Whether you produce video content, develop commercials or make e-learning materials when it comes to writing scripts you always have the idea, the brief, the message and your target audience in mind. You can then apply lots of different tricks to keep your listener engaged, but one of the most important weapons that you can have at your disposal is often overlooked.
I first realised this when I went to work at Radio 538. To make a long story short: after working for years in local and regional radio, the dreams of my youth were realised – national radio. This is how it goes: you come in, still wet behind the ears, and you are partnered with a mentor. Together you listen to your own programmes again and in this way you, for the first time in your life, you get real feedback on your programmes.
My coaches were Bart van Leeuwen and Wim van Putten. The gents, one creative the other strictly pragmatic, were both respectful and forceful in their feedback.
During the first sessions they were constantly making remarks such as:
“I don’t understand what you said just there, why don’t you explain it..?¨
“That joke, an insider would get it, but part of your audience probably won´t…¨
“That bit of news you referred to, it´s like a week old already, no? So why do you bring it up again now?¨
“Louis you say, Louis who? Oh! Louis van Gaal, the football trainer you mean? Well say that then – then someone who doesn’t follow the sport and has been living under a rock for years will understand it too.¨
And so on.
I was constantly pointed towards things that, after working in local and regional radio for ten years, I knew but hadn’t yet truly understood.
“You have listeners. And they do something with the information that you give them.”
“Or not.”
Everyone knows that you need to empathise with your target audience. You´ll find that in every communication text book. Clients will give you customer insights. Still, it’s quickly forgotten. Or perhaps to put it better, it is too easily skipped over.
And that’s where the problem lies.
Imagine, you’re busy with a corporate e-learning production. You know that you have to use certain materials, in regards to a pretty unsexy topic. But yeah, in the meantime it’s important that your viewer sticks with the lesson. Before you start writing, it´s handy to ask yourself – who are you talking to, and how does this person feel about you?
Naturally you ask yourself:
- Who am I doing it for?
- What age group do they fall into?
- Are they men, women, or both?
- Do I know these kind of people myself?
In other words, get under the skin of your listener. Ask yourself next, how do these people feel about your message?
- What do they know already?
- What don’t they know?
- What interests them?
- In what circumstances will people watch this video?
- How interesting are people going to find what I have to tell them?
- Will people want to watch the video of their own accord, or is it something they are being asked to do?
Because even if the listener/viewer isn’t there when the voice over is recording the material, they do talk back. One says it aloud, another mumbles it to themselves and most of them just think it.
Exactly how they respond doesn´t matter, but you have to realise that they behave in just the same way as someone that you encounter in real life.
When considering this, you only need to think about the normal behaviours of your average Joe.
Listeners disengage if they don’t understand you, or if they don´t find it interesting enough, etc.
Changing the channel is far easier than watching to the end.
At Voicebooking.com we have a client that manages harbours and installations across the whole world. If you arrive on that kind of property, you have to abide by certain protocols. They explain these in short videos, in the most exotic languages.
With these sort of e-learnings visitors are kindly asked to watch them when they arrive on site. The real message then is: ¨These are our rules, we don’t want any accidents, so stick to the rules as we explain them in this video…¨
That is information that you can use when setting down your tone of voice: in this instance the voice over should radiate a good deal of authority. You can emphasise this with short, powerful sentences, for example.
For an explanatory video over the way a new internal system for managing employee hours works, then you can ask yourself completely different questions.
- Do people already work with a similar sort of service?
- Is it easy to use?
- Are they enthusiastic about starting to use the new system, or will they only recognise the benefits later?
If you know that your target audience can’t wait to start using it, then you can take that into the tone of voice.
Is the answer to the question ´is it easy to use?´ YES, then force yourself to be concise, don’t write just to keep yourself talking.
In fact in exactly these sorts of scripts, you often see too many things that tell the audience stuff they know already. Texts like ¨To close the window, click on the small cross in the top right-hand corner of your browser¨ are not only patronising, but they invite the audience to switch off before they have watched the video to the end.
Thinking like a listener then, goes further than just empathising with your target audience.
Above all it is taking into account how someone may react to what the voice over says.
With some sentences in a script you can predict in advance what a listener will say in response to them. And in turn you can cleverly anticipate your next move.
If you have your doubts as to whether a listener will understand or in fact wants to listen at all, leave it out or adjust it. Or as Wim Putten likes to say:
“Moving air around. You´re just moving air around”.
Your listener talks back and reacts to things that you say. And even though I thought, for years, I´d been taking that into consideration, it was made incredibly clear to me during the sessions at 538 just how easy it is to skip over it.
Thank you Bart and Wim!
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