Good Grief I Stink At Video Marketing

Text to Speech - Doesn't always sound good to me, but the technology is improving
Hire Someone - Depends on your budget. You can do Fiverr or if you want to spend more check the Warriors for Hire section, or even oDesk or other outsource websites.
Stock Music - If people want to read, just have a sales letter and forget the video
Your Voice - Stop trying to be a voice, and just talk. Act like you are just having a conversation about your business to a friend. You will come across as being real and gain credibility (depending on your niche of course).

Are you trying to read your PowerPoint, record your screen, and record your voice over all at the same time?

Many times that's where you will have the most trouble, trying to do all things at once.

It's best if you aren't too good at it to record your audio separate.

That way you don't sound all scripted.

I'd suggest copying your notes into a word document, pulling up your audio recording software, and just go from there.

You can edit out all the parts you mess up on in your editing software.

Just relax, and believe that whatever it is you're saying is supposed to help people. If you believe what you're saying is valuable it should come across in your speech.

Practice makes perfect however, I wouldn't outsource this.

You have to get better at it sooner or later so why not give it a shot.

Once your voice is completely recorded and you've edited it to perfection just drag the MP3 file into your screen capture software. Record your screen without the recording the audio this time and just click through your slides as you hear yourself speaking.

Eliminating the multitasking will definitely help your presentation out.

Hope this helps,

Everybody stinks at stuff at the beginning.. Keep going at it..Ur brain automatically improves and innovates and adjusts to it.. If ur not completely confident about yourself making a good video, only then think of investing in a voice over artist...

Your voice and tone are probably not near as horrible as you think. Many people
(myself included) have trouble addressing the audience, even if not directly. That
makes you lose your breath, stutter and whatnot. Also, your recorded voice sounds
different and strange compared to when you talk. It's all perfectly normal and can be
overcome with practice, there's no real cure other than that.

You can hire someone to do it for you at first or for bigger projects, but it would be
nice to practice a bit to be able to do at least smaller stuff yourself.

Don't create slides that basically recreate word-for-word what you're saying. People will just read instead of listening to you.

Here's what I do: I record my audio first. (If you don't like how you sound buy a small audiobook, professionally done, to get a feel as to how to narrate.)

Then, I add the audio file to PowerPoint and set it to play across slides. Then I create slides to go with the narration -- but don't just put down words. I pull out the main idea from the sentence or paragraph -- and represent it on the slide with a picture and a few words. Vary the font size. For example, I have a paragraph where I'm talking about serving sizes and eating unhealthy foods in moderation, I put a picture of someone eating ice cream,and the words "Everything in moderation" -- but moderation is in a much bigger font. It creates a nice contrast!

This way, people get a visual *and* they have to listen to you to get the full idea.

Have fun getting creative and it'll come through to the viewer! :-)

Suzanne

I use fiverr for all my voiceovers. Be sure to shop around and find a voice that suits your product. And you need to provide them with a good script - but more importantly detailed instructions and cues.

Everyone hates the sound of their own voice (after years on TV, I still winced every time I heard my voice pop up somewhere! ) But if your voice problem really is that bad, here's what I would recommend:

- Never use those little software robots. They sound ridiculous.

- Write yourself a script, instead of trying to speak off the top of your head. You might be trying too hard to sound "smart" - hence the phony-sounding voice.

- Practice, practice, practice. You want to sound as conversational as possible. You can even record your practice sessions if you want, and use them to see where you need to improve.

- Don't forget to enunciate. It makes you sound a whole lot better. One of my college professors pointed out that I was saying the word "to" on the air like "tuh". It's a tiny flaw (something that most of us say in everyday conversation), but on the air it sounded bad. Remembering to sound out every letter made me sound light years better.

- If you're talking too fast, stop. No one wants to listen to the Micro Machine Man

Sounds like it's back to the mic for some practice sessions for me.

If you decide to do the slide show AND audio at the same time, try just hitting some kep points on the slides and talk about them as opposed to reading right from them. I think it'll help you sound more natural. Or, like SuzanneH said, record the audio and create the slides to it.

Train. Do it again. Record the damn thing and upload it. Give it a couple days and then go listen to it.

You WILL improve. But you need to be faced with truth.

Good diction and a conversational tone go a long way. I don't have any TV experience like Nicole, but I've got some stage-acting experience and I know that most people have a bad tendency to blend their words together.

For instance, as a really poor and off the top of my head example: "I went to the supermarket to buy apples" sounds like "I wento the supermarke' to biapples".

The point is that on a recording when you blend words together like that it makes it harder to understand, and anytime there's difficulty understanding you it automatically makes you sound more "phone-y" because you're listening harder.

Another thing most people do is forget to take breaks in their lines. It's not natural to just read straight through lines...Give yourself natural breathing time and don't rush through it so much and it'll sound a lot better.

So, if you're careful to pronounce each word fully and do a couple practice runs with a script to make sure you can get into a conversational rhythm, I think you'll definitely see some improvements.