Who is Liz?
Liz Drury, a professionally trained voiceover artist, broadcaster and actor, has been working as a voiceover artist since 2013, and has worked on projects for films, radio and TV commercials, documentaries, telephony, corporate narration, e-learning and audio tours. Learn how professionally delivered voice-overs can enhance your business growth.
Key Takeaways
1. Businesses with a voice to present as the message-taker are more successful. If there is just silence. 60% of people will hang up and 30% of people won't bother to call back another time. With a targeted message from the company 15 to 20% of people who hear on hold messages will go on to make a purchase because of what they heard.
2. You need a voice-over to add to any videos. 15 plus million people in UK alone are unable to engage with just text on your videos
3. When recording your own voice-over for e-learning you need
a. A room where hard surfaces have been covered by pillows, curtains, carpets.
b. Make a pillow-fort with the microphone in the centre and speak into that to deaden sound
c. Smile. A smile can be heard in your voice
Valuable Free Resource or Action
https://lizdrury.com/blog/your-questions-about-voice-over-for-e-learning-answered/
A video version of this podcast is available on YouTube :
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Transcript
Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
voiceover, recording, professional, museums, liz, customer, country, people, voicemail, voiceover artist, message, engaged, learner, elearning, podcast, phone, speaking, pillows, included, job openings
SPEAKERS
Liz Drury, Stuart Webb
Stuart Webb 00:21
Hi, and welcome again to It's not rocket science. Five questions over coffee. I'm here today with Liz Drury. Liz is a freelance voiceover artist. She works across all kinds of voiceover genres, including commercials, corporate videos, telephone systems, and announcements for events. But she'd been looking for lots of projects in the Learning Centre just recently. Online training has boomed over the last few years, I'm probably aware and having a professional home studio mean, Liz has been able to record projects for clients all around the world. And I'm really looking forward to discussion because it's a really fascinating and interesting person. Great background. We may get into that. I don't know. We'll see how it goes. But please welcome to the podcast and good afternoon. Welcome to you from North Lincolnshire.
Liz Drury 01:07
Thanks very much for having me.
Stuart Webb 01:09
So let's start by just understanding who those clients are that you're working with at the moment and, and the sort of things that that that you do for them.
Liz Drury 01:19
Yeah, so as you said, I work across a lot of different voiceover genres. So kinds of people that I work with would be video production companies who are looking for voiceovers for their projects. I work a lot with elearning providers, as you just said, Who creating online courses and need any people to narrate them. I do a lot of work in for what all sorts of businesses really that want voicemail greetings and unhold sales messages to play to their clients while they're waiting for them to pick up the phone announcements for events. Not that there's been too many events over the last couple of years. But hopefully, those will be coming back soon. And audio tools, museums and art galleries, which are probably my favourite things to do, because those are always so interesting. So yeah, real wide range of things that I do.
Stuart Webb 02:06
And you know, a lot of us don't really think about the need for a horse. Do you find a lot of customers of yours? Try to sort of do their own thing, what sort of troubled and they get in with get into by trying to do something when they're getting a professional? Aren't you involved?
Liz Drury 02:20
Yeah, well, let's let's take the the telephone system as an example. And people might not bother to to have a recorded message on their on the voicemail. And you know, and just just leave it with what came with with the phone when they bought it, which is fine. But if you're running a business, I think customers want to know that they've run the right place. So you're when they ring you and you can't answer the phone, what the customer would like is a message that says Thanks for calling Joe's plumbing, let's say sorry, we're out on a job at the moment. But please leave it leave us a message. And without that they're thinking well, how about have I run the right place? Even worse than that is if you get put on hold, and there's just silence. And I read a statistic last week that said, I think it was 60% of people will hang up if they're just faced with silence and 30% of people won't bother to call back another time. So that's a big mistake to leave people hanging on and not listening to anything. So it's better to have music in the first instance, or even better have some pre recorded sales messages that you can play to peep while they're on hold. And I read another statistic last week that said that 15 to 20% of people who hear on hold messages will go on to make a purchase because of what they heard. So when it's a great marketing opportunity that they are missing out on
Stuart Webb 03:41
terrific stuff, terrific stuff. Now I know that education is something that you you're really interested in, you talked a little bit about e learning and such like that. And I know your background is somewhat sort of related to that, isn't it? You started off in an attempt to sort of do something else with your career. Where did that Where did that come from?
Liz Drury 04:01
So I have a PhD in archaeological science. And when I was when I was doing that, what to start off with I thought that I wanted to go into academia. By the end, I knew that I didn't. But to during the course of my research, I also worked at Eureka, which was the Science Museum for children based in Halifax and I became interested in museum education. So that was something else that I thought of going into which didn't work out because we we found ourselves living in North Lincolnshire, there aren't too many museums in this part of the country and none of them had any job openings when I moved to the area anyways, I ended up having to find something else to do which turned out to be working for a local cable TV station, which included a bit of voiceover work so that's why first started a long time ago.
Stuart Webb 04:51
Wow. Interesting. So what free resource can you give to the audience which will enable them to understand how you using VoiceOver in something like elearning, could be useful to them.
Liz Drury 05:03
So yeah, so let's, let's take the elearning as an example. So a lot of people who are creating online courses might narrate them themselves. And that that can be fine. But it's rare that they would have a proper environment for recording in. And I've a broadcast quality home studio here, which is where I where I work from. And so if you're just recording into your phone or your computer, it's going to be okay. But if you've got a learner who's listening to that recording for a long period of time through a pair of headphones, it's not going to be very good quality, is possibly going to turn that learner off. And so a couple of tips for people who are recording their own material is to try and make the environment as good as it possibly can be. Now, I'm not expecting to have a home studio like I do. But there are a couple of things that you can do to make the quality a bit better. The first tip is not to record in a room like a kitchen or a bathroom where there's lots of hard surfaces, because your voice is just going to bounce around. And you're going to get lots of echo. So choose a room where there's lots of soft furnishings where there's carpet, where there's curtains where there's cushions, because all that's going to help absorb the sound. The other thing is, is if you can to build yourself a little what we call in the in the industry, a pillow fort. So basically a pile of pillows around your microphone, to deaden the sound, and you sort of speak into the microphone, it's in the middle of all these pillows. And that's going to get a much better sound quality. And the other tip that you can have a free is that when you're recording, smile, because people can hear a smile. And it makes such a difference to to the listener, if they can hear that smile in your voice and think oh, this person is actually engaged with this information that they're giving to me.
Stuart Webb 06:58
That's lovely, I really enjoy them. So we come to sort of the question about one of the things that's really influenced you your, your book, or concept or programme that's really sort of helped to engage you. And I think that you'd like to share with the audience. What's that? That book or concept for you?
Liz Drury 07:15
Yes, this is a book that I that I've really enjoyed. So I'm building a story brand by Donald Miller. And it's all about making your customer the hero of your story. So a lot of people in business make mistake of making themselves the hero of the story and saying, Yeah, I can do this. And I can do that. But what your customer wants to know is how can you help them. So you need to position yourself as the guide. So whereas you know, Luke Skywalker would be the hero of the story. You want to be Obi Wan Kenobi who's guiding him on the way and pointing him in the right direction. So that's what that book is all about. And it really helps, I think, when you're creating content for your website, or your social media to bear in mind that your customer is the person who's the hero of the story.
Stuart Webb 08:03
That's a brilliant tip. I love that one. Because so often we try and keep saying to people, too often people trying to sell the drill, but they don't sell the hole but the drill makes and it's the hole that you really care about, isn't it, you don't care how good the drill is. Sometimes it makes the hole you want in the place that you want it in the size that you want it. Everything else is good to you. So yeah, brilliant Tip Make your customer that story, is it? Well, that's brilliant. So there's obviously sort of ask you four questions that I wanted answered. But there must be a question that you're currently thinking. I wish you'd asked me. And so what is the question that you would have liked me to have last year? And then please also answer it? Well,
Liz Drury 08:43
I was having a think about that. I've put some notes down here to remind me of what I wanted to say. So we've talked about voiceover fit for elearning. And you know, maybe it's obvious why an elearning provider might want to have a professional narration tone to keep their learners engaged. But why do people want voiceover for for other reasons, we talked about that the voicemail. And make sure that your your voicemail might be the first impression somebody gets your business, you want to be as good as it possibly can be. And maybe if you're a sort of person who really hates hearing the sound of their own voice when it's recorded. You You don't want to be recording that voicemail greeting because you hate the way it sounds. So why not get a professional then but also, I was thinking about voiceover for videos that are going to be on people's websites or social media. And maybe people think that they could have a video and not have a voiceover on it and just have some text instead to explain what's going on in the video. And that's fine, but I did a bit of research about how many people would not be able to access that sort of content. So if there isn't a voiceover and there's just some On screen text, well, there's about 2 million people in this just in this country alone who are living with sight loss so they wouldn't be able to see What was going on the 6.3 million people in this country who are dyslexic to some degree, they might not be able to read those captions quickly enough before they've disappeared off the screen. And also, and this is, this is terrible, actually, 7.1 million people in this country have a very low level of literacy or are illiterate. And they wouldn't be able to read what was going on, they can perhaps read things, when they know what they expect it to say. But when it's something unfamiliar to them, they can't read it. So that's 15 plus million people in this country alone, that wouldn't be able to understand your video, if it didn't have somebody actually speaking to the viewer. So that's another reason why you might want to use voiceover artist.
Stuart Webb 10:44
That is unbelievable. And I have to be very honest at this stage and say, I know I've used videos, which don't have any voiceover. So we might be having a conversation list. Okay, that's brilliant list. I've been fascinated particularly by that. And I think it's a really compelling argument, why people might need to get in touch with you. And they could do that, not only by looking at the blog that you've put on the screen here, which is questions about voiceover for elearning. But also at your website, which I think I just put up earlier, which is Liz drewery.co.uk. That's li Zed d r u r y.co.uk. And it's a fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for being on and speaking with us this afternoon. Really appreciate you taking the time. And I've thoroughly enjoyed talking about it. So let me just remind you, if you would like to be watching and engaging with people as interesting as Liz, can I ask you to get onto our newsletter website, subscription list. You do that by going to https colon forward slash forward slash, TC a dot FYI, forward slash subscribers, TCA, FYI, forward slash subscribe, then you get an email, which basically introduces who's going to be on the podcast this week, so that you can see live on YouTube and on LinkedIn. And please, if you do, enjoy what we're doing, subscribe, and like and rate us on Apple podcasts and YouTube and LinkedIn, because that really helps. Liz, thank you so much for being here this afternoon. Really appreciate you being here. And I hope that we're all going to be going out there and getting those professional voiceover artists to help us with the things that we really need to communicate. Thank you so much.
Liz Drury 12:28
Thank you. I hope so too.
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