If you want to make an effort to obtain clients in your area, here are several steps you can take to accomplish this.
Of course, if you live in a rural area, this won’t be possible. If you live in or near a small city of 100,000 or more people, and if the city has at least one recording studio with a Studio B or C vocal room, you can have some assurance that there is commercial and narration work available, as well at least one advertising agency and a PR firm in the area.
To obtain clients through the studio, make an appointment to go to there, introduce yourself to the owner and/or the recording engineer(s), and leave them your business card with your website information on it, so that they can access your demos. If there is a video production company in your city, do the same steps with the video editor(s).
Do the same with the advertising and PR firms in the area. The advertising agency will be producing radio and TV spots, while the PR firms will be producing videos (as well as the video production company) about their clients, and for those, they will need narrators.
If you want to produce messages-on-hold, call various businesses in your area and listen to their messages on hold. If their V/O spokesperson on their messages sounds like a true pro, don’t pursue them any further. They are set for the near future. If the message for another potential client sounds amateurish (someone in the company more than likely), then copy their message, record it, (with music, preferably), and send it to them with a well-written email, to let them know that this is what you can do for them. You can go on the internet to find downloadable production music that is free to use in your client demos or final productions. Once you land the company you’re after, you will probably be able to keep it as a client for a long time, as long as you don’t let up on the quality of your work.
If a potential client has no messages on hold, send the company an on-hold demo attached to your email to demonstrate what you can do for them. Further, I recommend that you do a sample demo for them to give them a feel for what is possible when they use a true professional to promote them. Ask them for some of their printed promotional materials to work from.
These are some good basic ideas for you to promote yourself locally. They involve a lot of time, effort, and persistence, but that is always what it takes to get a new business venture off the ground.
