Is It Worth Paying For A Voice Over Artist?

This may be a question that you’ve asked yourself before, or for a lot of you, it probably wouldn’t have even crossed your mind. But there is certainly a proportion of society that own businesses, or are in charge of high profile brands that must at times ask themselves this question. Is it worth paying for a professional voice over artist to promote their brand/company?

The simplest answer is of course, you get what you pay for. If you have a guy in the office who ‘has a pretty good speaking voice’, who you think should be the voice of your podcasts, or online/media/TV related promotional material, then fair play to you. Have you ever heard that person’s recorded material before? Do you trust them to be ‘the voice’ of the company/brand? Are you ok with the fact that when people hear that voice they’ll associate it with your company? These aren’t all negative points, far from. This counts as for better or indeed for worse. If they are for better, then excellent, give it a chance!

However, if they sound like a totally different person, which is actually more often the case, then you really should think about bringing in a professional; someone that is used to performing in front of a microphone. The thing is, when you put a regular person in a studio environment, in front of a professional studio microphone, it’s like sticking a big lens of a camera in someone’s face; it can be extremely off-putting. Some people tend to freeze, not know what to do or say, change the pattern of their speech, their tone, timbre, level, pitch, or worse, be completely monotone.

If this happens, you could have wasted time in the studio and need to rebook when the person has composed themself, or wait for a professional to take over!

The good thing with hiring a voice artist, is that we’re completely used to all this; We know how to handle a microphone, and chances are, we know exactly how to lift your script by performing the words that are on the page, rather than just simply ‘reading’ them. (A quality you don’t often get when audio tracks are home-made).

So, the next time you have a requirement for a voice track, be it a TV advert, a podcast, corporate video, web audio of any sort, the question you need to ask yourself is, in the long term, is it worth paying for a professional voice over artist? The answer is up to you.

Want more information? Check out my main website: www.richardheathcote.co.uk

Richard Heathcote, Voice Over Artist

Advertiser Vs Consumer – The Reality

In this ever-changing world of buying and selling, the goalposts and conditions in which this is done are changing rapidly. The world can seem like one big call centre, every time the phone rings it could be someone trying to sell to us. What we really like, as a nation, are the conditions in which we want to buy, not be sold to. That is the reason I quite like this video; it shows the relationship between the advertiser and the consumer and how much times have and are changing!

Remember, when in business – create the conditions in which your audience wants to buy, cause they really don’t like to be sold to!

Richard Heathcote, Voice Over Artist

Twitter Image

It’s no surprise to many that I’m a big fan of Twitter. However I’ve only been using it for a relatively short space of time. I signed up with an account at the end of the Summer last year, but only properly started using it about 8 months ago. Generally, I find it to be a fantastic tool for sending little messages, random little thoughts I have through the day. and promoting things that I do or have going on.

In the early days I used to follow all and sundry, thinking that it’s just ‘the done thing’. But that’s not always the case. Recently (as in for the last 4-6 months) I’ve been a little more choosy in who I follow, without necessarily having the ‘Well I’ll follow you because you followed me’ routine. Quite often I’ll get people following me that I have no interest in at all, so what would be the point in following them? It’s only yourself you’re fooling! I’ve even recently had a bit of a Twitter cull for odd people I followed from day one!

I’ve seen some trends through Twitter, some odd, some eccentric, some downright bizarre, but how everybody works it for them should be their own choosing without feeling unnecessary pressure to keep to current regulations & statutes! There are some pet hates of mine that are guaranteed to make me not follow you!

1. No Bio: If you have no biography information on your profile, how do I know who you are? What do you like? What do you do? Why should I follow you?

2. Professional Linker: If I see that all your recent posts are just hyperlinks to random sites, without actually engaging in conversation or writing things that are noteworthy of reading or commenting on, then it drastically reduces the likelihood of me following back!

3. Silent Hunter: If you’ve followed lots of people (probably in one go), and have written no tweets/updates at all, I question your motives. Why should I follow you if I have no idea on the kinds of subjects you regularly tweet about?

4. Faceless Tweeter: If you don’t have a photo of you up there and stick to the default Twitter images, it makes me think that you can’t really be bothered. It doesn’t take that long to sort out your profile. I’m not talking about needing a professional headshot – I don’t even care if it’s a picture that was taken on your trip to Tenerife 5 years ago! The point is to show that you’re a human and not a faceless robot/Twitter spammer.

5. Protected Updates: If you follow me, you have immediate access to all the things I’ve been tweeting about. When I check my follow list and you have protected updates enabled, read above. Why should I follow you back? I have no idea who you are.

6. Promo-Overload: If all or most of your tweets are shameless self promotion, that’s another reason for me to think twice! Don’t get me wrong, Twitter and ALL of social media is about getting word out about you; but don’t do it all the time. You should treat it as a constantly running conversation, not an endless one-way broadcast.

I hope I haven’t sounded too much like a miserable sod! It’s just things that are constant little bugbears of mine that happen literally on a daily basis. I thoroughly enjoy using Twitter, and I do look at the majority of things that crop up in my Tweetdeck listings. I also do a lot of Hashtag searching for things that interest me too, so if you use that function in your tweets, all the better.

So, Tweet away, be happy, and have a Twantastic day!