Choosing the best voice over talent for your brand is not as easy as it seems, with many considerations to take in before booking a session with a professional recording studio. Here are some key points to consider when selecting the best voice for your next project.
Putting a voice to your brand.
You’ve likely spent a lot of money on your brand identity. Professional logos, websites, email signatures, a beautiful colour scheme, tone, language – the list is endless. One often overlooked element of brand identity is what you sound like. More specifically, what does your company’s voice sound like? Not only that, you must consider what assumptions you want the listener to make upon hearing your company’s ‘voice’.
If your brand identity is corporate and serious, you may want to project an air of class, experience, and knowledge by utilising a mature voice actor. For example, a bank may want an older, more serious voice that makes you feel they’ll take looking after your money seriously. Conversely, if your brand is young and fun like an on-trend clothing label, hair salon, or gaming retailer, you might choose a younger voice directed to deliver a fun and casual read.
What’s the voice over job for?
Is it for a corporate in-house video voice over? Perhaps a YouTube voiceover? Or an explainer video to help your customers setup your product or enlighten prospects as to how your service works? Maybe your talent needs to be multi-lingual for a global ad campaign? Understanding the context of the final project is another factor that will help you choose the right voice. Imagine, an inspiring corporate presentation at an industry expo, the lights go down, the expensive video and graphics that ate up your budget appear on the big screen – then your ears are greeted with a lacklustre, completely uninspiring monotone voice. You simply can’t afford to make a mistake here. If you want to inspire your audience choose a confident and commanding voice, if you want to teach people how to use your product choose a friendly and relatable voice. Choose the right voice to suit the context.
What’s your budget?
With voice over artists, as with everything, you often get what you pay for. Hourly rate for talent can vary from $50 to well over $500, and the difference is noticeable. You also need to budget for studio time, as well as a sound engineer/producer to record the talent and to mix the final production with music and sound effects. You’re paying for quality: a quality voice, recorded with high-end professional equipment, directed by an experienced producer, and then treated with care in the mixing and delivery of the audio.
What does a producer do?
How you utilise a voice is just as important as selecting the voice itself. Achieving the right tone is essential and this is what an experienced producer excels in. In a professional recording studio, the producer will direct the talent to deliver your message with the right tone and pace to suit your brand identity. Your local hardware store, chemist, retail store, school, council etc. might require an approachable, warm, and friendly tone at a casual mid-pace. Day-spas, mental health clinics or funeral directors require a softer, caring tone with a slower read. A gym, on the otherhand might call for a high energy and fast paced read. Voice actors need proper direction, and a good producer or sound engineer can pull the best performance out of your chosen voice.
Now that you know what you should be looking or rather ‘listening’ for, you can confidently browse our voice talent library. We offer all range of voice over artists, young to old, various accents and languages, including multi-lingual talent and full recording services too. Visit our Voice Talent Library to find your voice today, and make sure you enquire with us to find out more about how our voices can bring your brand to life.