Why the key to a great voice over is knowing what you want is a more important statement than one might think. It’s a core element in the overall psychology of sale.
Of course, product voice overs have been part and parcel of our lives since the advent of commercial radio. The processes involved in getting voice overs physically recorded may have changed over time, but the principles involved in selling stuff haven’t.
That said, though, some advertising practitioners are adamant they’re changing constantly!
Knowing what you want
What certainly hasn’t changed is how to get a great voice over from a voice actor.
There’s one absolute non-negotiable: knowing what you want. If you don’t, there’s not much chance your voice actor will. Even the most talented professionals aren’t mind-readers.
If:
- you aren’t confident in your ability to direct,
- if you don’t seem to have a clear vision of what your ultimate goal is, and
- you can’t impart this information to the actor so s/he can infuse your message with the kind of emotion you need to secure the success of your project,
the session will be in trouble from the get-go.
Here are two questions to ask yourself before you even make first contact with your chosen voice actor:
Have you clearly defined the actual purpose of the recording?
“I’ve had clients who honestly don’t know what the ultimate purpose of the recording is,” one of the popular voice actors on Voice123 recently told us. “I’ll ask them about placement and the answers are vague and stuttering. Purpose is important because it affects my pace, tone, and style of presentation.”
“Sometimes you must give a client what they don’t want,” laughs another voice actor. “I once recorded a ten-minute narration and the client came back the next day saying I’d misread her brief; it sounded nowhere near what she had imagined. We ended up wasting a lot of time and both getting frustrated with one another. The job went back and forth for a week. In the end the client admitted she’d never been certain about what she wanted and could only make a final decision once she’d heard the actual recording.”
The distance between expectation and result can be substantial, so a lack of clarity won’t help the creative process
While there’s nothing wrong with the I-know-what-I-don’t-want methodology as a point of departure, it’ll take you a lot longer to reach your goal.
If a voice actor has you on the clock, frustration can devolve into annoyance and the initially-agreed budget becomes a serious bone of contention afterwards.
Have you clearly defined your target audience and chosen the right voice?
A casting agent we spoke to claims that more than 50% of clients who come knocking on her door haven’t decided what kind of voice they want or whether they want the actor to be male or female.
“It complicates everything,” she says. “You’re forced to break down everything to the lowest common denominator. Who are they trying to sneak to? It all depends on buyer-profile. For any kind of advertisement to work these days, you have to pin-point with the precision of a laser.”
Home in on the target
“Globally, the advertising industry has upended itself,” a sales strategist tells us. “We’re demolishing archetypes daily. There was a time when deep male voices were regarded as positively authoritarian and go-to voices because of it. The perception was one of ‘substance’ and ‘gravitas’, so those voices would work for hard-sell, strong call-to-actions. Nurturing female voices were always used in a more domestic environment. That’s completely changed. Nowadays, you need to be hip, cool, and pretty-much millennial in your approach; consumers don’t want to listen to ‘announcery‘ voices of either sex and it’s more about message than gender.”
Choice of voice
“Identifying your target audience and choosing a voice that speaks the kind of emotional language consumers relate to is the only way to make a voice recording gain traction and improve your sales,” says a account executive at a well-known agency.
“In my experience, most consumers practically live online and you’ve got five seconds to grab their attention — especially Millennials. There’s just so much content out there! Get your messaging wrong and you can easily flush thousands of dollars down the drain — if not tens or hundreds of thousands. A mistake like that can bankrupt you. Advertising always used to be about hyperbole; bigger-better-faster-more. Not today. Consumers demand integrity, transparency, boy- or girl-next-door vibes. Things need to be anchored and real. There’s no tolerance for ‘fake-it-till-you-make it’ in the circles I move in.”
Never get conned into thinking that one-size-fits-all either,” a producer warns. “It may work for socks, underpants, and cheap baseball caps, but it won’t work for voice overs. One has to be very specific. The shotgun approach is bound to fail. The key to a great voice over is knowing what you want.”
So – do you?
We wish you every success!
