My Voice Over Audition Strategy
- Tom Dheere
- Jul 15
- 4 min read
As part of my voice over audition strategy, in 2025 I stepped into the booth 1,659 times to record auditions.
Crazy? Maybe. Waste of my time, asks the Direct Marketing, anti Pay-to-Play cultists? Definitely not.
Auditioning that much reveals patterns that you can use to your advantage.
One thing I noticed is that more and more, corporate and commercial scripts look alike. They use the same buzzwords, the same formats, the same analogies blah blah blah.
But clients can hear it when we phone it in. They want us to create a genuine connection, not engage in uninspired regurgitation. Every read must sound like those words have never been spoken in that particular order before. It must sound entirely spontaneous, even if it's the tenth "relatable neighbor" script that hit your inbox today.
The Pivot That Increased My Commercial Revenue
My 2025 commercial revenue nearly doubled compared to 2024.
To be fair, a chunk of that came from one major booking via my manager, but listening back to my commercial auditions that turned into bookings revealed more patterns...
I stopped trying to sound bright, clean, and polished.
I leaned into my naturally lower register.
I slowed my cadence down to create breathing room between lines and thoughts.
I got comfortable sounding imperfect. Like me!
These adjustments allowed me to blow up in a genre that's usually a second-tier revenue generator for me. More importantly, it made up for my declining eLearning and Explainer narration revenue, (thanks AI!).
Why Volume Validates Your Voice Over Audition Strategy
High volume and rapid execution are critical for a profitable voice over career, not a compromise on quality.
Speed is big. On a good day, I can record & submit eight auditions in about 30 minutes. This isn't about rushing the creative process or delivering sloppy work. It's about the strategic use of your time. Hell, I'm writing this blog while I'm waiting for my laundry to finish the spin cycle!
If you treat every single audition like a precious piece of art and analyzing every syllable you utter, you're operating like an employee instead of a CEO.
Auditioning is a short-term marketing play for long-term growth. You must constantly balance Farming vs. Hunting.
Farming represents your long-term strategies that require patience and time, such as content marketing, search optimization, and networking.
Hunting is immediate. Recording an audition is hunting. When you are hunting, you need to make strong acting choices quickly, submit clean audio, and move on to the next one.
Mapping Your Marketing Across The 3 Portals of Voice Over
Landing steady voice-over work requires distributing your efforts smartly among representation, online casting sites, and self-marketing strategies rather than relying on a single source of leads.
In my 30+ years of experience, I've learned that you can't build a sustainable business relying on one Portal. Your auditions must be distributed across the voiceover ecosystem.
Casting Portal | Strategy Type | Target Voice Seeker | Execution Speed |
Representation | Hunting (Short-Term) | Ad Agencies & Casting Directors | High Velocity Required |
Online Casting Sites (P2P) | Hunting (Short-Term) | Video Producers & Indie Creators | Instant Turnaround |
Self-Marketing | Farming (Long-Term) | Corporate Instructional Designers | Patient Relationship Building |
HOWEVER, where and how you focus depends on where you are in your voice over journey: Crawl, Walk, or Run.
If you are navigating the Crawl phase during your first two years, I recommend heavily utilizing Online Casting Sites like Voice123 to establish your genre viability and develop both your confidence and Project Management skills.
Once you get to the Walk phase, then you can expand your efforts into Self-Marketing. This means using platforms like Apollo.io paired with LinkedIn to find the email addresses of potential clients and send those cold emails.
By the time you reach the Run phase, you should be on agent & manager rosters to scale your business even more.
Be aware of where you are in your voice over journey, be flexible with your audition technique & marketing strategies, and be patient!
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As the VO Strategist, Tom Dheere has provided voice over business & marketing coaching since 2011.
He's also a voice actor with over 30 years of experience who has narrated just about every type of voice over you can think of.
When not voicing or talking about voicing, Tom produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.
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