nine years.
But if they do have voice-over experience, it’s a good way to see how they hold up against the pros.
Competition is stiff, but it’s that way everywhere. The stats could give an indication as to whether to stay in this line or work, or not.
That would be crunch time.
Well, you know, another marketing tool that few seem to be interested in – or have the nerve to try – is to contact other voice talent and ask for advice and criticism.
Of course, it’s not wise to contact someone you sound like, or whom you are trying to sound like.
But it doesn’t hurt to contact a colleague for criticism or guidance. Believe it or not, most people in this business are human. And the experienced ones were newcomers when they started.
For the most part, we’re a friendly bunch, but keep in mind that business is business. We’re all unique in one way or another. We just have to get lucky and be selected as the flavor or project of the month!
Thanks, Rick.
To contact Rick Gordon:
Email: rgordon@commercialvoices.com
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Comments (1)
BP Smyth
12/28/2009 at 4:11 PM
Thank you John, for presenting this pertinent information. As always, you are providing a great service to all of us in the V.O. industry. Rick Gordon has a couple of excellent websites worth checking out.
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