Regardless of whether your marketing medium is podcasts, videos or even television, understanding the psychology behind voiceovers can be a gamechanger.
Voiceovers can generally be defined as a production technique where a voice – or someone that is not a part of the narrative – is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations. Voiceovers are typically read from a script, and may be spoken by someone who appears elsewhere in the production or by a specialist voice actor.
However, these days voiceovers are simply everywhere – so much so, that many people don’t even realise when one is at work. From the latest TikTok trends, advertising on your favourite podcast, and even cold calling new or existing customers, voiceovers have long had a big role to play in the world of marketing.
Ultimately, voiceovers are often used to add a whole new layer to the age-old practice of storytelling and to even create a sense of intimacy – but how exactly can a voice do all of that, and what is the psychology behind how a voice can drive us to pay attention or even to make a purchase?
How Voiceovers Influence Our Shopping Behaviours
Any savvy marketer already knows that although their audience will hear the voice talent in one of their videos or audio based advertisements, they won’t ever see the actor speaking. In turn, it’s crucial to understand how this type of content can affect the listener, and what the anticipated results can look like.
One of the most common myths linked to voiceovers is that audiences are more susceptible to be influenced by female voices over males – after all, most of us assume that Apple’s famous Siri is a lady for a reason, right?
However, research and surveys have proven that the argument between whether a male or a female voice is more influential in marketing has been inconclusive. According to a recent study conducted by Harris Interactive in the United States, almost half of Americans at 48% believed that a male voice was more forceful, while 46% of respondents said that a female voice was more soothing. Oddly enough, almost half of those same respondents also indicated that the gender used in voiceovers made no difference to their decision or opinion on the advertiser.
As a general rule, women speak at a higher pitch – about an octave higher than men. An adult woman’s average range is from 165 to 255 Hz, while a man’s is 85 to 155 Hz. The voice of a male is typically deeper than a female thanks to the surge of testosterone released during puberty, which causes their vocal cords to elongate and thicken. Much like the strings of a cello, thicker, longer vocal cords produce a deeper sound.
As such, lower-pitched voices give the impression of being louder, because they have more resonance. While a woman has a larger gap at the back of their vocal cords, this means that they need to speak at a higher pitch in order to receive the same level of volume – which of course, can also result in women being viewed as shrill and even hostile when this is deployed.
While there is no right or wrong answer when selecting a gender for voiceovers, brands and businesses should not be focusing on selling a product or service. Instead, think about who it is that they’re trying to speak to, and what your end goal is.
While using voiceovers for business is continuing to gain significant momentum, it’s important to channel your marketing efforts appropriately. The style, tone and even gender that you opt for should align with the ethics of your brand or business, compliment your product or service, and align with other content marketing efforts currently in the pipeline for your brand or business. If building such a strategy to tie these all together goes above your skill set, then it might be time to call in the professionals – but where do you find them?
The Key To Good Marketing Is Great Content
Producing quality, consistent and on brand content takes time, effort, experience and resources – and you’re not alone if you can’t quite commit to that. Avoiding blogging for business altogether may actually be doing your brand a disservice, but investing in a solid content marketing strategy has actually never been easier.
Here at Content Hive, producing top quality digital content is exactly what we do best. We have itemised a list of digital content services, and allocated credits next to each of these. This means that each month, you can use your credits with us to produce digital content such as blog articles, social media posts, videos and even animated Instagram stories. By using this model, we believe that it enables us to produce high quality content with faster delivery times. It also means that because you have a monthly credit, you are going to want to make sure you use these up – and so do we – meaning that your digital content is always consistent.
If you aren’t quite sure where to start on your digital marketing journey and would like to speak to a professional, why not book in a free discovery call with us at Content Hive today to discuss how we can get your brand buzzing online.
