Is It a Smart Idea to Post Voice Over Rates on a Website?
Professional voice over artists have great power these days. They can leverage on the internet by creating your own voice voice acting website. The digital marketplace is huge and in this day and age, having your own website can expand your reach a thousand fold and can make your market potential limitless. Talk about the wonders of the internet.
The web allows creative talent to publish, to the whole world, what services they have to offer, past accomplishments, client list, and perhaps even your rates. Yes, you have the option to publish your rates. Some service providers, in whatever industry, find it advantageous to publish their standard service fees while others would rather keep their rates private and divulge it only to their potential clients. There are differences in opinion when it comes to publishing one’s rates so, in order to be objective, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of both approaches.
PROS
Having your rates on your website facilitates negotiations with your clients because there wouldn’t be any more haggling in terms of the cost for your services. The only things that need to be negotiated upon are the timelines and the scope. In fact, some voice over artists claim that having their rates on their website has brought in more clients than they have ever imagined. This is perhaps due to the fact that many clients are on a tight schedule and budget and find it faster to select a voice over artist just by looking at their website. In this scenario, having your rates on your website does make a lot of difference.
CONS
However, putting up your rates on your website may draw the client’s attention to it rather than focusing on your voice over prowess or expertise which, in turn, may bring too many inquiries into your website for voice over jobs that aren’t really in your area of expertise. In this case, you run the risk of exposing too much too soon.
On the other hand, not publishing your rates can sometimes be a discouragement for clients who do not have the time to contact each and every artist on the web to ask for his/her rate, or who are on the lookout for voice over artists that they can afford.
WORKING WITH PROFESSIONAL CLIENTS
But the good news is, there are clients who would rather look at your capabilities, first and foremost. These clients know the market well enough to factor in the cost of the voice over talent in their project budget. They go into the market searching for the right skill set that would match their specific need. For cases like this, it is best to play up on your capabilities rather than displaying your rate on your website which might just limit the playing field and thus prove to be a hindrance in terms of increasing your earning potential. Now, who wouldn’t want to get paid higher for a job that you can expertly do, right?
Publishing your rates on your website or not is a matter of perspective. It is entirely up to you whether you want to publish it or not. The bottom line is, we all want more jobs that will allow us to gain more experience to enhance our skills and, at the same time, pay well enough to compensate for the effort and dedication that we put into it.
