Any marketer worth their weight will obsess about a lot of things. I’d bet you a beer that metrics and content are on their worry list. I run a voice over market place called bodalgo and I’m here to talk content, not the need for it but the cost of it and in particular voice content.
At this point you are think – voice content as in tone of voice right? Wrong. By voice content I am talking about voice overs, explainer videos, ebooks, presentations. With content creation there is always a challenge to produce what is relevant and engaging to your target audience, and there is always a cost associated with it. In terms of time and money spent. There is of course a link between both of these costs and that’s quality.
Rush to create content and your target market will now it and will respond accordingly, skimp on producing it and they will too! So how can you be smart? Let’s make a couple of assumptions; your business needs a 90 second explainer video to support the launch of a new service. You can use the video on your site, embed it in your newsletters, use it at trade shows, share is across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and ensure it has a call to action at the end of it so you can track the responses to it. That’s the distribution plans dealt with let’s look at the production costs.
Apart from the time to create a story board and script you have production and filming and if you are planning to produce multiple language versions (never assume your target market all speak English) you are going to need a voice to read the words you have crafted in several languages.
If you are small business your budgets are unlikely to be large so you are keeping a keen eye out for costs, but there is an old adage you might well be aware of ‘pay peanuts and you get monkeys’ and with shoddy content you get shoddy results unless you are after the unprofessional look.
So if you look at the steps outlined above you have a choice spend smartly or risk creating cheap content. Ideas are priceless and writing the right words can be done if you are wordsmith and know where to go, when it comes to video production you also have the advantage of seeing what people have produced and choosing what you want.
As for voices well that’s where things can get really interesting. There are of course a plethora of low cost sites out there offering voices on the cheap but yup you guessed it, you get what you pay for. If you use a voice casting agency there are some hidden extras you have to know about. Firstly what are you getting for your money? A voice over? A fully produced sound file to match the video? A bill for a recording studio? I raise all of this for the simple reason that quality costs but so does ignorance. Knowledge is power and asking the right questions gives you the right answers and the ability to make the right choices.
A site like bodalgo screens voice over talent so only quality talent can pitch for your work and nowadays a lot of voice over artists have their own sound booths so paying for the cost of a recording studio is not something you should be worrying about or having to pay for. Technology like webRTC also means you can speak to the voice artist while recordings are being made so you get the voice, intonation and accent you want immediately; as after all time is money.
Taking all of the above into account the next time voice features in you content marketing requirements you should now have all you need to ask the right questions, get the right voices at the right price and of course create something that sounds great to you and your customers. No worries.
