Finding the right spokesperson talent can be an adventure, but the effort will have a tremendous impact on your video’s success. Good spokesperson talent is crucial to any video project.  The spokesperson video host will be the image of your video’s brand and can attract or detract from your message.

Where is the best place to find a spokesperson talent for your video project?
The best place to start is with a local talent agency.  These agencies will work with you to identify available talent in within your budget range. Plan on paying a 15%-20%  for this service, but it is money well spent. I would recommend that you interview several agencies to review their spokesperson talent pool and their fees, before you commit to the agency for a casting call.  Good/experienced talent tend to work with good agencies.

What does a typical spokesperson video host costs?

There are three costs related to spokesperson talent:

1. Talent Fee – Usually there are half day and full day rates.  Depending on your market and the level of talent a typical range would be $600 – $2,000. A spokesperson with name recognition will cost even more.
2. Agency Fee – Agency fees add 15% – 20% to the talent fee.
3. Post production costs – The talent could also add or reduce post production costs based on their skills and preparation. I learned that paying a few extra hundred dollars for a seasoned spokesperson would eventually save me several hours of post production editing time.

What are some tips to selecting spokesperson talent?

• Teleprompter skills – If they can’t read a teleprompter effectively do not hire.
• Don’t judge talent by their head shots – Looks are important, but they don’t always equal the ability to convey your message or the ability to read a teleprompter.
• Review their demo reel – Make sure you see a demo reel of there previous spokesperson projects.
• Use Local TV Anchors – We have been most successful using local TV news anchors as spokespersons for our projects.  They are the best at reading teleprompters convincingly.  However, many TV news anchors cannot do work for companies in their news market.  We have been lucky that most of our video projects are for national companies based outside of the local news markets.

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2 Responses to “Finding Good Spokesperson Talent for Your Video Project”

1. gary gustafson says:

   June 22, 2009 at 10:50 AM

   Great suggestions…I especially like the recommendation of good teleprompter skills
2. Tyson F. GNutreNux says:

   March 16, 2010 at 4:32 PM

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