Briefing a voice over correctly results in the correct tone, emotion, usage rights, production and ultimately a voiceover that will be most effective for your campaign. Creating a solid brief will help you achieve the results you’re after and make for a highly successful campaign.
1. Define the goal
To start briefing a voice over properly, always define the overall purpose of your campaign. For example, how you want your audience to feel and what specific action or behaviour you want to trigger.
2. Create personas or develop a target market
Identify exactly who will hear the voice and what will resonate with them. Outline their gender, age, profession, goals, and challenges. Creating marketing personas helps voice agencies make better voice artist suggestions. HubSpot has a great tool to help you do this fast.
3. Describe your ideal voice artist
With your target market and goal in mind, create an image of your ideal voice artist. Below is a list of the key attributes you should be looking at when briefing a voice over.
– Demographics, including gender, age range, accent, and language.
– Delivery style, including the tone (for example, conversational, authoritative, trustworthy) and pacing (how fast or slow).
– Provide clear examples; these can be linked to previous works or online examples.
4. Select the type of media
Choose the type of media the voiceover will be used for. The platform should be aligned with your persona or target market. Please note that the type of media will impact talent licensing rates.
– Paid Media. This can include TV, cinema, streaming video (BVOD/SVOD), social ads, radio, audio streaming + more. See the EM Voices rates for all available channels.
– Organic Media. This can include internal corporate videos, organic (non-paid) social posts, or videos hosted on your own website.
5. Decide project details for your voiceover brief
When briefing your voiceover, provide the requirements of the recording session. Detail the length of the voice-over (for example, 15 sec, 30 sec, 60 sec), the final script word count, any required variations, and standard ad cutdowns. And most importantly, your deadline for the voiceover.
6. Finalise usage and licensing
List the full requirements of the broadcast rights. State the exact campaign duration (for example, is it three, six, or twelve months?), your chosen media channels and the territory (for example, single state, national, or international).
7. Choose the production method
– Decide how your final voice-over will be recorded and delivered by choosing the method of production.
– Online directed sessions. These are great to connect with the artist in real time. You may want to connect via Source-Connect, Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams.
– Audio delivery type. Choose from raw, unedited files straight from the artist’s home studio or fully edited, clean audio from a sound production studio.
– Sound production services. You may require full audio post-production, including music tracking, sound effects, and final mixing.
Understanding the above can help both the voice-over agency and the client find the perfect voice for your next campaign. If you need help or are looking for suggestions, please reach out to the team at EM Voices.
