Is it just us, or is getting someone’s attention more of a challenge than ever? Especially if you’re a business marketing in a saturated medium. So how to really grab your audience’s dwindling attention is probably keeping you awake at night, right?
Well, first of all, it’s not that people are unwilling to listen to what you have to say. No-no: it’s that the collective global attention span is getting shorter due to the tsunami of content on the internet. Our attention span is now 8 seconds — a second shorter than a goldfish. Yup: the FaceBook memes are true.
With too much information to absorb — like the TikTok videos and news bulletins you get delivered to your phone — successful marketing has become a challenge.
Although it’s challenging, it’s not impossible to cut through the clutter. After all, people still pay attention to World Television Day and World Radio Day. The more forceful the language, the more likely the audience would rush out and do what they were being told to do. There’s a tool that can prove your information is valuable and worth listening to a great voice over. Like any other high-quality content available right now, yours has to build trust, show authority, and engage customers. Here’s how.
1. Choose a professional voice actor
Sure: as the first and foremost open marketplace for voice actors, you’d expect Voice123 to say that, wouldn’t you? Nevertheless, we mean it. You can’t shortcut or short-change your way to having a voice over that builds trust and engages your audience. Leave the job to a talented voice over professional.
While there’s nothing wrong with giving a newbie a chance, it’s easier and sometimes safer to trust voice actors who have built a reputation for professionalism and excellence. You can expect that the voice over will hold an audience’s attention.
What you’re buying when you’re hiring a professional is the ability to emote with words, to pace a phrase, to create emotional tension — that’s what draws people into the voice over and your message. So, choose a professional; it’ll really elevate your marketing campaigns.
2. Allow your voice actor to be authentic
Sometimes, over-directing a voice actor is a thing. When a director constantly pushes for re-reads, interrupts, or insists on something out of character, authenticity can get lost. That’s incredibly counterproductive. Authenticity is one of the most sought-after elements in a voice over because it builds trust. Trust gives your message authority. The primary role of the voice actor is to connect with the listener on a personal level. They must be allowed to provide personality, uniqueness, and creativity. So avoid bad direction, like punishing them for not sounding enough like Morgan Freeman.
3. Become a storyteller
Storytelling is one of the most powerful ways to engage an audience. It’s been around for eons and continues to play an important role in all of the content we consume.
It’s important to tell a story through your voice over; otherwise, the attention can easily be lost. For any content to engage an audience, it needs to have that emotional hook of the plot, empathy for the character, and belief in the resolution. That’s what we call engaging.
4. Perfect your script
A voice over can only be as good as its script. Great scriptwriting is an art. It’s important for your script to do most of the engagement and trust-building. After all, it’s the blueprint of the house, the map to the treasure, the place where you can put yourself in your audience’s shoes and see what they’re looking for.
Think of it as an opportunity to dive deeply into your customer’s needs and answer with your solution. There’s no way that’s not engaging on a deep level.
5. Ensure production quality
It goes without saying that recording quality is very important. Background noises can be very distracting and usually make listeners lose interest in a matter of seconds.
This can be solved with the right editing, and communication with your voice actor. Also, beware of choosing music that competes with the voice over or stands out too much.
It’s good to learn about your voice actor’s equipment and their recording environment. It’s equally important to communicate your expectations. Consequently, they’re likely to follow your lead and provide you with the voice over you need.
6. Speak their language
Literally speaking your audience’s language certainly helps, and there’s actually an element of localization you can consider when creating a voice over. But here, we’re referring to speaking as if you are the customer.
It’s incredibly useful to know your target audience inside and out. If you want to know how to really grab your audience’s dwindling attention, have conversations with them. Get to know which words they use, their tone of voice, their concerns and how they voice them.
Do they use eloquent and pragmatic language? Or is the way they talk simple? What’s the culture like; are they laid-back or very active?
This deeper way of looking at your audience’s language will bring you so much closer to seeming like their friend, like someone they can trust. This kind of research goes incredibly far, it’s important to not underestimate it.
7. Keep it conversational
See, what the audience needs is a friend. A confidant. Someone who has their ideas and concerns in mind. This is reflected in the popular: softer, warmer, friendlier, and casual voices that adopt a more conversational style. Using conversational voiceovers to speak to your audience builds trust. It makes your brand/product/service sound like a trustable friend, not the salesman you’ve spent all week dodging. If you opt for a conversational tone, the voice actor makes the script sound real!
When voice actors receive a script, they speak the words instead of reading them. And that’s a crucial distinction. Speaking over reading means the phrasing, pitch, beats, and tones must sound as if the voice actor is steering a real conversation. That’s the only way to really grab your audience. So when looking for your conversational voice actor, lend an ear to their samples and imagine the character you want them to be when they conduct the conversation.
Final thoughts
There we have it, 7 tips on how to really grab your audience’s dwindling attention. Quite some effort has to go into an effective voice over. It goes to show just how complicated securing peoples’ attention has gotten.
So structure your script like a conversation and find a voice actor whose voice sounds warm, friendly, engaging, and convincing enough to get your message across. Captivating your audience is first about knowing who they are. Then it’s about knowing how to talk to them. And Voice123‘s roster of outstanding professional voice actors can help you do just that! So, keep all these suggestions in mind, and you’ll grab your audience by speaking to them in no time. Finally, we wish you every success!
