REAL TALK: Your marketing materials are probably costing you acting jobs 🙈

I’ve lost out on so many jobs because of having sh*tty marketing materials. And it wasn’t even necessarily my fault… 

***Oh and I used to have a variety of hair colors in brown. Why? Because my manager at the time told me to. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. 

I honestly didn’t know what “great” marketing materials looked like. I had headshots, my resume was always updated, I had a few clips on my profile showcasing my acting – what more did I need?

Why were casting directors not busting down my door? No clue. 

I was here, and I was freakin’ ready. But my materials were… boring, safe, and didn’t showcase anything specific about me. They honestly kinda sucked. I was presenting myself in such a safe and cookie-cutter way. 

Where we as actors trip up when we’re creating our marketing materials is we’re looking at them from the perspective of an actor.

We want to make sure we look good and that we’re checking off all the boxes of what we “need” – but we really need to shift the lens through which we’re looking at our profiles through.

Your marketing materials are sales tools – they help sell you to casting directors and showcase your skill sets and castability.

Coming across your casting profile could be the first time a casting director is meeting you – what first impression do you want to make? Who do you want them to think you are?

Your casting profile speaks for you when you can’t speak for yourself.

It showcases your strengths as an actor and displays the different slices of how you could be cast.

You should be looking at your casting profile through the lens of representation…

Your rep is literally someone who is strategizing your career plan and selling you on a daily basis – what tools do they need to most effectively do their job and are your materials doing that?

Think of how you would like to be pitched to casting – now imagine your manager getting on the phone and saying -“You gotta meet my new client, she’s perfect for this role, she’s so this, and so this – here let me send you over her materials so you can see for yourself”.

Then imagine that casting director looking through your materials and making a decision from there. Do your materials back up the way you’d want your manager to pitch you? OR would your manager have to change their pitch to match your materials?

STORYTIME: An example of materials selling you the  ❌WRONG❌ Way

There was an actor who was super into comedy – he even did stand-up – comedy was his thing, his biggest strength. 

Yet when you looked at his profile, his reel was pretty much only dramatic content. And both of the headshots he had were dark and brooding where he was wearing leather jackets and mean mugging.

He kept getting called out for dramatic roles and I was like well – yeah! Because if I didn’t know you at all and this was the first impression I got of you – not only would I have no idea if you’re good at comedy because there’s no evidence of that here – BUT I would think maybe you don’t want to do comedy because you’re not showcasing that to me at all here.

So if you were your own rep – what tools would you need to effectively sell your strengths and showcase your unique castability?

Also, pretend you were a casting director who’s never met you before – what first impression do you want to leave? What characters do you want them to think you could play? What strengths would you want them to notice?

You get it by now… your marketing materials are V important. AND I promise you, it’s not as hard to design fantastic materials as you may think 💛

If you’re feeling stuck with your marketing materials and you know your casting profile could use some serious love – book a free 30-minute consultation with me. 

One of my strengths as a coach is helping actors design a brand they love, creating specific characters they could be cast as today, and then re-designing their casting profile to reflect their strengths. 

Taking some creative risks, getting rid of anything that’s not serving them – and then crafting a plan that allows them to re-introduce themselves in a more confident way. 

I know it can seem intimidating and like there are a million things to do – but this is something that opens up SO many other opportunities for you and you do not need to go after it alone.