In 2021, videos account for 81% of all consumer Internet traffic on a global scale. So, obviously, digital storytelling is a huge thing in the marketing world today. But why is it so whopping right now?
The way the human brain works yields only 10% of everything that we’ve read to be retained by our memory. And a whopping 90% goes to everything that we see with our own eyes. So, this is the reason why video stories have the ability to stick to the brain and stay in people’s heads. In fact, video storytelling does help marketing scenarios to become more memorable.
Since businesses would do almost anything to out beat their competitors, marketers always look for something to innovate the delivery of information to prospective clients. Research reports state that those businesses that actually use video marketing and digital storytelling have higher chances to boost brand awareness which leads to successful company growth. As a matter of fact, some grew by over 40% compared to the businesses that didn’t care much for video marketing.
In the marketing world (which changes so rapidly) video storytelling became one of the really important fixtures. And the fast-growing eLearning industry is no exception. Almost every course builder is aware of the magic power of visuals. The chances of your e-learning course getting higher rankings from students are boosted by 50% if your course is backed by tons of high-quality videos. But what can make video storytelling even greater? The answer is obvious: a captivating story narration done by professional voiceover actors.
In this blog post, we’ll talk about how digital storytelling with professional voiceover narration can boost your marketing efforts. Since digital storytelling is used for advertising all kinds of products or services (from IT to e-learning), this strategy is proven effective when it comes down to marketing promotions. How? Let’s find out!
How does digital storytelling contribute to marketing efforts?
First, let’s talk about what digital storytelling is all about. Okay, digital storytelling is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories. These tools include text, photos, video, interactive programs, audio, music, social media, etc. These resources can add some good gravity to a story to make it an attention-getter and make the client stick till the end. For example, high-quality video stories give the story a really good flow that takes a viewer along with it. It turns a story into something that stays in the heart.
Yes, any kind of storytelling is an effective marketing tool. But video storytelling stimulates the imaginations of both the storyteller and the audience to a higher degree. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, the visualization is huge for our memory. This adds up to a list of advantages of using a video storytelling strategy for marketing promotions. It has all the capabilities to not only grow knowledge about your product or service but also deliver fresh views to old-fashioned concepts. Therefore, today’s popular video stories are rapidly turning into the foundation-stones of marketing.
People got used to digital storytelling which is commonly seen in social media and super popular platforms like TikTok. Meanwhile, there is another rapidly growing industry that gets all the hype in the last couple of years – eLearning. And that’s where digital storytelling evolves into something much bigger than just fun video stories.
Yes, anybody would want to have his/her video content go viral. But what if your goal is to create an awesome e-learning course that would appeal to anybody from your audience in your niche? Or maybe you want to improve your already-made e-learning course to boost sales? In this case, digital storytelling that goes hand in hand with a professional voiceover narration can do wonders!
Video storytelling, while being less cozy, goes hand in hand with oral narration which is a huge component that influences the response from the viewers. The sound of a pleasant-to-the-ear human voice has definitely the bigger advantage of reaching a much wider audience. And that’s why turning to a professional voiceover narrator for help becomes a really good idea if you want to boost your marketing efforts.
Now, let’s go further into this.
How can a professional voiceover help to make your story stand out?
Video storytelling is something that is close to our hearts in 2022. Why? Remember the times when you were a kid? Have you been hearing fables and tales from your grandma or your mom since your childhood? Most of us have heard our elders tell us stories from the days gone by. And those were one of the best moments! As technology evolved, our storytelling mediums have adapted accordingly. And now, captivating video storytelling is what most people like.
There are a million stories in the world but you need to separate your story from the others. In the current sea of stories, a reader’s attention is 8 seconds for the written word and 30 seconds for any visual story. So, you need to make it so your audience recognizes your brand by listening to the story that you’ve created. If your video storytelling goes along with a captivating voice of a professional voiceover actor, this makes the crux of a really good story in any format no matter whether it’s a marketing ad or an e-learning video course.
The fundamental purpose of a good voice over narrator is acquired to:
- Create empathy
- Deliver a range of emotions
- Leave the reader wanting more
- Has a takeaway for your audience
- Specificity
- Mental Motion
- Create an alternate reality
- Communicate in a way that is remembered
- Build a stronger connection with the audience
The trick is that any story needs to take an audience on a journey. And the journey begins in a place that we come to care about. And as the plot moves us along, we take this journey either with characters or with the narrator, which means that learners need to build an emphatic connection. Or there’s no point in following along.
What type of narration works better for an e-learning course?
If you are on your way to creating a professional e-learning course, then think about hiring a voiceover narrator because that way you’ll get a much better chance for a good ROI. Of course, there is always an option for you to try live training and do enough speaking practice. But what if there are some things like, for example, a thick accent that can’t be fixed right away? Do you want to close this gap with captions or subtitles? Do you think this will do the job? Well, most of it depends on what type of narration you are going to use in your e-learning course.
So, take a sneak peek at a quick list of so-called “Mayer’s principles” which tidily connect to the whole concept of e-learning. What Mayer’s principles do, they point out how to engage students without traditional face-to-face interactions. These principles should help you figure out what type of narration will work best with your audience in your niche:
- Some students learn better with temporal contiguity. This means that all corresponding words/pics are delivered to viewers simultaneously (instead of successively).
- Some students learn better with coherence. This means that all irrelevant pics and words are excluded.
- Some students learn better with modality when graphics and narrations are used (rather than on-screen textual blocks or animation).
- Some students learn better with signaling. This is when cues were added to highlight the most important learning content.
- Some students learn better with redundancy, which means frequent use of graphics and voiceover narration (rather than just showing text on the screen).
- Some students learn better with spatial contiguity. This involves a close presence of corresponding words and pics.
- Some students learn better with segmenting. This involves the usage of multimedia in user-paced segments (instead of presenting just a continuous unit to students).
- Some students learn better with pre-training. This involves learning via multimedia lessons in case the students are aware of the main concepts and know what’s being said.
- Some students learn better by listening to voice narrative. This means that multimedia lessons should be spoken in a natural human voice (instead of utilizing AI robotic voices).
- Some students learn better with personalization, which means that multimedia lessons should be delivered in a conversational style (rather than a formal style).
But after all, captivating video storytelling is better with action – things need to happen. And these events are the “verbs” of your story delivered by a captivating voiceover narrative. Again, this builds a stronger human connection between learners and your video course. The audience starts to care about the whole thing. And that generally means that they care about a character or characters in the story. This might also mean that you build a human connection to the story itself. And that’s how a professional voiceover takes the course to the next level.
Tips on how to map out a course script for a professional voiceover narrator
Okay, so you’ve been working hard for days or even months building a course. No doubt, you look all over the place for the best solutions that help to turn an e-learning course into something that looks perfect to students. You’ve got all your visuals, learning sources, course flow and structure lined up. You have the course content all written down. But what about the script itself? How to make it so the voiceover narrator will deliver everything perfectly to the waiting ears?
Let’s go over some tips that should help you create a course script that will be just right for voiceover narration.
Keep in mind that the script will be read out loud and keep it logical. It is usually a good idea to make a voice-over sound like a person talking to another person. Of course, if the subject is very formal you can’t be too conversational. But still, the main goal of a voice-over is to be understood. It is a good thing also in any written text to make it flow naturally. A text that feels like it is spoken is easier to understand and it often gets its point through. So, read aloud your own text before passing it over to a voiceover narrator. That way you’ll reveal the problematic parts beforehand.
Make sure that you’ve emphasized essential words or ideas. Since the voiceover narrator won’t really know or tell instinctively what parts of the text particularly you want to emphasize, point out to these words or textual blocks somehow. That way you’ll have a better chance to obtain the desired notation for your course script.
If you’ve used any technical terms or little-known words, provide a correct pronunciation for them. Proper pronunciation of unique words or specific terms that relate to your field will help a voiceover narrator to make a smooth recording for your learning sessions. And this will make your script sound good to the ear.
Decide where exactly you want to have pauses in your script. Well-written course content is a must but pauses are also important! So, letting your voiceover narrator know where you want him/her to make pauses is a smart thing to do. Basically, you need pauses to emphasize any transitional moments between visuals that you’ll use in your course content. Pauses at the right time will also help to streamline course modules where you use animation and create a perfect flow for images in the script.
Keep your script approachable with simple sentences. If you use simpler sentences in your script, this will make it more conversational and approachable to learners. It also helps listeners to comprehend much better. Especially, if they hear the material for the first time and are not familiar with most of the concepts. Sometimes using contractions also helps to boost comprehension of the narrative. So, don’t be afraid to use such contractions like “we are” to “we’re”, “you are” to “you’re”, “it is” to “it’s”, etc. Since in our everyday conversational speech we break grammar rules often, the fragments or broken rules can make your script sound more understandable and clear to students.
Bottom-line
In 2022, not only such businesses like radio, filmmaking, television production, etc. are in need of professional voiceover actors. One of the biggest industries that has recently experienced a huge boom in popularity (because of the covid-19 pandemic) and now is looking for voiceover narrators is eLearning.
Since the demand for online courses has skyrocketed, a professional voiceover also plays an important part in the game. Course creators appreciate professional voiceover narrators for the ability to build a much stronger connection and communication with learners. And these are the two most important factors that make the online learning business grow.
If you’re currently looking for ways to boost sales and earn more money, try one way which is proven effective. Build an online course and start selling your course(s) on e-learning platforms like Grinfer. Head out to Grinfer website, register, and become a part of our great Grinfer community of course creators. Start building courses, sell courses both via subscription and outside the subscription plans on the platform. Got your online course built? Great! Go ahead and submit it to support@grinfer.com to get it out there for the whole world of the eLearning community!
This is a guest post by Grinfer.
