How to Choose Voice-Over Services: A Buyer's Guide

Content creation has been on a steady and quick rise over the past several years. With short-form content, such as TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, the overall content turnaround is incredibly high, inviting even more creators. The types of content have also grown to be more diverse each day–podcasts, e-learning, promotional content, etc.

One main point of a successful piece of content is audience engagement. There are a handful of factors that influence engagement, such as content quality, personalization, and interactiveness. Among all those factors, one element that many creators pay attention to is the audio. Immersive, high-quality, and informational video content often comes down to the audio quality, which shows each creator’s unique voice.

Whether it is for short-form, long-form, podcast, educational content, or everything in between, the use of voice-over is the go-to strategy for many successful creators. This article will dive into key points on choosing a voice-over service, starting from tone, project goals, and pricing, as well as everything to look out for when choosing voice-over services.

Where To Start

Before diving straight into your voice-over service choices, it is important to fully understand the project itself first. Here are some questions you should answer before choosing your service:

• What is your project? Is it an ad, audiobook, explainer video, or something else? Is it long-form or short-form?
• Who is your target audience? Go as specific as possible, such as the age, location, tone preferences, etc.
• What platforms will you put the content on? YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.
• Do you need your content to be localized in various languages? If yes, what languages?

Knowing the answers to these questions can determine what kind of voice-over service you need, considering many voice-over services have their own niche and styles that they do best.

Read More: What Is the Importance of Content Localization? What Are the Benefits?

What To Look For

Once you know the details of your project, you might start to look for the available services out there. There are a handful of key qualities that you need to keep an eye out for when choosing a voice-over service. While checking all these boxes is just as important, finding a service that aligns with you and your needs is the ultimate goal here.

Several key qualities to find in voice-over services are:

• Voice compatibility: Does the voice artist's tone, gender, accent, and age match the tone you're trying to convey in your project?
• Audio quality: Does the voice-over service deliver high-quality audio? Do they have professional and upgraded audio recording equipment and a studio?
• Delivery time: How long is the project expected to take? Do they deliver the project on time, according to the agreed deadline?
• Consistency: Do they stay consistent throughout the project and stay true to the agreed branding and project goals?
• Flexibility: Do they offer revisions after feedback? How many times, and what is the process like?

There are a ton of other aspects to look out for when looking for a voice-over service, such as pricing, but the above questions are several important ones to get you started. Feel free to adjust each factor based on your specific project needs.

Agency or Freelance Voice-Over Service?

When diving into the market of voice-over services as a client, you might find two kinds of services offered: an agency and freelance talents. Each one has its own pros and cons, and deciding which one to choose is solely up to you.

Voice-Over Agency

Choosing a voice-over agency, in general, is more suitable for bigger projects that require a more diverse talent pool, or for complex projects where there is a large amount of work to be done, hence it requires more manpower. When hiring an agency for your projects, usually there are professionals starting from the project manager, talents, and editors who take care of every step of the project for you. Other pros and cons of an agency are:

Pros

• More resources, such as a wider talent pool and professionals in various departments.
• Structured workflow that ensures speedy delivery when needed.
• Consistent quality throughout projects.
• End-to-end management that allows you, as a client, to sit back and wait for the results.
• Reliable in delivering high-quality results on time.

Cons

• Higher costs for professionals, tools, a studio, etc.
• You won’t be as involved as they take care of everything themselves.

Freelancers

When it comes to going down the freelancer route, one thing that is the biggest plus is that most of the time, freelancers are highly skilled and passionate professionals in a specific niche. They usually can provide a good portfolio for your consideration, where their skills and expertise shine for themselves. Several pros and cons of choosing freelancers for your project are:

Pros

• Budget-friendly. Freelancers are usually more cost-effective compared to an agency.
• Hands-on experience. You can usually be more involved in the process because you work directly with the professional.
• Flexible workflow and delivery time.
• High-quality results since freelancers are often highly skilled in their chosen niche.

Cons

• Smaller scale. Freelancers usually work more efficiently with smaller-scale projects.
• Lower reliability. The flexibility is a nice plus, but it comes with less reliability, such as in delivery times. It’s not uncommon for freelancers to delay delivery due to both personal and professional factors.

Finding a professional and skilled freelancer can be tricky, but starting with platforms like Fiverr and Upwork, or voice-over-specific platforms like voices.com and Bunny Studio can be a great starting point.

Read More: Content Localization Process: Steps on How to Start!

How to Review Portfolios

By this point, you might already have several candidates for your project, be it freelancers or agencies. Before you decide, it is a must to review their portfolios or demo reels to ensure their work matches your vision. Portfolios can come in various forms, but here are several key things to pay attention to when reviewing and listening to voice-over portfolios.

Voice Quality: Clarity, Emotion, Versatility

When listening to voice-over portfolio videos, it is key to pay attention to the voice’s clarity in pronunciation and volume, emotions, and versatility. Does the voice carry the intended and matching overall vibes to the project? Is it emotionally engaging enough to keep the audience hooked? Is the voice versatile enough for various types of voice-over work?

Audio Quality: Background Noises, Audio Levels, Delivery

Besides the creative side of voice-over, it's also important to consider the technical aspects. Does the recording have any background noises that can be distracting to the audience? Is the audio level consistent throughout the video? Is the overall voice-over impactful?

Style Compatibility

Lastly, watching and listening to voice-over portfolios should give you a clear idea of whether their voice-over style matches your project’s needs. In some cases, it might not be a 100% match, but similar styles and project goals can easily match yours. On top of that, some freelancers and agencies are quite versatile in their voice-over styles and project types.

Questions to Ask Before Making Your Choice

Asking these questions can help you make your decision to work with the voice-over service of your choice. Their answers will help determine whether both parties, in terms of skills and project requirements, are compatible with one another. These questions should also help find any differences that might need to be discussed before signing a contract.

• What is your revision policy?
• What is your typical timeline and turnaround time?
• How do you deliver the outputs? File types?
• Do you offer different tones, pacing, or styles?
• Are there penalties or additional fees?

Conclusion

Whether you choose to use voice-over services for personal or professional projects, one mutual goal everyone involved must have is delivering the best quality possible. Different project scales have different budgets; however, investing in good voice-over services can go a long way. It ensures high-quality results, and you might even learn a thing or two from the professionals you get to work with. Make sure not to rush into choosing a voice-over service and do your due diligence before committing to one.

Ready to elevate your content with professional voice-over services tailored to your project’s needs? Discover how Digital Trans Asia can deliver high-quality, engaging voice-overs for your content, from ads to e-learning and beyond. Visit https://digital-trans.asia/ to explore our expert voice-over solutions. Have a project in mind? Contact us today to get started!