Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Is everybody gonna get their green on? I’m gonna be at the Trackside Bar & Grill in Butler this weekend. They have a killer chef. Bangers and mash, yo! But first…
NEWS & NOTES!
The latest episode of The Voice Over Cafe is up!
This is our ninth installment and our special guest is Dan McKeague: the voice of the AFLAC Duck. FYI we will have a LIVE podcast show at FaffCamp on Sunday, May 5th at 4:00 during the Faffter Party. Be there!
The audiobook “Avery McShane” released last week.
It was a blast narrating as a 12-year old boy. Thanks John McElroy for casting me! Click here to check it out!
My next Edge Studio “Business and Money 201” webinar will be this Thursday, March 14 at 8:00 PM. The topic: Tax Time! I’m gonna talk about how to prepare to file, what you can (and can’t) write off, and how to keep track of all that junk. Click here to sign up!
I had a fantastic time at the “NYC VO Meetup…just because!” event this past Saturday night in New York City. About 25 voice talents gathered at Hurley’s in Midtown for dinner and, according to certain hungover anonymous reports, the festivities didn’t end until 6AM! A big thanks to Trish Basanyi and Christian Rosselli for putting it together. BTW my sources have revealed that we’ll have another one in July. Stay tuned…!
So, I’ve been pretty slammed this year with a bunch of projects as a voice actor and other stuff, so I’m behind on a few “Quadrant Two” things. One thing I finally got around to was doing my 2012 analytics. Among other things, I counted the amount of revenue-generating sessions I did (this includes VO gigs, seminars/webinars/lectures I did, and private students I worked with), the type of session, and how much revenue was generated. Here are some of the results:
Here’s the breakdown of the percentage of total sessions by type:
Audio Books: 18%
Commercials: 17%
E-Learning: 24%
Industrials: 8%
Explainer Videos: 20%
Video News Releases: 8%
Other: 1%
VO Strategist: 4%
And here’s the breakdown of revenue generated by type:
Audio Books: 21%
Commercials: 13%
E-Learning: 21%
Industrials: 14%
Explainer Videos: 17%
Video News Releases: 12%
Other: 1%
VO Strategist: 1%
So how do I break this junk down? Well, one way to look at it is to see which types of work give me the most bang for the buck. You know, ROI?
Industrials and VNRs seem to have a higher % rate of income than % of sessions put in. So focusing on those may yield more revenue for less sessions.
Commercials historically have to highest ROI and Audio Books have the lowest. However, I spent a lot of that “commercial session time” recording tags, which are less income per session, which is why the % is lower. This also doesn’t show that I outsourced my audio book editing, which drags down the net profit for that type.
Audio books and e-learning are tied for the best % revenue-wise, but one audio book recording session can be as long as four hours, and much of the e-learning gigs required that I commute over an hour to a remote studio.
The ways to interpret this data are endless!
TIP OF THE WEEK
This is just one of many ways to try to figure what works, what doesn’t, and how to create actionable ideas based on those findings. So what does all this mean? The way I see it, the industry is speaking to me through these analytics. Also, this data shows the results of my marketing efforts (or lack thereof). I strongly recommend you look at the work you got last year, try figure out how you got it, and craft a plan to improve your efforts. You’ll be happy that you did!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
If you don’t know, say you don’t know. Only politicians and middle managers find shame in ignorance and the irony of that should not be wasted on you. Phillip Banks
STUFF
Last week I saw “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”. I enjoyed it! My favorite line from the film was “You accept the love you think you deserve.” Deep!
From Tom Dheere’s apartment, this is Tom Dheere: GKN News…