#14 2 Things to STOP, Top Secret Invite, 4 Things to Measure
Stop the Sample Mistakes, Grab a Free Tool, and Start Tracking Your Wins — Before 2025 Leaves You Behind
This week:
STOP doing this in your medical samples
STOP doing this in your commercial samples
Sign up to be one of 5 users to beta test a new service that writes Additional Sample Details for you
4 ways to measure whether you’re being found more on V123
STOP and FIX THIS in your Medical Samples
Friends, I can’t take it anymore. I love you all but you’re driving me bananas. Even my mother said that this has got to stop!
The number one problem with medical samples on V123?
Mispronunciations of common medical terms.
No, I’m not kidding.
For my fully managed clients, I sit down with actual medical professionals, play all the medical samples, and mark every mispronunciation. Then I either edit the files to take out the errors, or reach out to the voice talent and let them know so they can fix it.
And the number one mispronunciation that immediately marks the voice talent as someone unfamiliar with medical terms?
Compound words with the immune- prefix, like immunotherapy, immunocompromised, and immunosuppression.
In compound words like immunotherapy, the immune- part is not heavily stressed. The main stress moves later in the word (like on "therapy" or "compromised"), and "immune-" is said lightly and quickly, with just the slightest bit of stress on the im- part (and none on the -mune- part!)
Is it different between different countries and regions though? Is this like how the Aussies vs Yanks pronounce “skeletal”?
No.
American English:
immune → /ɪˈmjun/
immunotherapy → /ˌɪmjunoʊˈθɛrəpi/
immunocompromised → /ˌɪmjunoʊˈkɑmprəˌmaɪzd/
immunosuppression → /ˌɪmjunoʊsəˈprɛʃən/
British English:
immune → /ɪˈmjuːn/
immunotherapy → /ˌɪmjuːnəʊˈθɛrəpi/
immunocompromised → /ˌɪmjuːnəʊˈkɒmprəmaɪzd/
immunosuppression → /ˌɪmjuːnəʊsəˈprɛʃən/
Australian English:
immune → /ɪˈmjuːn/
immunotherapy → /ˌɪmjʉːnəʉˈθɛrəpi/
immunocompromised → /ˌɪmjʉːnəʉˈkɔmprəmaɪzd/
immunosuppression → /ˌɪmjʉːnəʉsəˈprɛʃən/
Don’t be scared of the international phonetic alphabet, it’s very easy.
The high apostrophe-like thing ˈ marks the primary stress (the most stressed syllable in the word), and the low comma-like thing ˌ marks the secondary stress (the 2nd most-stressed syllable in the word). It is placed right before the syllable, so it’s easy to know which to emphasize as we read left to right. It’s like a little warning flag.
Now go back and listen to all your medical samples, and never make this mistake again.
Stop doing these two things in your commercial samples and join us in 2025
While we’re on the topic of things to please stop doing:
emphasizing pronouns (like “you” and “your”) and connective words (like “and” and “or”) where it doesn’t need to be stressed
Watch these free videos by coach Nancy Wolfson to understand the why and how of it:
She has a whole playlist of free training clips here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzPQy_dzUMA4jUxbp0FGtSLEVVker33Ri&si=ldw0vTUXKjOr2Ehf
If you are looking for a coach for booking national commercials, she’s the first person I’d recommend. Sign up for remote coaching here: https://braintracksaudio.com/
ONLY 5 spots (no lie) to test a new tool I’m building, so reply ASAP to get in!
Sick of writing your Additional Sample Details manually? You’re not alone. So I’ve built a new tool to do it for you!
Looking for a few people who will get to use it for free, in exchange for feedback.
Reply to this email, or email me at Nikki@OnlineCastingOptimizer.com to save your spot.
4 ways to measure changes on your V123 profile
You’re working on your profile, but are you seeing results? Is it moving the needle for you? How do you even know?
Here are 4 things you can start measuring right now:
Profile Favorites.
Why it’s useful: Clients can filter to see just their favorites. It’s also great for social proof.
How to measure it:
Click on Profile, scroll down to your About section, and note down your “Member Since” date.
Ask any free AI how many months it’s been since that date. Note down the total number of months.
Look just above the About section (or click on Home) and find your number of clients who have favorited your profile.
Divide: (number of clients) / (number of months) to find your Average Favorites Per Month.
From now on, mark down the total number of Favorites you have on the first/last day of the month. This is a simple way to track whether you’re seeing more Favorites. You want to see this number growing every month.
Direct Messages (not related to auditions you’ve done).
Why it’s useful: Getting these means the client somehow found you on their own! The only ways that happens is if you’re driving traffic to your profile from outside of the platform, or if the client has found you in a search.
How to measure it:
Click on Messages.
Scroll to the very top of the first message to see the date and time it was sent to you.
Download and print this tracker.
Put a tallymark into the month that the message came in, ONLY if it’s probably because you were found in search. So if it’s a “Thank you for auditioning, we’d like…” or a “The client loved your read on…” or any message that makes you think it’s because of an audition you did, then do not count it. I DO count messages like “I want to be a voice actor, can you give me advice?” as well as the “Can you voice a character in my YouTube animation for free?” because even though they’re not the kind of messages you want, they came to you because the other person found you in search.
Go through all messages one by one, seeing when the client first messaged you, and make a tally in that month if the message counts as direct.
Fill up the tracker all the way through the beginning of 2023. It usually takes up to the first 6 tabs of messages.
Count up the total number of DMs. Note it down.
Count up the total number of months. Note it down.
Divide: (Total DMs) / (Total Months) to get your Average DMs Per Month.
That’s your new benchmark! You want to see more messages coming in as you make more changes to your keywords and SEO.
You will also notice how very inconsistent it is from month to month, which will help you set realistic expectations. :)
At the end of every month, go through and mark how many new DMs you had in the month.
Client Invitations to Auditions.
Why it’s useful: You get this one of three ways.
The client posted an audition and filtered for their Favorites, saw you listed, and invited you.
The client posted an audition and filtered for talent that matched their casting specs, saw you listed, and invited you.
The client posted an audition and then manually searched for talent to invite to it.
How to measure it:
Set up an email filter so that the email notifications for when the client has invited you to their audition go into their own folder.
At the end of each month, count up how many came.
Direct Bookings.
This one’s self-explanatory.
Do you do something else to measure the results of the changes you’re making on your profile? What do you do? Reply and tell me!
Best,
Nikki