Hiring Professional Voice Talent For Videos
When it comes to producing videos for your content marketing strategy, a professional voice over for marketing is vital to your video’s success. You work hard and you’re pressed for time. As a busy content marketer, you’ve got an ever-growing pile of things to do for your company every day. Your job is important – you work hard creating interesting content, scheduling guest posts, and creating marketing videos to attract new clients. This is where your job is critical – your company is the brand; you support the brand. A mistake on your part can cost the company a client worth thousands or even millions of dollars. This is why every single piece you produce needs to be of the highest quality possible.
In an effort to complete a video efficiently, it might be tempting to simply work with others in your office to provide the narration. After all, it’s only voice overs – you don’t need a professional actor for that, you do? Actually, you do. Hiring a professional voice actor to do your marketing video’s narration will make a difference in your final product. You’ll feel the emotion and connect with the characters on screen in a way that you simply can’t with an amateur voice actor.
You Don’t Have the Equipment or the Talent You Need
You might think you can get away with recording your narration in-house, but in reality, you can’t. You need to work with an actor who has access to the quality recording equipment that is needed to create a well-balanced audio track. When you are looking to reach potential clients and grow brand awareness with a video, using a professional voice over as part of your marketing strategy is highly advised.
A colleague with a good voice is not the same as a professional voice actor. Although your co-worker might be able to speak clearly and directly, if he or she does not have experience doing voice overs, his or her performance will not be as effective as a professional’s. A voice over requires the expert use of inflection, tone, and timing. An amateur will need more takes to get the recording just right, which eats into your time and budget. Do not think solely of the cost of hiring a professional voice actor – keep in mind the costs of multiple takes and extensive editing to improve a non-professional recording.
Keep your recording space and equipment in mind as well. Recording video narration is not as simple as speaking into a microphone and hitting “stop” when the speaker is finished. Recording multiple takes of a phrase, balancing the bass and treble levels on the track, and putting individual snippets of audio together into one cohesive recording takes a considerable amount of time and specialized recording equipment. Attempting to record in your office or a conference room will only end in frustration, between attempting to use sub-par equipment and the ambient office sounds in the background.
You Might Need to Record in Multiple Languages
Today’s marketplace is a global marketplace. If your company does business overseas, you will need to be able to produce videos in multiple languages.
Languages are more than spoken words. A language is made up of idioms, intonation and emphasis patterns, and a cultural consciousness that dictates how individuals in that culture use the language. This is why you need to work with a native speaker to record video narration in a foreign language, ideally a voice actor who is fluent in both English and the target language. He or she should be able to read through the script and change any phrases that sound awkward or incorrect in the other language to wording that feels natural. You need to connect with potential clients abroad. Do this by speaking to them in their language.
You Need your Boss’ Approval
Ultimately, this is the most important reason why you need to work with a professional voice actor to narrate your marketing video. Your boss is the one who will present it to the rest of the company and possibly to the clients themselves. He or she needs to not only accept, but embrace, your work. Show that you know what you’re doing by hiring well and producing a quality product.
As a creative professional, your job is to find solutions to problems. When there are no obvious solutions to an issue at hand, you need to make solutions. Address your need for quality voice overs by working with professional voice actors, rather than trying to make do with what’s available in your office.
To add the finishing touch to your marketing video, check out CreativeLimit Studio’s vast selection of professional voice over artists from around the world.