Top 5 Audio Marketing Secrets

The days of marketing simply by having an ad in the local paper or having a flyer in the local shop have long gone. Nowadays, internet marketing has helped make the means by which you can reach your target audience broader than ever. One of the most up and coming marketing channels is the proper use of audio.

Audio marketing is a truly multi-platform marketing tool. From on-hold messaging to events and presentations, the options are almost limitless. Check out our list below for our top 5 audio marketing secrets.

1. Have An Audio Logo
Brand imaging shouldn't just stop at a visual logo - audio logos are often more useful because they can be used online, in radio commercials and for call greetings and on-hold switchboards. What is an audio logo? It's a short sound of music and/or voiceover that captures your business' brand. Just think of the Intel jingle or McDonald's whistle! Want to hear some examples, follow the link: http://www.voicetakeaway.com/Audio-Logos-s/1853.htm

2. Use Call Greetings
You should never miss a chance to market your business - even if you are out of the office or unable to reach the phone! Using high-quality audio for a call greeting helps convey a sense of professionalism and could help convince potential customers that they can rely on your business. For ideas - have a listen to these: http://www.voicetakeaway.com/Call-Greetings-s/2001.htm

3. Try On-Hold Marketing
When your clients are on hold, what's the point in just playing them a cheesy old song that'll probably send them round the bend and could make them feel undervalued as a customer. Instead, why not use on-hold messaging to tell them more about your business' values, services, offers and promotions. It's a great way to get your message out there. Tip: Choose a voice type for messaging that fits with your desired brand: http://www.voicetakeaway.com/Voice-Takeaway-Voice-Types-s/1850.htm

4. Use Audio Testimonials
Hearing somebody vouch for your business can often be so much more effective than simply a written recommendation. Audio testimonials at their best convey a sense of passion and emotion than is almost impossible to convey in written words alone, hence they are more likely to be trusted by your customer.

5. Incorporate Audio Into Presentations
If you're pitching to a big client or potential customer or partner, think about the way audio can enhance your presentation. There's nothing worse than a dry and tedious presentation, so why not try using audio to help make your pitch stand out and become more engaging? Want some ideas, listen to the following: http://www.voicetakeaway.com/Presentation-s/1832.htm

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Those are just a few audio marketing secrets. For find out more ways to market your business via audio - visit: http://www.voicetakeaway.com

Hear our CEO Emma Clarke on Heart Breakfast

Voice Takeaway's CEO Emma Clarke was on Heart Breakfast recently. Listen to the clip below to hear Emma talk voiceovers, the London underground and awards.

5 Ways To Use Audio For Charitable Events

If you think audio marketing is only relevant for businesses looking to bolster their profitability - think again. Like all marketing, it can also be used for the promotion of charities, non-profit organisations or fundraisers. This blog offers a few basic tips to help use audio to promote your charitable event.

1 - Create an audio logo for your event
Audio Logos are short sound images that capture the essence of your event through music and/or voiceover. Just think of the way they’re used in commercial business (e.g. the Intel jingle or the McDonald’s whistle) and imagine how the same slick sound can benefit your event. Oftentimes, audio can be both the most effective and the simplest means of conveying the purpose, mood and style of an event. For more information about audio logos, have a listen to some examples: http://www.voicetakeaway.com/Audio-Logos-s/1853.htm

2 - Use audio to advertise your event
Conventional advertising can play a key role in the successful promotion of an event. Make sure your audio is of a high quality and reflects the ethos of your chosen charity in order to sound well organised and trustworthy.

3 - Use voices that best represent your charity and its values
Voiceovers are often a central part of any promotional campaign. For charitable events, fundraisers or campaigns it is especially important to choose a voice that captures the values of your charity. Think about whether you want a trustworthy, re-assuring voice to convey the seriousness of your cause, or perhaps record a message using someone your charity has been able to help to add an emotional effect.

4 - Use tailored on-hold messaging

If your charitable event involves a ticket hotline or an information service, consider the opportunities that on-hold messaging presents. Rather than simply playing music down the phone, how about telling your callers more information about how they can get involved, donate or attend future events. For more information about on-hold messaging, have a look at these examples: http://www.voicetakeaway.com/On-hold-s/1827.htm

5 - Consider how audio can help your individual cause
Each charitable event will have a different focus, and it could be that audio can have a significant role to play in helping those for whom you are raising money. For instance, audio-guides could be ideal if you’re charity event is raising money for the blind or visually impaired. By the same token, make sure your audio content comes in a range of languages if you are helping an overseas charity. 

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Those are just a few simple suggestions for using audio to promote your charitable event. For more ideas and information, visit http://www.voicetakeaway.com

Voice Takeaway crowned 'Start-up of the Year'

Voice Takeaway was last night named 'Start-up of the Year' at the Altrincham Chamber Business Awards! http://www.altrinchamchamber.co.uk/news

Meanwhile, our good friends at Altrincham HQ won the 'Small Business of the Year' award! http://altrinchamhq.co.uk/

The prestigious award was presented by TV legend Gordon Burns and the night was a glittering black tie event. Guests included business leaders, our local MP, council bigwigs and the mayor.

CEO Emma Clarke said, "it's such an honour for Voice Takeaway to be recognised in this way - I'm absolutely delighted! It's such a confidence boost and it's great to know that local business leaders reckon we're doing a good job. I'm chuffed to bits."

Q&A with Alex McCann of Altrincham HQ

Altrincham HQ are a community focused social media management and training business based in the North West of England. From building a brand to finding an audience, they specialise in helping business make the most out of social media. 

We caught up with Altrincham HQ's Alex McCann to talk advertising, audio and Altrincham... 

Q: Alex, how does Altrincham HQ help businesses use social media?
A: We have two sides to what we do; we either have a done-for service (i.e. we do all the social media for them) or we actually do a training service where we spend a half-day working out their social media strategy, because for businesses the important thing is working out what to say, how to say it and when to say it.

Q: What's your top-tip for social media engagement?
A: Act exactly the same as your would face-to-face with someone. People might think that social media is very different from face-to-face interaction, but in fact it's very much about being honest, up-front and actually just talking to people and engaging with them.


Q: What is 'tradvertising'?
A: 'Tradvertising' is basically traditional advertising, so all the things businesses used to do in the old day. From the Yellow Pages, to local newspaper advertisements, to mass mailings - it's everything that used to work, but it's definitely the traditional as opposed to the digital.

Q: Can social media bridge the gap between 'tradvertising' and digital marketing?
A: Yes, definitely. Particularly in a niche respect, for instance we just did a restaurant poster campaign which involved about 15 restaurants in each town so it wasn't a mass mail-out, so that can work. In terms of actually doing it for clients, if you're in a physical environment like a restaurant or a retail outlet, you should always have some form of physical advertising like posters, mentions on your receipts or flyers to give away. That way you can bridge what happens in your physical environment with what happens online.

Q: How can audio help businesses connect with their fans, followers and customers?
A: Audio is quite interesting. I've got a background in music, so things like Audioboo and how to use your YouTube can be really important. People take in things differently, so maybe having a piece of audio on your site alongside your blog I think is the future. I know there are a lot of people who would much prefer to go on a blog and have the audio read out for them. The key is to keep your audio together with the written stuff.

Q: What's the biggest social media no-no?
A: There are so many! Probably just broadcasting and never talking to people. A lot of people who have been used to 'tradvertising' can see social media the same way and so only use their twitter account to publish what would have gone on the business card or in the newspaper advert. That's a big no-no.


Q: You're called Altrincham HQ, what's so great about your town?
A: Well it's the town I've always lived in, but what's great about Altrincham is probably the restaurants. There are millions of places to eat - you can pick any cuisine in the world and we've got it in Altrincham, there's loads of beer bars as well, which is great considering we're only 25 minutes outside Manchester.

Q: If you had to live anywhere else in the world (apart from Altrincham), where would it be and why?
A: Hmm...I've always loved France and Paris! It's got art and culture - it's just a happening place.

Q: What's your chosen rocket-fuel?
A: Vodka Diet-Coke!

Q: How do you like to un-wind after a hard day's work? Your Instagram suggests you love eating out?
A: Yes, I love eating out and trying new places. There always seems to be somewhere new to eat and I love music and reading, as well.

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For more information about Altrincham HQ, visit http://altrinchamhq.co.uk of follow @altrinchamhq on Twitter.

Vote for Voice Takeaway in the 'Talk of Manchester' Business Awards

We are delighted to announce that we've been nominated in the category of 'Best Newcomer' for the 'Talk of Manchester' business awards. It goes without saying that we are honoured at such recognition, and will use it as extra motivation as we go forward providing high-quality audio for business. 

If you would like to see Voice Takeaway win the award for 'Best Newcomer', we'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to vote for us by following this link: http://www.thetalkofmanchester.co.uk/event-registration/?ee=63.

We're already dusting down our glad-rags for the big night in November - in the mean time, we hope to keep moving onwards and upwards!

How Business Can Use Audio For Marketing

We're in a digital boom time and one of the fastest growing marketing tools is audio. Here at Voice Takeaway we specialize in helping businesses large and small use audio as part of their marketing strategy. From our experience, we’ve found the following are all super-effective ways of utilizing audio.

Online
So you've got people visiting your website and you want to boost your rankings - how can you keep them there longer? Think about how audio can be used to make the online user-experience more dynamic and memorable. Let audio help you tell your story. That doesn’t have to mean having audio blaring out at you from the moment to visit your homepage, but you could consider using audio with web videos, promo films, Prezi presentations, product demos and slide shows. There are lots of social media platforms available to you to publicise your content: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Slideshare, Instagram, Soundcloud, Pinterest and so on. Tip: Media clips that feature great audio are easy to share via social media - they’re a brilliant way of showing your brand's personality and can attract re-tweets and interaction.

Audio Logos
First of all - what is an audio logo? It's a way to use audio as a 'sonic trigger' that helps your fans, followers and customers remember your brand. An audio logo is a short sound image that captures the essence of your brand and can be used across several platforms. Just think of Intel or McDonald’s - both use audio logos in a really effective way. Audio logos give you 'stand out' in a crowded market place. Tip: Consider having a bespoke Audio Logo created for your brand - make it unique and truly yours.

Customer Communication
Audio needn’t just be used to attract new customers, it can also play a role in making sure that your current customers keep coming back. A call greeting and on-hold messaging reinforces your brand and can tell customers about promotions, products, services and discounts they might not otherwise know anything about. Use audio to share customer testimonials, mission statements, staff biogs and news across all your communication platforms, newsletters and social media. Tip: Add a link to an audio clip in your next mailout telling customers about your best-selling product.

Education & Training
If your business involves training or education make the most of audio in this field too. Slideshows can be transformed by the addition of voice-overs or music, whilst e-learning courses or educational films will benefit from top-quality sound as well. Producing good quality media-rich educational material can help you maximize your training budget. Tip: Use Audioboo to make the most of your educational content - why not release short audio clips to promote your sales tips via social media?

Advertising
Advertising is often at the fore-front of a business’ marketing effort. Be it on a small or a big scale, make sure that audio plays a role. Research shows that viewers will tolerate poor visuals but if the audio's bad, they just bail out (http://provideocontent.com/amateur-video-bad-audio/). High-quality, professional audio enhances commercials on TV, radio and online. Don’t just settle for a poorly produce in-house version - trying to do it on the cheap never pays off in the long-run. Tip: Try out some in-store messages to help you sell seasonal products. Tie this in with well positioned point-of-sale marketing and then measure how much extra stuff you've sold.

Music
Music plays a key role in effectively conveying your business’ image. Using royalty-free or bespoke music can provide a huge lift to your marketing effort and is another powerful tool for conveying what you want to get across about your brand. Tip: Read this blog by our music partners about choosing the right music for your brand (http://voicetakeaway.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/using-royalty-free-music-correctly.html).

Casting Celeb Voices
Casting a celebrity voice-over artist is a great way to add a slick, professional edge to your brand whilst also making it instantly feel more familiar and memorable. Celebrities can give you a great PR story as well - but do make sure you have the budget before you start writing a celeb wish list! Chose a celebrity whose image matches your desired brand and approach them to provide voice-overs for your radio, TV or online advertisements. Tip: Brainstorm a list of celebs you'd love to have record the voiceover for your audio. Your choices will tell you a lot about how you perceive your own brand!

Ways To Reach Consumers
Good marketing sometimes requires thinking outside the box a little. These days almost everyone with access to the internet uses a mobile device. Why not use audio for text alerts, ring-tones or even wake up alarms? There are no limits to how audio can be used to increase your business’ marketing potential. Tip: Think about how you could promote a quirky ringtone to help reach your customers and create virality.

The above are just a few ways you can use audio to help your business’ marketing. For more information or for any queries, visit: http://www.voicetakeaway.com