Where television and online advertising offer layers of stimulus – colour, sound, movement, logos – a telephone advert engages with fewer senses, but is no less complex.
In this post we’re looking at the impact of an on-brand audio voiceover; one that embodies your business and its beliefs perfectly. 
Business Voicemail is all part of the audio branding experience. It’s sometimes the first contact you’ll make with a customer, so it’s crucial you make the right impression every time.
Here at PH Audio, we’re passionate about getting it right for our customers, so we’ve put together a few tips on how to make the most of your Business Voicemail package.
Mark Griffiths, one of PH Audio’s dedicated Sound Producers, offers his take on a small but critical element of voiceover editing.
My job is to take people’s breath away.
I edit voiceovers for a living. One of the main tasks is to remove all the breathing sounds.
Voiceover artists’ voices get compressed in the final mix. This has the effect of making all the quiet parts of speech louder. It’s one of the studio techniques that gives that extra oomph to the voices of radio announcers and pop singers.
But if you compress a voice track with the breaths left in, the breaths are amplified. These noises, which are normally so quiet we don’t notice them in normal speech, are boosted to the same volume as the words.
It makes the speaker sound like the Elephant Man.
So I get rid of them.
PH Audio are (queue shameless plug) the on-hold marketing champions throughout Europe, so it goes without saying that we know what we’re doing when it comes to all things on hold.
That said, we do like our clients to be on the ball when choosing music and voiceovers that really represent their brands. And although our Audio Account Managers will make expert recommendations – nobody knows their business as well as the clients themselves.
Last week we had a look at the benefits of brevity in effective hold music messages. This week, we’re looking at the role of grammar and punctuation in audio copywriting – and how a slip-up can change meaning in a big way.
When we write audio prompts, we’re writing to be read aloud. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore the conventions of prose or the kind of grammar that turns PR fluff into a stonking, high-impact press release. That’s because, in many ways, a company’s successful on-hold messaging is built on the same blocks as a good story – if the grammar, punctuation and spelling is spot-on, you won’t even notice it. The caller won’t be distracted; your message won’t be lost.
That’s not to say you need to be perfect, of course. But not paying attention to grammar can change a lot, inadvertently loading a simple statement with innuendo… or worse. Get copywriting tips after the jump!
Star of Hollyoaks, Coronation Street, Doctors, Dream Team, Waterloo Road and more, as well as numerous stage plays and radio productions, Martine Brown voices PH Audio campaigns and was recently the face of PC World’s TV campaign. We’re delighted to find out who’s behind one of our star ‘Voices’ – welcome Martine…
Readers will know you from your regular appearances on television, is the schedule as gruelling as people say it is?
Yes, definitely. It’s great, I love it but you don’t have a life outside of it when you’re working. Hollyoaks included lots of night shoots so there was no time for a social life for a few years. Now I have a little boy who’s three and a half so I don’t have a social life now either! I’ve deliberately stayed away from TV and theatre work since Harry was born which has also allowed me to do more voiceover work.