Why Now?

From a practical viewpoint, the middle of the year is a good time to take stock of what you’ve done so far and what changes might be made to get a stronger response. To narrow our focus to professional voice recordings, we often have customers who leave their Christmas and holiday-themed onhold messages playing well into the year. Even when it isn’t as drastic as playing “Jingle Bells” as background music, even when the thermometer is starting to hit the 70s and 80s, many companies will leave outdated information on their messages, advertising deals and products that are no longer available, or notifying callers about events that have come and gone.

It could be argued that even more than advertising information for new products and opportunities, it is imperative not to put out incorrect or expired information. If nothing else, leaving up out-of-date messaging tells customers right away that your company isn’t as attentive as it could be.

Spread Word Early and Often to Improve Your Marketing Performance

It’s never too early to start getting the word out about whatever deals, events, or opportunities your company will be featuring. We live in a time of information overload. There is always something happening somewhere that demands our time and attention, whether that’s the 24/7 news cycle or our phones providing a never-ending stream of content and distraction. If you think, “Haven’t we done enough to remind people?” the answer is probably, “No.”

There’s no such thing as too many reminders, and there’s no such thing as “too early” to get the word out. Have a major event happening in October? Then the only way to keep it in the forefront of people’s minds is to remind them repeatedly all the way into October, right up to the very day of your event.

That’s why spring is the perfect time to utilize your voice prompts and messages on hold to the cause. Summer is right around the corner, but if you can seed your major events and offerings for the rest of the year early, you can make a strong enough impression to stay in your audience’s attention until the time is right.

Embracing Changes

Whether you are overhauling the entire message, making a few minor tweaks, or simply swapping in a new voice, keeping your messages refreshed is a great way to communicate to your customers and partners that your company is active, alert, and energetic. From the smallest of changes to the biggest of swings, now is the time when your choices and actions can yield a major impact on the final overall performance of the year.

Contact us today at Marketing Messages and we’ll be happy to discuss the ways in which we can improve your marketing performance. And check out our roster of available voice talent and available music, and you just might find the one that will put a real spring into your spring.

The post Plant Your Marketing Seeds in May appeared first on Marketing Messages.

What Is a Coached Voice Recording Session?

A coached voice recording session is precisely what it sounds like: A recording session during which the client is present alongside the voiceover talent and the audio engineer and can give live feedback and instruction as to how their script should be performed.

Recording the script in this way virtually guarantees that there will be no errors in the final audio. Mistakes in the scripting can be caught in real-time. The desired speed, tone, and energy can be fine-tuned until it is exactly what the client wants to hear. Suddenly, all the surprise and guesswork has been taken out of the audio recording experience.

This is especially ideal for IVR prompts since the voice user interface IVR prompts are often composed of sentence fractures that will be connected via automated, pre-recorded audio. The prompts themselves make very little sense unless you know how they are going to fit together and what existing audio tracks are going to be used to join them together. And without knowing what the script means, the voice talent and production staff can only make educated guesses about how the script should be performed.

Everybody Wins

A coached session is the very definition of an ‘everybody wins’ scenario. Obviously, the client gets their audio precisely as they always imagined it, with every kink and quirk ironed out during the session. When the final audio is received, the client knows precisely what they will get, making the installation and implementation process much simpler.

But from the behind-the-scenes perspectives, the people working on the audio win too. Voiceover talents and production staff appreciate coached sessions just as, if not more, than the clients. Having the client there to give notes and instruction means that everyone involved in the project can have a totally clear vision of the objective that they are chasing, and then work together to bring that vision into being. This is exponentially preferable to endless rounds of emails and phone calls trying to encapsulate tastes and preferences or having to redo the same audio multiple times to make corrections and changes.

Our Recent Success

Just this past month, Marketing Messages had the opportunity to do one of our most in-depth coaching sessions ever. The massive project involved hundreds upon hundreds of IVR prompts, with different sessions for both English and Spanish voiceover talents.

Because of the ease and convenience of modern technology, we could set up a session that involved a VUI designer in Seattle, a company representative in Texas, a voice talent in Connecticut, and an audio engineer in Maine. I mean, we’re talking about a group of people who are about as separate as people can get!

And yet, the sessions were a smashing success, and the massive project was able to go on without a hitch. Mistakes and errors in the script were caught on the fly. The VUI designer and the client’s brand representative were able to explain where in the call flow each prompt of the IVR script was, enabling a better and more cohesive vocal performance. Everyone could get on the same page and drive towards the same shared goal.

Set Up Your Own Coached Voice Recording Session Today

Coached sessions are the ideal way for any conversational script designer to get the exact sound they want from our voice talents. So, contact us today about setting up your own coaching session, so you can get your audio, just the way you want it.

The post Coached Voice Recording Session for the Ideal IVR Experience appeared first on Marketing Messages.

Why Change?

Look, if your company continues to do outstanding numbers and get positive reactions from the majority of your ever-expanding client base, then enjoy your success and keep on trucking.

But I think most companies, in any field, can look back on any given year and identify things they wish they’d done better, areas they wish to improve on, and opportunities they wish they had been able to seize. For companies seeking to continuously improve, change is an important element of growth.

The most obvious benefit to refreshing your brand with new material (whether that be on your website, your social media, or your onhold messages and other voice prompts) is tacitly proving to your customers that you still exist and are still active. Post-pandemic, numerous companies folded entirely or reduced their hours and capabilities.

I know that when I am looking up a client or partner, the first and most telling tip-off that they have gone out of business is if their customer-facing material is old and static. If a website looks like it hasn’t been updated in years, or if their recordings are of terrible quality or totally out-of-date (i.e., a message-on-hold detailing a company’s Christmas hours…still active in July), it communicates that either no one is around to make any changes…or no one actually cares.

What Major Role in Rebranding Efforts Should You Make?

To be clear, ‘rebranding’ doesn’t have to mean some huge expensive campaign during which you change everything about your business or how you operate. When it comes to voiceover recordings, ‘rebranding’ can simply mean choosing a new voiceover talent.

Have you previously used a male talent? Try a female one. Usually use a female talent? Try a male one.

Have you previously preferred a voice that sounds older and more authoritative? Maybe go with one that’s younger, with an emphasis on energy and enthusiasm.

The new year might be a great time to experiment with conversational scripting and create a more informal and personalized caller experience.

Beyond any one specific change, being creative and forward-thinking with changing up your branding reminds customers and partners alike that you are active, you are proactive, and you are not satisfied with staying put and getting stagnant.

Let Us Help

If you are looking to make some changes in the new year, voice prompts and onhold messages can play a major role in rebranding efforts. Conversational scripting is becoming more and more popular, so by all means get in touch with us today for a free guide in writing a more informal script.

With whatever audio effort you’re attempting, Marketing Messages is here to help this year, next year, or whenever you need.

The post Thinking About Rebranding in the New Year? appeared first on Marketing Messages.

Passing Praise Around

But we did not come here to brag…

Well, not entirely. But we’ll brag just a little bit. Compliments like the one this customer provided mean a great deal to us here at Marketing Messages, as we really do prize the customer’s satisfaction, above all else. This praise really speaks to the whole organization, from the accurate and timely script, to the proofing and validating process, through to the great audio editing, and the overall administrative efficiency and accuracy. And, most obviously, it speaks to the skill and efforts brought to bear by the wonderful voiceover talent who turn in such exemplary work, day after day.

What Your Recordings Say About You

But we’re not here to brag! No, instead let’s talk about the other major element of this customer’s comment: That in doing surveys of their brand, they discovered that their customer-facing voiceover recordings were a surprisingly large factor, and the excellence of those recordings (fine, we’re bragging a little bit more) had a major influence on their customers.

We’re always trying to impress this point upon our clients and prospective clients, and this customer’s survey results serve as an affirmation to that point.

And you don’t have to take it from us. A recent Forbes article states, “Through a set brand voice and tone, your audience can get to know and understand your brand, as you create a dialogue.”

That article goes on to state: “It is the chance for business leaders to express their brands’ unique persona and seamlessly build up relationships with the audience… Particularly during the introduction stage, customers instinctively recognize the way they are addressed and spoken to, which then significantly impacts their entire view of a brand.”

Communicating Company Identity – What You Want Others to Hear

The question now becomes, how do you determine what voice will go well with the brand you are trying to communicate to your customers?

A 2016 study by the Norman Nielsen Group determined that, “there are indeed measurable effects of tone of voice on users, specifically on users’ impressions of an organization’s friendliness, trustworthiness, and desirability.”

So, what tone are you trying to strike with your onhold messages or other customer-facing recordings? Do you wish to be seen as youthful, friendly, and energetic? Or are you looking to be viewed as authoritative and experienced? Do you wish to excite your callers, or reassure them? Are you looking to educate your audience, or keep them entertained while they wait?

These are all totally valid approaches, and we’ve seen companies across dozens of fields take different attitudes towards what they want their professional voice recordings to do. There’s not necessarily a wrong way to go about communicating a company’s identity as long as you know what identity it is you want to communicate.

Let’s Hear from You

We’ll be happy to help you determine what voice goes best with the message you are trying to send. We have dozens of voice talents to choose from, so feel free to check out our library containing audio samples alongside descriptions of each talent’s immediate qualities.

Get in touch with us today, and let’s start the conversation about how you can use professional voice recordings to truly tell people who you are.

The post The Best Voice for the Best Brand appeared first on Marketing Messages.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Over the last 18 months, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and related initiatives have touched all facets of business, and society. As a professional voiceover firm with a global reach and a large North American customer base serving a diverse set of customers, Marketing Messages is grappling with the implications of this movement on the relationship between call center recordings and the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) community.

Just as changes in our social landscape have accelerated significantly over this period, so have attitudes towards which voices should be considered when evaluating how a diversified customer base interacts with call center applications, such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR prompts), Auto Attendant, and Messages-On-Hold systems – as well as for other media, such as web and radio.

I was talking to one of our most sought-after Voice Artists about broad trends in the voiceover industry in preparation for our Voices Carry podcast episodes. I asked her: “What is the most significant change you’re seeing in the use of voiceover for telephone and other media applications?” We ended up speaking at length on this topic, but the basic essence of her point was that many large corporations with well-known brands are now considering voices with accents that are representative of the racial make-up of their customers – Black voices and Hispanic voices in particular. (Click here for a fascinating elaboration on this point).

This makes total sense. If we are to believe that…

• All customers are valuable, and…
• A company’s success is predicated on a more intimate connection with their customers, and…
• These customers look different, think differently, and speak/hear differently…

…then we know why companies should employ professional voice talents that sound different?

What Values Do Your Voices Project for Your Brand?

For as long as voiceover professionals have been providing call center recordings, the preferred accent for North American English has been “neutral”. This is changing. Corporations are now considering the voices their customers hear as a reflection of their brand. In turn, corporations are tuning their brand messages to appeal to the BIPOC community. We believe this calls for Voice Diversity.

Voice Diversity is the practice of considering how employing different voice talents would impact and appeal to a broader constituency. It involves at least considering a voice talent who is a Person of Color as one of your choices for a given project, and/or employing multiple voice talents to expand your brand’s appeal.

What does Voiceover Diversity help companies do?

Appeal to a broader customer base. Rather than taking an approach that centers on having one kind of voice that appeals to one kind of customer, Voice Diversity allows you to make all customers feel that your company views them as equally valuable.

Project your brand as both progressive and inclusive. Marketing professionals want the customer to view a brand as always moving forward, not stuck in the past. Employing a voice talent who projects as a Person of Color, whether for a core system or as one of a portfolio of voice talents, signals this to customers. More inclusivity in a voiceover portfolio also demonstrates that the brand is equally meaningful for anyone in the target market – irrespective of race, creed, gender identity, or any other demographic dimension.

Support company diversity initiatives. DEI programs have proliferated across all educational, governmental, and business institutions at the most senior levels, where decisions are made. In the corporate world, DEI principles have been translated into specific marketing and technology initiatives. Incentives are also now in place to reward decisions that result in more equal treatment across all employees, customers, and other stakeholders. Employing Voice Diversity can be one way a company can reach its DEI objectives and other related goals.

Neutral or Diversity?

Back to “neutral” accents. There is a broad range of vocal variations that can be considered “neutral” for call center recordings. We find many voice talents across all races whose accents could be considered neutral. So, in considering voice talents for our roster, we welcome People of Color irrespective of whether their speaking voices would be recognized by callers/listeners as being of a particular race, creed, or sexual orientation.

Also, Voiceover Diversity includes deploying call center recordings in languages native to the countries from which calls are originating. We provide voice talents (all of whom can be heard on our Voices sample demo webpage) and voice translation in over 80 languages and dialects worldwide to ensure our customers can project their brand globally.

Listen to and consider our Hispanic and Black voiceover talents

We at Marketing Messaging invite you to take two actions here:

One: Listen to some of the new Hispanic and Black Voice Artists we’ve recently brought aboard.

Two: We now have a place to Comment on our Blogs. Please feel free to contribute your thoughts on this important topic in the space below. Feel free to email info@marketingmessages.com or call us at 617-527-3023 if you’d like to talk more about Voice Diversity and your voiceover needs.

The post Voiceover Diversity: Call Center Recordings Can Respond to the DEI Challenge appeared first on Marketing Messages.

An On-hold subscription like Messages-On-Hold regularly provides a set of professionally produced voice recordings with background music that your telephone callers hear while they are on hold. As you’ll learn, these messages can be leveraged to support current marketing campaigns, build your credibility, and educate your customers. To help convey how and why almost any business benefits from adding Messages-On-Hold, we sat down with Marketing Messages’ Business Development Partner, Jim Giebutowski:

Why does a Messages-On-Hold subscription make sense?
More and more people are using on-hold messages as a vehicle that integrates with other marketing vehicles. You might do a press release. You might do a user event. You might do an advertisement of any kind. Messages-On-Hold is a low-cost media or vehicle to reinforce those messages so that they’re consistently heard multiple times by any given customer. The cost per exposure for Messages-On-Hold is relatively low if you compare it to other mediums. And you have a captive audience, so you might as well communicate to them when you can.

Things are changing all the time, and the mistakes people make with Messages-On-Hold is they record it once, and then it’s the same forever. It’s not used as a marketing asset. What you want to be able to do, is when you have a new product that’s being introduced… when you have a promotion that you’re doing… if there’s a development in your industry that might be of interest to your customers… you want to be able to reinforce or add to the customer’s knowledge through another mechanism, which in this case is the telephone. And that’s why Messages-On-Hold can be so powerful.

A lot of industries are using Messages-On-Hold not just to cross-sell products or services, which is really what it was originally designed to do. In other words, make a customer aware of a product or service. You already have a customer that’s buying one thing, right? You may want them to buy some other thing that they may not even be aware of. One example is an airline company might have planes to lease, for example, and the customer may not know that even though you’re calling an airline. There are all sorts of examples. But more and more people are starting to use it as a way to convey information that is helpful to customers, independent of the sales process. So for example, hospitals often times will use Messages-On-Hold to say, “Hey, we have this new orthopedic practice now that we didn’t have.” But now we’re starting to see them do things like put in information about stroke symptoms. “These are the symptoms of stroke…” It has nothing to do with selling something but has everything to do about patient care. Same thing with preventing falls, “We’re doing a blood drive,” things of that nature. In a product company, it might be tips for how to best maintain your product. In a financial services company it might be, “Here’s a new regulation that you might not be aware of, and here’s what you need to do about it.” So you’re using it to build credibility, as opposed to trying to build revenue. Of course, the two things are related. But that’s the thinking behind it.

The other reason why you want to have a subscription is in cases where you might have messaging that’s time sensitive. Let’s say a competitor does something and then you do something in response. You want to be able to get your message out there relatively quickly. You don’t want to, necessarily, have that same message implemented in January when the change was made in November of the previous year. It’s just too late. Things are moving way too quickly.

The key is the ability to get messages out there that are consistent with and reinforce other things that you’re doing with your sales and marketing program, or if there’s some event that’s happening that you need to inform your customer about.

What Messages-On-Hold packages does Marketing Messages offer?

Our Messages-On-Hold subscription service is called VoiceCentral. We have a couple of different alternatives based on the number of times that you want to update for a given year. We have 4 updates a year, 6 updates a year, and then we have monthly as well. We can also customize that. For example, we did one recently where they wanted 10. So we can custom price that.

With a subscription, you can use one of your recordings at any time, right?

Yeah, that’s the key thing. You don’t have to do it quarterly, per se. You could do two at the beginning of the year and then two at the end of the year. You’ve got some level of flexibility around that.

We have automated reminders to update your Messages-On-Hold because sometimes people forget. So part of the service is providing those reminders.

Irrespective of whether you use on-premises phone systems or systems that are based in the cloud, we can accommodate you. We also have an alternative that enables us to stream messages directly to your phone systems via the Internet, using a device called ILink, so that you don’t have to manually load the system. The system will automatically update your system once we record, without requiring someone to manually load the system. In addition, the platform allows you to forward schedule a particular message or paragraph with start and stop times in the future. So if you’re offering a promotion from November 15 to December 15 and you have the script ready on October 31, you let us know the dates, and the system automatically swaps the message in and out.

We also have the ability to give you a digital announcer that’s loaded via USB. And if you employ cloud-based, we can give you a Messages-On-Hold file in a format where you can just upload it directly into the internal memory of your phone system.

Contact Us
Now that you’ve heard from Jim, you may be ready to reach out and speak to one of us about adding a professionally recorded and mixed on-hold subscription to Messages-On-Hold to your telephone system. Contact us to send us your information or to schedule an informational call.

The post Why a Messages-On-Hold Subscription Makes Sense appeared first on Marketing Messages.

More often than not, when calling into a business or institution, your initial contact is with some type of automated telephone-based system.  In order to speak with a live person, you must wind your way through a menu or two before you even know how to access that person.  The foundation of these menus is either touch-tone or speech recognition.  In recent years, businesses are moving from touch-tone to Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) systems, as most people would rather speak than press buttons on a keypad.  As a result, it is imperative that your ASR platform includes the use of professional voice talent to interface with your customer base.  The following explains three important ways professional voices can significantly impact your brand and your business.

1. Connect Emotionally

All business transactions contain some element of emotion.  Customers need to feel their problems are being heard and understood.  Multiple steps in the buying process must be successfully taken before a customer commits to a purchase.  And many times, they engage in repeat business solely based on the experience they had with customer service.  Because interactive voice response (IVR) call flows, more closely resemble human conversation, utilizing professional voice talent for recording IVR prompts ensures that what the caller hears is natural and employs a broad range of emotion.  Our Voice Artists are trained to vary their expression, tone and inflection based on the transaction at hand.

2.  Point Your Brand in the Right Direction with Professional Voice Recordings

While most people do prefer to speak responses rather than use a touch-tone keypad, the spoken word can be misinterpreted.  We have all experienced the frustration of responding to a voice prompt, only to be pointed in the wrong direction.  This is extremely frustrating and irritating, and, unfortunately, memorable.  You don’t want to join the ranks of brands to avoid simply because the ASR is so poor.  Remember, every transaction is emotional.  The voice your customers hear is their first, and sometimes only, interaction they will have with your brand.  The voice they hear should be perceived as helpful, understanding and pleasant.  Many times, businesses think they can an internal voice, but doing so can negatively impact credibility.  Employing professional voice talent ensures higher user satisfaction, better transaction completion rates, and positively reinforces your brand values. By using professional voice recordings in your system you ensure that the voice of your brand is well represented and your message comes through loud and clear.

3.  Become Your Own Customer

As it is with anything, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes can make all the difference in perception and opinion.  In other words, become your own customer.  This means that you should know what your ASR voice recording sounds like.  How does it function?  Are your voice prompts clear and directive?  One of the best ways to hear what your brand sounds like is to set up a coached session, in which you work directly with a voice talent to provide real-time coaching and feedback.  It enables you to identify subtleties in speech call flow.  It allows you to hear what your customers will hear, thus ensuring that your brand – your name – is represented as it should be.

In addition to coached sessions, at Marketing Messages, we can create short “dialog demos,” in which simulated conversations between caller and Voice Artists are modeled before the full recording session is conducted.

• This can help identify the best “persona” who matches the demographics of specific caller communities, as well as your company and brand.
• These demos also assist you by experimenting with different phrasing that you wouldn’t necessarily encounter in touch-tone interfacing.

Marketing Messages is earnest about helping you discover the right professional voice talent by offering custom demos.  These demos feature both your chosen Voice Artist and a hypothetical caller who model a two-way transaction based on a short script that you provide.  This enables you to choose the professional voice recordings best suited for your brand, as well as hear how the script will flow.  Request a custom demo here.

The post Because I Said So: 3 Ways Professional Voice Recordings Produce Success in ASR appeared first on Marketing Messages.

Customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it, by a margin of 4:1.   Employing video also improve your web traffic and search ranking, ultimately resulting in increased leads and sales. With the undeniable value of video to your customers, it behooves you to put your best foot forward by hiring a professional to narrate yours. As you develop your video marketing plan take into consideration professional voice over video services to elevate your brand identity and engage consumers.

Below are 5 things you should consider when developing your video voice over production.

But Susan in accounting has the voice of an angel

Susan is undoubtedly a pleasure to listen to, but a trained voice professional will lend more credibility and authority to your message. Why?

A voice professional is trained to understand how their voice will sound in a recording; they understand how to enunciate so that each word is clearly understood.

Also, voice professionals bring earned confidence to their game, understanding that any hesitancy in pronunciation, or in making a scripted goofy sound, will undermine the integrity of the performance.

Human beings now have a shorter attention span than goldfish

Microsoft conducted a study that revealed that human beings now have a shorter attention span that the goldfish that swim in our aquariums do: 8 seconds. And marketing experts tell us that 55% of website visitors spending less than 15 seconds there.

A trained voice professional knows how to connect to an unseen audience, making it more likely that they will become engaged in your message. How?

By using their voice as an instrument, they convey sincerity and happiness, serenity, joyfulness, excitement and anger as required. By varying the pitch, rhythm, and volume of their voice, they engage the listener, preventing them from daydreaming about snorkeling in Bimini.

You’ve got to show that you are ready for prime time by using professional voice over video services

Remember, for every person that would love to read about a product, four would rather watch a video about it. Your video is an extraordinarily important tool in connecting with your audience, whether it is an internal training video or an online marketing one.

A trained voice professional is able to enhance the content of your video, using their voice to bring its elements together in a cohesive way: Consistency in pacing, style, and smooth synchronization of voice with visual elements matter.

Voice consistency promotes brand consistency

To create a more consistent, branded customer experience,  you should use the same voice talent or talents for your web videos as you do for your on hold messaging and auto attendant or IVR voice prompts.   The idea here is to build familiarity and comfort with your brand across all customer “voice touchpoints.   This practice also projects the ideas of stability and reliability; it creates impression the same “person” will know and address all of the customer’s needs.

A final point

Authenticity is not a buzzword devoid of meaning. Experts continually write about the consumer, and the employee, of 2017, and how much they value authenticity. You may, at this point, be thinking that hiring a trained voice professional works against authenticity, but think about it this way.

You have a brand that you believe in; one that you want to share with customers, and part of this is presenting your training or marketing videos in a way that reflects your brand. A professionally trained voice is an outstanding tool that you can use in your quest to connect with your customer.

The post Voice Over Video – 5 Points to Consider When Narrating Your Web Videos appeared first on Marketing Messages.

Many of the initial discussions we have with new customers center around the challenge of rationalizing the number of recorded voices one of their customers might encounter in the course of various phone and web interactions. Clients know they should employ a more unified voice approach, but don’t have a roadmap for thinking through how to make the right choices that will ultimately impact the overall customer experience. This blog post lays out an approach that addresses this challenge.

What Is a Voice Marketing Brand?

Voice Marketing is a branding strategy that aligns all of an organization’s professionally recorded messages and the unique attributes of a given voice with its value proposition. This alignment is achieved by employing a single voice or set of voices across a broad range of customer “voice touch points”, including phone, web, and other communication vehicles.

For example, when a caller is:

• Navigating through phone menus (auto attendant prompts)
• Conducting a phone transaction (IVR prompts)
• Waiting on hold (on-hold messages)
• Viewing a video on a website (web video narration)
• Being educated about a product or service (e-learning narration)

The chosen voice talent should deliver in a way that is emotionally compelling and consistently builds customer familiarity over time via continual reinforcement – whether the caller is talking to a call center application with touchtone voice prompts, viewing a web video, or participating in an E-learning presentation.

Principles of Voice Marketing

Voice Marketing presumes that the organization has established at least one of the following:

• Brand statement A description of how the organization wants to represent its products and services to its customers – i.e., its “promise” to these customers.
• Customer persona A short story that defines relevant characteristics, interests, and demographic information representative of individuals in its prospect and customer base.
• Value proposition The unique set of customer benefits offered by the organization’s products and services differentiate it from its competitors.

The development of professionally recorded voice prompts, messages and narration should consistently support each of these elements – and should proceed according to the following six guiding principles:

1. Voice attribute alignment

A voice talent’s vocal attributes should accurately represent and support the company and/or product brand. They should appeal to specific customer personas. Any personal characteristics, behaviors, and lifestyle information should be conveyed to the voice talent so the talent can more effectively establish a connection with the customer.

2. Voice channel alignment

A customer interacts with a company brand through a series of customer touch points. Each has the potential to become a “voice touch point” – or instance in which the customer comes in contact with a recorded voice. Each customer touch point should be evaluated to determine if the use of a recorded voice would be an effective communication vehicle – and if such use would be a cost-effective alternative or complement to other modes of communication.

3. User experience consistency

Use of a voice talent should create a consistent user experience. The same vocal style, emotion, and inflection should be employed across all vehicles enabled by professional voice services – and these same elements should remain consistent over time.

4. Messaging consistency and reinforcement

The messages communicated via voice-enabled vehicles should mirror and reinforce those conveyed through the organization’s overall marketing mix. This alignment should extend across as many marketing vehicles as appropriate – so that messaging is reinforced and made more memorable. Voice-enabled marketing vehicles should also reinforce messaging at the individual marketing program or initiative level – supporting new product/service introductions, special promotions, and feature enhancements.

5. Voice talent uniformity

The preceding principles suggest that a single voice talent should be deployed across all voice touch points. The talent should be professionally trained to deliver IVR prompts, onhold messages, and narration uniformly with respect to style, tone, emotion, and inflection. Multiple voice talents can be effectively utilized as long as each can be associated with a well-defined set of customers, products and/or brands – or thoughtful consideration is given to how the voice talents relate to each other.

6. Emotional engagement

The voice talent should elicit emotional responses that are conducive to establishing and maintaining a strong relationship with target customers – resulting in positive outcomes for the business. Vocal attributes should nurture a sense of familiarity that is constantly reinforced across multiple vehicles – strengthening the bond between the customer and the brand.

Benefits

Following these guiding principles will yield significant value in terms of brand equity:

• Consistent brand reinforcement
• More powerful value proposition
• Strengthened customer connection

One of our banking customers sums up these benefits as she describes how voice has become a unifying force in their overall marketing approach:

“Before we standardized all of our voice recordings using a single voice, the customer experience was disjointed and confusing. Callers heard a credible but very formal voice on our main auto attendant, a friendly, authentic voice for our commercial loan processing IVR prompts, and a highly energetic voice on our customer service line. Looking back, it was hard for the caller to understand what our brand stood for. Worst of all, we just looked – and sounded – less than professional. Now all of our recorded voice prompts reflect a friendly, welcoming tone, which is consistent with the image we’re trying to portray as a community-oriented regional bank.”
Stay tuned for our next blog post on the Voice Marketing Process, which describes a step-by-step approach for ensuring that your recording voices are aligned with your brand. We”ll provide real-life customer examples for illustrating these principles in future posts.

The post Voice Marketing: Aligning What Your Customers Hear With Your Brand appeared first on Marketing Messages.