How to voice over a video properly is one of the most significant video production decisions you’re ever going to make. After all, the voice over will set the tone of the video, and your choice of voice actor can literally make or break the success of your marketing campaign.
With that in mind, it is a must that you place much thought in choosing the right voice over for your marketing video as possible. This article will serve as a straightforward guide for how to voice over a video the right way.
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Why Voice Over Matters for a Marketing Video
Now more than ever, it is essential that you know how to voice over a video. As mentioned, the type of voice over you choose will have a significant impact on the overall feel and appeal of your marketing video.
This is because a good voice over can offer the following benefits:
- Makes the video more interesting.
An interesting voice over can add dimension and character to a video that will intrigue and influence your audience. As a result, your audience will hang on to every word of the voice over and keep them hooked to your video and, ultimately, your brand.
- Establishes trust in your company.
A voice over that sounds credible and confident can help establish the audience’s trust in your brand. To understand why, just imagine any video you’ve seen in which an untrained person did the voiceover. The company was probably trying to cut on production costs but likely cut down the profitability of their marketing campaign in the end.
- Makes the audience feel understood and valued.
Your video will be effective only if the audience feels that you understand and value them. The best way to do that is to choose a voice over that sounds exactly like them or the people they look up and listen to. When you do this, the audience will be able to identify with your brand a lot better.
- Can encourage the audience to take action.
The purpose of a marketing video is to facilitate your audience to take action. If you use a voice over that sounds like the people that your audience is comfortable with, the video can influence the audience to do what you want them to do—buy a product, like your page, avail of your services, and more.
- Promotes better brand recognition.
The goal of every marketing video is to introduce the brand to the audience. Businesses want their audience to see the brand (logo or brand colors) and associate it with what you do, what you offer, and what your company is all about.
To be able to do that, you should carefully choose every detail of your marketing paraphernalia, including your video. The voice over you choose for your video will be a part of your overall brand. To promote better brand recognition, it is a must that you select a voice over with a distinct tone and character to make your videos catchy and recognizable.
How to Voice Over a Video: Important Factors to Consider When Choosing a Voice Over
Now, let us discover how to voice over video. When choosing a voice over for your video, the first thing that you need to do is identify your target market. You can do this by creating a buyer persona comprised of basic demographics like age, gender, hobbies, nationality, and many more factors. After that, you choose a voice over that matches your audience’s demographics. This is the best way to earn the trust of your audience.
It is only after you have created the buyer persona that you should proceed in choosing a voice over actor for your video. You do that by considering the following important factors:
- Gender
If your products and services cater to a specific gender, then choosing the gender of your voice over is quite easy. But if your products and services are gender-neutral, then the decision will become a bit complicated. Lucky for you, there are already a few statistics that can help you in making the decision.
A survey conducted by Adweek Media revealed that 48% of participants perceived male voices to be more forceful, while 46% thought that female voices were soothing.
This is the reason why male voices are often used for videos about cars, razors, computers, etc. On the other hand, female voices are the go-to choice for spa, nail salon, grocery, and shopping videos.
2. Accent
As mentioned, you can use voice overs to establish trust between you and your audience. If that’s the case, you need to make sure that your voice over is someone they can relate to. If your voice over has the same accent as your target audience, they will feel more drawn and connected to your video.
Local businesses would benefit from voice over with a local accent. But if you are launching a national campaign, you should use a voice over with an accent that best represents the country that you are targeting (e.g., British accent for UK campaigns and American accent for U.S. campaigns).
3. Tone
Tone matters more than you think it does. Studies have shown that 7% of meaning is found in words used in the video, while 38% of the meaning comes from the tone of voice used.
Because of this, you must make sure that the voiceover’s tone will echo the tone of your brand. For brands that are informal and relaxed, give your artist the freedom to have some fun with their tone of voice. On the other hand, an authoritative tone will work best for formal brands.
4. Pace
The pace of the voice will determine how well the message of the video is conveyed. To ensure a better understanding of your message, you must strike the perfect balance. It will help if you give your audience enough time to digest your message, so there must be pauses in the voice over. However, it would be best if you also made sure that the video is moving along well to keep the audience engaged.
This will all boil down to the video script. The video must not be overloaded with text and words. As a rule of thumb, you should have around 130 to 140 words in your script for every 60 seconds of video.
5. Long-term Availability
As mentioned, the voiceover you use will become a big part of your branding. The audience may develop an emotional attachment to your brand (that includes the voiceover you use), and it can be difficult to break off the bond that has formed.
Since you have no idea how successful your marketing video will be, it is crucial to make sure that the voiceover artist will be available for long-term collaboration.
6. Where to Find the Best Voice Over for Your Video
Where can you find the best voice over for your marketing video? Since you already know how to voice over a video, this is the next question we have to answer.
Finding a skilled voice over artists is not as easy as you think. Lucky for you, there are now plenty of voice over platforms where you can look for and retain the services of various voiceover artists all over the world. These platforms include The Voice Realm, Voice Crafters, Voices, Voice 123, and Voicer—among others . These websites are designed to make searching for, interviewing, and hiring voice over artists a lot easier.
If you’d like to instead record the voice over yourself, here’s the best guide we’ve found for doing just that.
How to Voice Over a Video: In Practice
Here are some excellent voiceover examples from our own portfolio that we’ve gathered from the online platforms above:
Conclusion
If you are looking for a complete video production, from creative storyboarding to production to post-production — voice over included — our video production company is here for you. As a full-service video production company, we have helped some of the biggest brands launch some of the most successful video marketing campaigns.
