Hiring Voice Over Artists – Do’s and Don’ts
From TV commercials and radio-ads, finding the right voice over talent for your marketing and brand is crucial part of your sales and marketing efforts. Voice overs play a part in educating, persuading, entertaining, and generating interest in your target-market. It doesn’t matter what kind of message or ads you are planning to promote, a voice over artist can assist you in creating the dynamic message you need.
Locating the right match for your voice over talent is crucial in modern societies competitive marketplace; you need to create and advertising message that jives with your clients and helps to ensure that your business stands apart from your competition. The hiring process can be lengthy, but working with a voice talent agent can make it easier to find the right fit. Never the less, there are several ways to track down someone who can help develop the right marketing and advertising message you need. These are some basic do’s and don’ts when hiring a voice artist for your campaign.
Do request references. Finding out how the voice over talent has been with other customers and clients can supply some insights on how well they may fit with your company’s objectives and goals.
Don’t listen to only one example. Ask for at least three to five different examples that demonstrate how flexible and adaptable the voice over talent may be. Professional voice artists should be able to deliver a variety of voices and customize their intonations to meet the demands of your message.
Do request more than the initial interview. The first interview may just be to review the person’s qualifications and discover more about their background. The 2nd and 3rd interviews may include tests or evaluations, so plan accordingly and devise a series of meetings to focus your choice.
Don’t forget about online talent. Many talented voice over actors can now be found online, and have their own homepage and portfolio for you to. This can make finding someone much easier, and you will have a much better comprehension of their background with the audio files and related-links that are available on their website.
Do select a voice that fits in with your target audience. Customers in your demographic are much more likely to resonate with someone who sounds like their own neighbors and coworkers. Don’t be afraid to invest the time to find at least 3 distinct traits or characteristics of your demographic, and look for voice over artists with the same traits.
Remember to request ask for demo Mp3s. You can listen to these after your meeting, and having them on hand can help you compare them to all the other voice artists with ease. Keep track of those demo-tapes and audio snippets so you can do an ‘apples to apples’ comparison when it’s time to choose your finalist.
Choosing the right voice talent is vital part of presenting your marketing messages, and you will need to do some research in your market to determine what your clients will resonate the most with. Choosing a voice over artist with experience will make the process of creating your campaign much easier; take the time to talk to and test each applicant to determine just the perfect match.
Service reviews: Vonage
Vonage is one of the most popular VOIP phone service providers, albeit the most expensive. But there’s a reason for the added cost: Vonage offers the most features of all its VOIP competitors.
Vonage hopes that when you see these 25 cool features along with numerous additional features you can add on, you’ll be willing to pay the extra price. The popular VOIP phone provider offers both personal and business calling plans on the web.
How Does Vonage VOIP Work?
When you purchase a Vonage VOIP router, you plug it into your broadband connection. You then plug your regular telephone into the VOIP router, obtain your new Vonage VOIP phone number, and you’re ready to place a call. You can find some great deals on new and reconditioned Vonage VOIP routers on their website.
To assuage the calling needs of those who are mobile, Vonage offers a cool product called the Vonage V-Phone. The V-Phone is a small USB keychain flash drive that you plug into your PC to make and receive Vonage phone calls and to enjoy all the calling features of Vonage through your laptop computer.
Vonage VOIP Features and Service Plans
Vonage offers three calling plans: Residential Basic 500, Residential Premium Unlimited, and Vonage Pro. With each plan, you get free local and long-distance calling anywhere in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada; unlimited incoming minutes; and 25 calling features including:
* Voicemail
* 911 emergency dialing
* Caller ID
* Phone number porting (keep your old phone number)
* Call waiting
* 3-way calling
* Call forwarding
* Enhanced 411 directory assistance ($.99 per call)
* Weather information
At $17.99 per month, Vonage’s Residential Basic 500 plan gives you 500 minutes of outgoing minutes, unlimited incoming minutes, local and long-distance calling within Canada and the U.S. (including Puerto Rico), and all 25 of Vonage’s flagship features.
The Residential Premium Unlimited Plan is Vonage’s most popular plan. For $24.99, you get the same service as the Residential Basic 500 plan with the addition of unlimited outgoing minutes and free long-distance calling to Italy, France, UK, Ireland, and Spain. This makes the Residential Premium plan great for those who make frequent calls to friends and relatives in Europe.
For even more features, you can purchase the Vonage Pro plan which runs for $34.99 per month. With this upgrade, you get all the features of the Residential Basic 500 Plan and the Residential Premium Unlimited
The entrepreneurs guide to Google services
If you are starting up your own company, or even if you’ve been in business for awhile, there is one company that you don’t want to overlook when you are deciding on service providers. That company is Google. Google offers many services, both free and paid, to make running a business easier for the entrepreneur.
GMail – Free accounts offer 7GB of storage. Each paid account can store 25GB. You have a complete record of all emails threaded by conversation. All email can be searched using Google’s industry-leading search engine. GMail integrates with the other Google business applications. This means that there is no need to set up and maintain your own mail server.
GTalk – Integrates GMail with voice and text chatting capability.
Calendar- Provides an easy shared calendar function that can send reminders as text messages as well as emails.
Docs – Allows multiple users to edit and share files. Docs provides support for Microsoft file formats. You don’t have to install MS Office on each machine. It also handles Open Office file formats with ease. It stores your documents on Google’s remote servers, providing secure off-site storage.
Reader – Allows you to aggregate all your important RSS feeds in an easy-to-read application.
Sites – lets you create a web presence in a few simple clicks. Multiple users can easily edit the content.
Blogger – Every online, and off-line, business needs to maintain a blog. Google’s Blogger lets you create a professional looking blog in minutes.
Alerts – Set up Google Alerts to keep up-to-date on industry news and rumors. Protect your company name, image, and trademark by letting Google monitor news, blogs, and other web traffic. Alerts can even let you know if one of your web pages has been hacked and changed.
Analytics – Monitor all your web traffic, detect trends, find out where your traffic comes from and where it goes in one easy application.
Adsense – Use Google Adsense to post ads on your blog and website to earn additional revenue.
Adwords – Drive traffic to your website by using Google Adwords Pay-Per-Click ads. These ads appear on websites targeted to your keywords. You pay only for the traffic that clicks through to your site.
Picasa – Allows you to store, share, and edit photos.
Start Page – Google allows you to set up a start page so that all the important information is quickly available.
Notebook -Lets you clip, save, and organize information from web pages in one application.
Maps – Plan
What You Need to Know About VOIP
VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is the main technology behind Internet Telephones. VOIP, just as the name implies, is a technology that allows voice conversations to be conducted over an IP network. This IP network could be a small company network, a wide-area network or the internet itself. For our purposes, an Internet telephone is the use of VOIP technology to carry voice conversations over the internet.
The Protocol
VOIP is actually a group of protocols that are optimized for establishing a P2P (peer-to-peer or PC to PC) session. Establishing a P2P session allows for a continuous stream of data to be carried over the internet. Voice signals require this type of session because of their continuous nature. There are several VOIP protocols being used by different providers and software developers. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and Open Standards Protocol are two that have gained wide acceptance.
The Hardware
There are basically three different types of internet telephones in use. The first is called a PC softphone, and is actually a software application that uses the existing PC sound card, microphone and speakers (or headset) to implement an internet telephone. The second type is a VOIP (or simply IP) handset. This type has more complex hardware and relies on the PC only for processing and routing of the VOIP data. The third type is referred to as an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) or simply IP Phone adapter. This is the most complex hardware, and contains a microprocessor that handles all of the necessary VOIP functions to implement an internet telephone. This type does not require the presence of a PC to function but only an active connection to a high-speed internet provider is necessary.
The Software
The software required for each of the three types of internet telephones is also different. PC softphones require the most extensive software applications. They implement a ‘virtual telephone’ with an on screen telephone keypad and display. PC softphone software must handle the conversion of the analog signals by the PC sound card, the dialing and answering functions and the routing and processing of the VOIP data. The third type of internet telephone, the ATA or IP phone adapter, actually requires no specialized software to function. As mentioned previously, this type of internet telephone equipment does not require the presence of a PC to operate.
The Service Provider
The VOIP service provider is also an important component of an internet telephone system. The service provider handles initiation of the P2P session, associating of phone numbers to IP addresses, and routing of the VOIP data to another PC or to a local PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) when a landline or mobile number is involved in the call.
Putting it all together, what happens when I place an internet telephone call using VOIP?
Regardless of the type of hardware and software being used to implement the internet telephone, the process of making a VOIP telephone call is essentially the same. The major differences among the different types of internet telephones is the amount and type of processing being done by hardware as opposed to software.
If you place a call using an ATA or IP phone adapter to a landline number, connected to a regular analog telephone, the process can be simplified as follows: When you dial the number, the ATA converts the analog touch tone signals into digital form. The number information is routed by the ATA to the VOIP service provider, where the number is associated with an IP address and routed to the physical location that you are calling, establishing a connection to the PSTN at that location. This causes the landline phone to ring on the other end.
When the call is answered, the sound of the other persons voice is transmitted via the PSTN to an interface to the VOIP service provider on the internet. This interface translates the analog voice signals from the phone into digital signals that can be handled by the VOIP service provider. The service provider then routes these digital signals back to the ATA on the originating end, where the digital signals are converted back into analog signals that can be understood by the analog telephone. The same process happens in reverse in order to carry the sound of your voice to the landline number.
As you can see, quite a bit happens when you place a call using VOIP. However, internet telephone hardware and software have progressed to the point where most of this is invisible to the user. Placing an internet telephone call is today almost identical to placing a call using a traditional telephone. This ease of use, coupled with the unique advantages of internet telephones, explains the explosive growth in VOIP telephone usage.
What Is The Advantage Of Using Voice Over
Voice over IP networks provides the user the opportunity to enjoy the use of telephone services through their Internet connection. Several providers of VoIP offer packages in varying degrees. These packages allow the user to have primarily the same features they have with their traditional phone service. Along with the added benefit of using their computer to make calls by having a “soft phone” in the same window as their instant messages. There are two different types of service for Voice over IP networks: hardware VoIP and software VoIP.
Several providers of telephone services are also offering Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. They know that it is less expensive to carry voice traffic over Internet protocol (IP) networks than the public switched telephone networks (PSTN). The reason that Voice over IP networks can carry this traffic cheaper is because IP networks make better use of the bandwidth that is available. When making a call the voice changes from analog to digital, it is then highly compressed and carried in packets over the IP networks. With this technology, the Voice over IP networks can carry a significantly higher volume of calls as the PSTN and provide better voice quality. In addition, the customers benefit with the savings passed down to them through lower rates and paying for one bill for two services.
Software VoIP benefits those who do a great deal of travel or limited phone use at home. It is great for wireless set-ups. When you set up an account with a provider of software VoIP, you can then download the service directly to your computer. All you need is a high-speed Internet connection; sound card, microphone and speakers, and you are ready to make telephone calls through your computer. The convenience of the software VoIP is that wherever you travel, when you take your laptop with you, you also have use of your phone. The location of where you can call is dependent on the type of service you chose.
To use Hardware VoIP you need an adapter to connect your current telephone to your broadband service. Several providers will offer the adapter free when you sign up for one of their VoIP plans. Monthly service rates can range from $9.95 to $49.95 per month. You can choose between residential or business plans, limited or unlimited calling. Most providers offer a plan to match any budget or lifestyle.
