Are you focusing your business content efforts on videos? If you are, you’re in good company. Total online video usage has a reach of over 90%, with a total over 3.1 billion video viewers worldwide. Video content is truly at the forefront of business marketing and can also be a useful way to provide e-learning programmes, PR pieces and explainer videos on your website.
Of course, you can make all the video content you like, but it doesn’t mean your audience will like it. Good videos need to include:
- A compelling message
- A clear message
- High-quality visuals
- Clear and crisp sound
- A strong storyline/ viewer journey
There is also one addition you can make to your business videos that will elevate your content far beyond other features. Even with all of the above and more, if you add a professional voice over you get some incredible benefits that ensure the cost of having it done pales into insignificance compared to the rewards that it brings. If you don’t know much about professional voice overs, or you are unsure about spending money on a voice over agency creating a professional voice over for your video, the information below will help you not only understand why it is a great idea, but also how to make sure that the process of choosing different aspects of the service and how it is finished gives you the best possible results for your money. Let’s take a closer look at enhancing your business videos with professional voice overs:
What Is a Professional Voice Over?
A professional voice over is a voice over that has been recorded by a professional voice actor in a professional recording studio. It can be done in various different styles for your business content, including:
- Narration
- Translation
- Dubbing
- Gaming
- Explainer
- Radio
- Animated
- Characters
The voice over artists are also varied in how they sound, ranging from different accents to different natural tones and styles. Professional voice over agencies can also supply translation services and the ability to have not just an English voice over, but a voice over in any language you like. Combined with professional translation services they can also ensure the script is localised, and the accent and dialect used is relevant to your target audience. Most voice over agencies will also ensure the professional recording is done by experienced sound technicians who will make sure the resulting voice over is crisp, clear and of the kind of quality your customers expect from your business video content.
Key Benefits of A Professional Voice Over:
- Brings your message to life
- Creates additional content appeal
- Makes your content accessible to the 2 million struggling with blindness and visual impairment
- Human voice preferred by customers compared to AI voices
- You can have an English voice over, or multiple language voice overs to extend the reach of your content
- Helps eLearning learners better ability to take in information by making content more engaging and expanding on visual content (65% of learners are visual learners)
Why Not DIY It?
In such a challenging economic climate businesses are always looking to save money. Whilst you probably like the idea of a voice over on your business content, you may well feel like there is no point in adding a voice over from a professional voice over agency when you can do it yourself. So, why not DIY it? Before you hot foot it to the laptop mic and start to create the voiceover yourself, consider the following reasons not to DIY your business content voiceover:
- Sound quality is unlikely to good enough to represent your brand
- Untrained speakers can’t rival the skill and abilities of a professional voice actor
- Untrained speakers cannot ‘act’ your script like a professional can
- The time spend recording a voice over yourself is likely much longer than it would take a professional to do the job
- Post-processing done by unskilled amateurs will not be the same quality as it would be when done by a professional sound technician
Realistically, it is an investment in your project but one that pays off with better brand representation, a more impactful video, better video accessibility and hopefully, more sales and subscriptions.
Choosing The Perfect Performer
One of the most important elements of having a professional voice over created is choosing the perfect performer to read your script. It is a huge decision, and one that could not only elevate your business content, but make it more memorable and successful. But how do you choose the right person for such an important job? What should you consider?
To choose the perfect voice actor for your business content, we recommend that you consider the following:
- Voice Over Agency – do choose a trusted voice over agency who will only offer you services from trained, professional voice actors. This includes the ability to choose from English voice over actors with a huge range of accents, as well as voice overs by bilingual and multilingual actors, which can be handy if you plan to extend your reach into new geographical locations. Essentially, using a professional voice over agency ensures you get the biggest pool of talent to choose from, so you have the highest chance of getting the perfect voice for your video content.
- Gender – the gender of your voice artist is likely to be relevant because it impacts the way your message is received. It isn’t always relevant with eLearning and other content, but with advertising it can be significant in the way your message is received. In one study it was found that using a female voice to market a female-targeted product was much more well received than using a male voice to do the same job. When the target audience is male, the sex of the voiceover artist was found to be less relevant overall. It’s a big decision, especially if your target audience is more aware or responsive depending on the gender of the voice they hear.
- Accent – accents are very important when you create business video content because they change how your message is perceived. Choose the wrong accent and you could alienate your audience, choose the right accent and you could well make your content memorable in all the right ways. Foreign voice overs, for example, are proven to be much less popular than localised voice overs. British accents are perceived as intelligent to Americans, and yet within the UK, we have all kinds of associations with different accents. RP (received pronunciation) is considered posh and powerful, but Cockney is associated with the working class. Birmingham accents have a very bad reputation and are associated with laziness and a slow intellect. By choosing the right accent for your business content voice over you can not only avoid negative associations your customers make with the voice over accent, but you can elevate your message with a voice over that is universally appreciated by your target audience.
- Tone – The tone that your chosen voice actor has is incredibly important. It is a natural quality that is likely to impact how your message is received. Of course, they can say things in a way that puts the message across differently, but in reality, their natural voice is a big part of how they sound. Is their voice high, nasal, feminine? Is it gruff, low, masculine? What kinds of tones make sense when it comes to the message you want to put out? With a huge range of voice actors to choose from when you work with a professional voice over agency, you can choose the perfect voice actor for your project needs.
It could help if you start to gather adverts and content with voice over actors you like, and that you feel could work for your campaign. It’s even possible the talent you like may be hireable for your project, and if not, there will be an actor with similar qualities you can hire to create the perfect voiceover for your campaign.
Speak To A Voice Over Agency Today To Find Out How They Can Help Upgrade Your Business Video Content
Your business videos can be greatly enhanced with a professional voice over from a voice over agency. It does cost more than doing it yourself, but the results more than pay for themselves.
Start by speaking to your chosen voice over agency today to find out how they can help you. Whether you only need a simple English voice over in a female voice, or you want translation, extensive narration for a creative project and explainer voice overs you can find exactly the voice talent you need to enhance your business video content in a way that creates a quality finished product to match your trusted brand.
