BAD audio quality (voice over) is killing your business!

Strong title. Can you back that up, voice over person?

I know, I know straw man I have just made up, it is meant to be evocative and visceral. I can back it up though and let me prove it to you.

There are two types of audio. Good and Bad.

These both stand out for obvious reasons. Only ONE of them results in what I term the “Shut-off” effect. Can you guess which one? Bingo! Bad. It is one thing to have good audio but having bad audio in 2020 should be, you would think, a thing of the past. But, I am loathed to tell you, it is not a given. I recently heard a National UK TV advert (I won’t name names) with both good and bad voice over audio quality in it. HOW YOU DO THIS!? One of them sounded professionally recorded, in an acoustically treated space, with a voice over in said space. I would hazard a guess at a sound technician near by, at the very least. The other part, the ACTUAL tagline of the whole advert, was recorded in what can only be nicely described as a “space”. 100% NOT acoustically treated. Sounded like a cardboard box. Decent performance though. Now, you might say to yourself “You are a highly skilled voice over (why thank you for noticing) and you have an “ear” for this sort of thing. Us mere mortals probably will never notice”. This is where I slap you down person I typed up just now. I guarantee ANY person with speakers and the ability to hear WILL notice the difference. Let me give you an example. Have you ever found yourself down the YouTube rabbit hole, browsing endless amounts of videos, when all of a sudden, the audio gets EXTREMELY loud or mouse quiet? What do you do? You probably, if you are at least semi-conscious, skip over it. Another example for you. Do you remember the last time you were phoning a company and you get put on-hold. The on-hold music starts to play. It is awful as per usual but it’s not just the generic non-copyrighted music that is bothering you, it’s the quality. Most people can, at least, withstand listening to music they don’t like if the quality is good. Add some crackle to it, some poor mastering, so the highs are WAY too high and the Mids are muddy as all that is holy and you’ve got yourself the perfect storm. Music you don’t like and awful quality. Guess what you do next. Switch it off or just get extremely agitated and take it out on the customer service rep.

If you have something to say, something to sell or just to want to sell and say something, then please for the love of Lucifer get yourself some high quality audio. The performance is actually only a very small part of the whole effect. If you can see your video analytics and you can see that people are switching off early, before the main message say, then it might be that your audio quality is sub-par. You could have Morgan Freeman narrating your advert but have him record in a dumpster with a bagel (for you Americans out there) as a microphone and you will have people turning off, left and right. That means your costly copy written advert that you spent $$$ on is down the toilet. Your message, product or service is not being seen or heard in the glowing light you want it to be.

Now, in the future, potential customers/clients will have this bad association with your business. They may not be able to tell you why but something in their subconscious will steer them away from you. This could be detrimental and kill your business off. You have to exude quality in all aspects of your marketing and branding. So, when you are next budgeting for your next project, please have both audio and video at the top of the list. Give them the most attention and money. You can have all the fancy panning, zooming shots in the world but cue it up with audio quality that only your parents could love, you will be in trouble, and that is a guarantee. In some cases audio is even MORE important than video. I have seen some pretty great stock video videos, which can be picked up via multiple subscription services. Even the music can be picked up via these same services. However, voice overs is another thing entirely. At the time of writing this blog (October 2020 for you people in the future, if there is one) computerized A.I voices are still not at the high level normal human voices are at. Therefore there is no voice over subscription service worth your time or your money. It’s time to invest and to invest in a high quality professional voice over. Please check out my other blog post “5 Things To Expect When Hiring A Voice Over” for a deep dive into hiring voice talent.

I hope this has highlighted the importance of good sounded audio and how it can effect your business. Take that Straw Man!

Duw Genes! (Goodbye in Cornish).