Marketing tools ALL actors must have

Wendy Alane Wright

Wendy Alane Wright

As an actor, your goal is to get signed. You need to market yourself & if you’re not doing that, your competitors are. Here are the best marketing tools for actors.

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Marketing Tools for Actors

Hi everybody, it’s Wendy Alane Wright Smith in Los Angeles, California.

I’m going to talk to you about a couple of things, specifically, why your branding all has to be the same. I need you to understand that your LA Casting profile needs to have your name. Let’s say your name is Brooke Smith. Your Actors Access profile should also say Brooke Smith. Your website should say Brooke Smith. Your business cards should say Brooke Smith. The link to your Actors Access site should say Brooke Smith. Your hardcopy resume, Brooke Smith. Your YouTube video, Brooke Smith. Postcards, Brooke Smith. And I think you’re starting to understand that your branding has to be 100% the same all the way across

Sometimes an actor might have Brooke L. Smith on their resume. And then on their Actors Access site, Brooke Louise Smith. And then on their YouTube site, Brooke Smith. This sounds like three different actors, as far as casting directors are concerned. Remember, there are 150,000 actors. And so, the more specific and consistent that you make yourself, the easier it will be for them to find you. Change all of your marketing materials to have the same name. That’s very, very important.

When you’re filling out your Actors Access in your LA Casting profiles online, you need to make sure they’re 100% complete. That means all your special skills, every single film you did, every single theater you’ve done, every film, TV, credit, new media, the directors, and the producers.

And remember that the casting directors don’t care about the title or the name of the character you played. He simply wants to see how you were built. So in the film, if you were built a lead or supporting, and on television, if you were built as a lead or guest star or co-star, or featured. That’s all they care about. Theater, you could put the name of the character, plus lead or supporting, or feature. That is the only place where the name of the character matters. OK?

You’ve got to get your demo reels up on LA Casting and on Actors Access. And not just there, but you need to get them up on YouTube. You need to upload them on YouTube, tag them, so that your name, so that when a casting director types in your name under YouTube, Brooke Smith, there comes your demo reel.

To tie all this in together, you need to have a personal website that’s just your name, brookesmith.com. On that, it should show your headshots, your resume, links to your LA Casting and your Actors Access pages, any pictures that you have from the set, a small bio, something that we can get to know you better. You might have a hosting reel on there and a singing reel, and a dancing reel, so that…

Believe me, when your headshots are dropped off at casting, we pass them all around. We pass them to friends, everyone up here and there. Then the person has your demo, your resume in their hand, how are they going to find out more about you? It needs to be very simple, because as I’ve told you many times, casting directors and agents, and producers and directors are busy.

Your job is to make it so easy for them to find you. A website that has it all, that is so easy to navigate, and they can get to that website and find everything about you. They’ll also use the links to go to your Actors Access and make sure that’s filled out to make sure you’re a professional. Good LA Casting, they want to see if that’s filled out. They’ll click on YouTube videos. They want to see everything. They want to know that you have your marketing stuff together. If you’re one of those actors who has a couple of things done, but not everything, you’re not very competitive, and they’re likely to hire somebody else.

I’m trying to express that you are a professional business person. Your tools are great headshots, a demo reel, your Actors Access, your LA Casting, your website, your business cards, your postcards, and you use them to thank everyone you come in contact with, and you keep a contact book of everyone you meet. And you make sure you’re in touch with them regularly.

Don’t make your manager tell you this over and over again. That’s the kind of thing that makes us lose interest in an actor, even a talented one. So get on that stuff right away. The reason a manager has to be on top of all that stuff is that that’s what your agent needs. 

Your agent is looking into your manager to make sure that the actor has all their ducks in a row. And when an agent goes to present an actor to casting and the casting director says, “I couldn’t find their reel.” It makes the agent look bad. It makes the manager look bad. It makes you look professional. It makes us all look like idiots and then you are our least favorite person. And usually, off the roster. I know that’s the same for a lot of people. Although some people don’t give warnings.

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