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MARKETING
Email Marketing For Voice-Over Clients:
Part 1 - How To Set Up Your CRM System
April 3, 2018

By Michael Langsner
Voice Actor

Cold emailing and mass email marketing campaigns can be a great part of an overall marketing plan for your VO business, but the job isn't done after hitting SEND.

In order to create an efficient and effective marketing system, and to properly channel leads and prospects through your marketing pipeline, there are a few more steps you should consider after firing off that email.

Let's take a look at some ways to:
  • store the details of your email marketing efforts,
  • keep track of interested leads and stay on their radar, and
  • engage with them through social media.
You can also download a free Resource Package at the end of this article, including a Marketing Response Reference Guide, which will show you what actions to take and how to respond to some of the different replies you are likely to receive from your email marketing campaigns. 

TRACK RESPONSE WITH CRM

The first thing that needs to happen after sending off that marketing email is to track the relevant data in a CRM system. This will ensure that you have all of the information regarding that marketing outreach easily accessible, so that you can refer to it at any point in the future.

Let's take a closer look at what a CRM system is, and what sort of information you need to store in it regarding your email marketing efforts.

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and refers to a system that you can use to store information about your clients, leads, and other aspects of your business.

It's a great way to hang on to not only contact information, but also details of your interactions with clients and leads, such as when they were contacted, how you found them, and more.

WHY YOU NEED IT ...

If you've been working as a VO talent for any considerable length of time, and marketing yourself during that time, then you are likely already aware that sometimes you won't receive a response to a marketing outreach until weeks, months, or even years later.

By storing all of the relevant information pertaining to your marketing efforts, you can jump right back into the conversation when you receive a delayed reply.

More importantly, storing information in a CRM helps to organize and streamline your marketing efforts. It will allow you to:
  • avoid reaching out to prospects too often and becoming annoying,
  • stay on top of the clients and leads that require follow ups, and
  • serve as a central hub for all of the details of your relationship with a specific client or lead.
WHAT INFO TO STORE

Now let's get into the specific details that you should think about storing in your CRM system after sending off a marketing email.

Basic contact information for your prospect should all be stored so that it can be easily referenced in the future. Everyone's CRM setup will be unique to them and their business, but these are the things that I consider pretty much essential for every VO Talent to store:
  • First and Last Name
  • Company Name
  • Contact Email
  • Address
  • Company Website
  • Lead Source - Where did you find this lead?
  • Web Research - a specific website or directory, referral, advertising campaign, etc.
  • Date you reached out
  • Contact Status - did you attempt to contact them with no reply, did you get a reply, are you simply creating a record for them in your CRM because you haven't reached out yet but intend to in the future?
Other considerations include:

Lead Rating. Some people may like to further categorize leads into subgroups, such as Cold Leads, Warm Leads, and Hot Leads, based on the response they get to a marketing email and the potential for that lead to become a client. This would allow you to target marketing campaigns in the future to leads based on their rating.

Title. It may be helpful to store the contact person's job title, just so you can be more aware of their role at the company and what they are responsible for when communicating with them in the future.

Notes. If you have an extended conversation with a lead, it may be useful to add some notes about it to the CRM Record. Many CRM systems have the option to do this and it can be immensely helpful.

For instance, if you discuss rates for specific services or actual projects, it can be very nice to have this information easily accessible, in case you've forgotten the details of a phone or email conversation with the lead.

Phone Number.
If you are only communicating with the lead via email, it may not be necessary to store this information right away. But if the conversation progresses to a phone call, it would be wise to hang on to the number that was used to contact the person. And if your marketing efforts include cold calling, then it would also be a good idea to include the phone number that was called in the Lead Record. 

See Part 2 - Creating Your Mailing List & Using Social Media


-------------------------
ABOUT MICHAEL
Michael Langsner is a NYC-based professional voice over talent who voices TV, radio, and Internet spots, e-Learning tutorials, phone systems, consumer products, promos, trailers, and more for a variety of clients including Google, Amazon, Dell, Coca-Cola, VH1, and many, many others. He also regularly writes blog posts featuring helpful tips and strategies for VO talent of all experience levels, dealing with performance, audio recording and engineering, and marketing/business activities. Michael also founded MBL Music and Voice - an audio post-production company - where he and his team provide original music, sound design, VO casting, and mixing services - where they have recently completed projects for Verizon, The NFL, The NBA Player's Association, CA Software, and Kodak.


Email: Michael@MichaelLangsnerVO.com
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