Male eLearning Voice over:
Who and Why
You have a wide choice of male eLearning voice over talent. Over the years, companies with which I’ve shared my training narration expertise have included Actavis Pharmaceuticals, ADP, Allergan, AT&T, Carestream Health, Epicor Software, Honeywell, Johnson & Johnson, Merrill Lynch, Open Text, Philips Healthcare, Siemens Healthcare, Stryker Orthopaedics, Synovus Financial and Xerox. My clients know they can rely on me to turn their projects around accurately and quickly, but without sacrificing quality. It’s simply a matter of trust. Join them.
Click the button below to listen to the demo, then get in touch. For consistently reliable male eLearning voice over, I’m here to help.
“Clear, articulate and explanatory, with a wonderful range of style and ability.”
— An eLearning Producer
My Take on eLearning
I’d been providing instructional narration for quite a while. Long before we began calling it eLearning, in fact. Clients told me I had a knack for explaining concepts accurately and believably. So, I thought that was something I should share.
The Goal:
Consider this: instruction of any kind shares the same goal as TV and radio commercials. To engage participants and motivate them to take action. In advertising, we want the audience to remember the commercial and buy what was offered. For instruction, we want the learner to remember what was taught. This, so that they can later apply the knowledge and improve their performance.
Background:
The best advertising example is Apple’s “1984” TV commercial. That now legendary spot aired only during Super Bowl XVIII (January 22, 1984). However, despite airing nationally just that once, it is still remembered today. By the time those 60 seconds were up, viewers were made aware of a truly life-changing product.
Surreal visuals grabbed and held viewers’ attention for 48 of those 60 seconds. Then, a very succinct 10-second voice-over script (which also appeared on-screen) nailed the message down: computer users who had been chained to the tedium of text-based computer commands could now be set free by the Macintosh®, a far more user-friendly way to work, therefore allowing greater creativity and productivity.
Engagement:
Movies, games, TV shows and even commercials can gather office workers around the water cooler to discuss. Those are prime examples of engaging an audience. Making them part of what they are experiencing.
But unlike those things, education has an additional hurdle. Many people consider learning a chore. So, engaging a reluctant audience requires considerably more thought.
The success of Sesame Street is the best example of reaching an inattentive audience. Brightly colored characters, with voices very different from ours, speaking, singing and dancing through lessons that kids not only remember, but have fun doing so. Every day, preschoolers enthusiastically repeat at the dinner table what they’d learned that day on Sesame Street.
Choosing the Words:
Engaging employees must begin with the writing of the content. It must speak to them on their level. Words written not to be printed, but the way people speak. For example, informal, but not overly so. Smaller words and shorter sentences. Above all, cutting out all unnecessary words and getting to the point. When we want people to remember, we have to give them only what’s important.
Speaking the Words:
When considering who will provide your voice-over narration, do NOT simply choose a voice you “like.” Many people have nice voices, however, they may not possess a most important skill: the ability to interpret the words correctly and speak them as if they were their own. Whether a male or a female will be most appropriate for your subject matter and relate best with your employees, he or she should have complete believability.
Watching actors perform, we become absorbed by the characters because of the actors’ ability to become their characters. So totally believable that we forget we are watching a performance. Similarly, we want that same credibility in eLearning so that employees are engaged by the content. Credibility, believability, whatever you want to call it, that’s the key to engagement. And better engagement results in higher retention.
Once we have believability nailed down, we consider voices that can be listened to for extended periods. We’ve all had boring school teachers. It doesn’t matter how well they know the subject matter. If we can’t stand to listen to them for any length of time, disinterest and distraction set in.
The Bottom Line:
In conclusion, scripts written the way your target audience speaks – informally and concisely – and spoken by those who are expert at correctly interpreting the context and sounding believable is how to maximize engagement and retention. And the more an employee remembers of their training, the greater the payoff.
