What’s the true value of professional voice talent?

Posted by Simon Luckhurst on September 18, 2018

Like suppliers in any other market, there are a number of factors that determine the value of your use of professional voice talent. What’s demand like? How much are customers willing to pay for their services? How much experience does a voice artist have? Are they a recognizable name?

Its true value is subjective, too. Say you commissioned a commercial for a product with an A-list actor with a recognizable voice, and (as an alternative) commissioned a lesser-known voice talent on the same ad, and then tested both ads with the same audience. If the sales at the end of the test are roughly the same, would that extra outlay on the A-lister really have provided better value?

The point we’re getting at here is that commissioning a voice over for a marketing campaign is a lot more intricate and involved than working with somebody that just ‘sounds nice’. Get your approach right, though, and implementing the right voice over strategy could provide incredible value to your overall brand.

The amazing benefits of a voice marketing campaign

In brief, working with the right voice talent as part of a wider campaign (such as radio, on videos, through streaming services and more) can greatly improve the effectiveness of that content, whether it be to educate employees, help improve brand loyalty, increase brand recognition, improve sales, make people aware of your services and more.

For those interested in exploring what one can offer though, we really don’t think there’s a better time than now to invest in and build a long-term voice marketing strategy to compliment your productions or promote your brand and explore its benefits.

Why? Because thanks to improving internet connectivity across the globe, the advancement and ownership levels of smartphones, the explosion in ownership of smart speakers and many other factors, consumers are interacting with and buying from brands more than ever before with voice.

According to the Ofcom Communications Market Report 2018 published at the end of August, consumers spend four whole days and nights per month online.

At the same time, 78% of UK adults own a smartphone with the average person checking it every 12 minutes. 9-in-10 adults spend 21 hours a week listening to the radio, and 16 per cent of 16-24s, 25-34s, and 35-54s in the UK own a smart speaker.

Enter a maturing market with the right voice talent

In the United States 47.3 million Americans have access to a smart speaker such as Amazon Echo or Google Home, with sales for smart speakers exceeding all expectations over the course of 2018. There are so many channels where your voice could be heard, and the trend of ordering and requesting information through voice is growing rapidly.

Consider Target; the chain partnered with Google in April to provide voice-activated $15 coupons for shoppers who placed orders through Google Express via Google Assistant. Expect revolutionary campaigns like this to become more common the more smart speakers and smartphones become ingrained in people’s lives over the next few years.

Commissioning voice talent as part of a wider campaign can help you to become part of the voice marketing revolution right now while it’s still in its early stages.

Again though, there is little commercial value in working with someone who has a ‘nice voice’. Properly strategizing your approach to voice, style, accent, age and gender, integrating it into your marketing efforts, targeting the right regions (nationally or internationally) and more will provide more value to your business than you ever dreamed of.

Find out more about the incredible potential benefits voice marketing can bring to your business by speaking to the Voice Talent Online team today Contact us

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