How Text-to-Speech Narration Can Improve Video Consumption

Today’s marketers know how challenging it is to attract and engage consumers in a climate where consumers are interacting with brands on multiple platforms every day. And, since new research shows that consumers’ attention spans are narrowing due to information overload, marketers need to be intentional in how they present information to connect with consumers.

Marketing Technology News: Strata Introduces Identity Orchestration Platform for Multi-Clouds

Video is becoming one channel that marketers are beginning to include in their strategies—86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and the same study revealed that 93% of marketers deem video as “important” to their overall strategy. Thanks to the rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube, video has become increasingly important to convey information, share content and establish deeper relationships with consumers.

To make video even more enticing, marketers can rely on text-to-speech (TTS) voice technology, which also speeds up video production. To get started and learn about the benefits of video, marketers should keep the following in mind.

What is TTS voice technology?

Over the last year, voice technology has skyrocketed in popularity—more than three billion people currently use voice-activated search and assistants globally, and by 2024, it is predicted that there will be 8.4 billion digital voice assistants. However, as many users notice, the voices available on smart speakers all sound the same, even if the information presented varies. For companies that use voice assistants to interact with consumers, this makes it difficult to deliver personalized content.

Text-to-speech voice technology alleviates this challenge by empowering marketers to create a branded voice that speaks to a company’s tone, style and perception across multiple touchpoints and devices, including video. Marketers can work with digital voice partners that use technology like natural-language understanding and conversational artificial intelligence to create synthetic speech that is almost indistinguishable from humans.

Once the voice is created, the technology is scalable, so marketers can quickly deploy it across their chosen devices and platforms to create a seamless experience for every consumer. With video, marketers can deploy their TTS voice to narrate important messages to create more digestible content and separate their brand from the competition. Beyond being a competitive differentiator, there are several other reasons why marketers should leverage TTS voice in their video narration strategies.

Advantages of digital voice narration

Since a majority of consumers (69%) prefer to watch a video instead of reading a text-based article, website or post, marketers must ensure they have the resources readily available to create multiple videos weekly, if not daily, to meet consumer preferences. With TTS voice, marketers can simply type out a script and generate the audio from their computer, instead of relying on a voice actor, which can be expensive and time consuming—especially if the organization is looking to roll out content daily or weekly. Text-to-speech voice gives marketers the flexibility to create engaging content on a moment’s notice to remain top-of-mind for consumers and prospects alike.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview with Navdeep Saini, Co-founder and CEO at DistroScale

Moreover, TTS narration helps marketers create content that connects with broader audiences by allowing:

• Improved accessibility and usability: With TTS voice, marketers can add audio descriptions of the video’s content for those with vision impairments. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) can help marketers write descriptions to ensure the video’s messaging is inclusive for everyone. Text-to-speech voice can also help consumers with low literacy in a spoken language, dyslexia or other learning disabilities.
• Emphasized main points: When speech is used sparingly, viewers are more likely to pay attention. Text-to-speech narration can be used strategically to introduce new topics, reiterate the most important points and highlight the value of what the video is discussing. Marketers can introduce their TTS voice at key points during the video, or even create an interactive video that allows users to click on-screen buttons to trigger narration.
• Localized content with voiceovers in different languages: With the right digital voice partner, marketers can generate audio files for multiple language translations in key markets. This way, it’s easier and faster for marketers to localize videos, which is important for brands that are sharing company updates or new product information with a global audience.

As marketers continue to look for ways they can create connections with consumers, video is not likely to go away. To ensure they are providing the best experiences possible for important consumers and prospects, marketers can leverage the power of TTS voice to create rich, digestible content that can be produced quickly and reach broader audiences.