Top 6 voice-over use cases in videos for content creators

Voice-over work is already a popular part of media. Advances in technology will probably increase the use of AI voice over and AI voice dubbing in the near future. Let’s take a look at some of the potential voice over use cases that could integrate AI voice over into video.

Promotional business videos: Businesses promoting in multilingual regions or globally can market to more potential customers by using an AI voice dubber to spread the word about products, trials, offers, and sales. 

HR learning and development: Organizations that operate globally or have a multilingual workforce may find communicating via video messaging to be the most effective way to make announcements, provide training and explain policies. AI voice over allows for quick translations and captioning placed into any video so staff can understand the company’s video messaging.

Sonic branding: Sonic branding (sometimes called audio branding or sound branding) is the practice of strongly associating a brand with a sound or a short song. Companies can increase their potential customer base by using AI voice dubbing to speak or sing in multiple languages. 

Educational videos: Educational institutions and companies that wish to provide online video tutorials and instructions can quickly translate those videos into multiple languages, thus targeting a wider audience.

Game making: Gaming, especially online, is a booming industry that grows every year. People  worldwide can play in the same arenas. Having translations available for a multilingual player base is great for getting players to keep returning. And as computer animation becomes more lifelike, AI voice dubbing can help match voices with lip movements. 

Advertising: voices for commercial or digital ads: Commercials have great potential to reach an international audience online. Imagine using one set of actors for the original commercial and changing the language with an AI voice dubber to match the actors’ lip movements using their own voices.

Podcasts: These popular audio recordings are perfect for AI voice over. Companies that want to expand their markets globally can quickly translate podcasts into languages spoken in target markets.

Social videos: Creators and influencers posting on social platforms like Instagram and TikTok can broaden their following by posting videos in multiple languages. 

Casual filmmaking and Youtube content videos: AI voice over and dubbing could be used in a variety of ways to increase audience engagement on platforms that host videos available to a global audience.

Customer Support (auto-replies, customer support videos): To answer customer inquiries, customer support can tailor responses to fit the language that best suits each inquiry. Not only can this increase the customer base, but it can also improve customer satisfaction.

In our long-form guide, we already discussed briefly the use cases of voice over in videos. In this article, we’ll discuss the best use cases for voice overs in detail. Each voice over use case will explore the needs and motivations of the video makers based on how their target audiences consume those videos.

 1.Voice over for corporate videos

The corporate video is one of the most common use cases for AI voice-over. By using a variety of languages in their videos, companies can engage with customers and employees from other countries. Business videos like promotional videos, tutorials, and HR onboarding presentations would have to be translated into the languages of their target audiences.

 For corporate videos, there are several types of videos that companies use voice over to communicate with shareholders and stakeholders:

• Press release videos
• Corporate employee training videos
• Company introduction videos
• Product/service description videos
• Customer support 
• Others

Before AI technology was developed for voice-over work, companies would have to use agencies and voice talent to adapt videos for other languages. Many times these sessions and talent were nowhere near the original creation point. This could be a long, expensive process to adapt to each video. Also, companies might have little control of the end product and pay a lot of money to trust that the voice-over work was adequate.

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2. Training / educational videos for employee training

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Human Resources would find the process of adapting training videos for multiple languages quite ineffective, especially if new information must be communicated promptly. Whether these employees are being newly onboarded or just needing to assimilate standard company messages, waiting for training videos produced with traditional voice-over methods is too slow to be useful. 

Various topics are covered in training videos like safety guidelines, job tasks, and diversity and inclusion education (DEI). For example, the employee training videos and professional development videos that ABB builds for their employees over the globe help ABB increase employee engagement and branding.

So why not just show employees videos in the original language? Because many workplaces are multilingual and/or have multiple locations around the world. Even if an employee understands the language in the video, it’s important to remember that most employees learn better if videos are in their own language. This is especially important in terms of safety, standard operating procedures and security.

But with AI voice-over technology, like Hei.io’s software, companies can just upload their videos and have the speech in those videos translated into other languages quickly. Plus, the AI can localize the voice overs on top of the videos. Companies won’t have to wait long to produce a high-quality video with natural-sounding voices.

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3.How-to videos

How-to videos are a really popular search on Google, Youtube, and social media channels like Facebook, Tiktok, Pinterest, etc. With so much demand, “How-to” is one of the most used keywords by content marketers and video creators because people tend to search this phrase to find the answers to their problems or questions. How-to videos are great types of content for brands (B2B and B2C) to show off their products. 

According to WyzOwl’s 2022 Video Marketing Report, 96% of people have watched an explainer video or how-to video to learn more about a product or service.

For B2C media channels, how-to videos are extremely popular. Many brands choose to use AI voice over to help them produce more videos for their audience. And, in order for brands to stand out and reach more customers, brands often adapt their how-to videos into other languages besides their local language or English. With translated AI voice-over generators like Hei.io’s, brands can adapt their original how-to videos into other popular languages. 

Examples:

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How to Make the Ultimate Chocolate Cake

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How-to videos are popular for B2B use cases as well

More and more B2B brands are pushing how-to videos on YouTube and social media channels to educate customers and also raise awareness about their tools. Software brands want to scale very fast, so expanding into other markets is one growth strategy. AI voice-over generators can help them reach and acquire new customers in foreign markets effectively. Video marketers have seen the importance of how-to videos and the adaptation of these videos.

Example: Asana branded its how-to video series as “How to Asana” and this was very effective.

How to Asana: Planning with Asana calendar

Hubspot increases brand awareness and credibility by educating audiences about marketing. topics (Hubspot academy)

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3. Educational content (e-learning, online courses)

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Before the COVID-19 pandemic, online courses were becoming popular and were often standard in education. Once social distancing measures and quarantine guidelines were implemented, many of those organizations experienced two things: 1) the necessity to provide online lectures for traditional classroom learners to study during quarantine and 2) a drop in enrollment in the following months. Additionally, many people relocated to different communities because being forced to work or take courses from home afforded them the opportunity to complete those tasks anywhere with a working Internet connection.

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E-learning courses and programs

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Online learning continues to gain in popularity. Traditional educational institutions that saw a decrease in enrollment suddenly found themselves competing with e-learning organizations that were used to providing flexible, quality online learning options. To compete for students, institutions offered their courses all over the world instead of just staying in their own backyards. If the institution was willing, it may have permitted new students to apply who did not speak the primary language used at their institutions. This means the lectures and tutorials produced may need to be translated into various languages in order to be comprehended.

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On Udemy, Linkedin, and other e-learning platforms, you can find thousands of e-learning courses provided by universities, companies and individuals. Independent educators see the need for adding subtitles and adapting their videos into other languages to deliver their materials more effectively for students of different markets.

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Examples:

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UNSW (University of New South Wales) – eLearning course for finance

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Short educational videos on general topics for general audiences 

Brands use educational videos to educate general audiences about certain topics. For example, TED has a huge library of videos educating the general public about philosophy, history, technology, and more.

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Example:

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Why should you translate videos with subtitles and voice overs?

To be accessible to all students, e-learning videos should contain captions. (In some places, this may already be a requirement to accommodate students with hearing or learning difficulties.) But for many students, captioned translations may not be sufficient for online education. Online courses and other educational content would be better understood with translated voice-over and subtitles in languages students understand best.

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Traditional captioning and voice-over for translated speech are quite cumbersome, especially for e-learning institutions on limited budgets. Educators are often responsible for editing their lecture videos and have a limited amount of time to accurately obtain the translated text of their lectures while simultaneously completing their other required teaching duties. Educators neither have the time nor the budget to apply traditional voice over work to their videos. And many wouldn’t bother with courses that are only offered once per year and have material that changes frequently. 

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However, with AI voice-over technology, translation, captioning and voice over can be achieved quickly and easily in many languages. The specific material that is only taught for one enrolment period because of frequent changes (like current events or e-commerce) can now be offered globally to students who don’t speak the institution’s main language. Additionally, these e-learning organizations can keep the cost of course development down, in the hopes that lower tuition costs may entice more students to enrol. 

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4. Marketing & Ads: digital ads and website videos

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Advertising is big business, especially for companies that market globally. It’s not uncommon for ad agencies to run one particular commercial in multiple countries. Often, those commercials run in countries that speak a different language than the original commercial actors spoke. That means commercials would need to be adapted to air in the language of that country.

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Today, YouTube and social video ads are very popular among corporates and small businesses. Video marketers have seen a huge increase in demands for creating video ads for different formats and channels. And it is very easy to show video ads to other countries on the platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok. Video marketers understand that adapting the voices in the ads with translated speech makes the ads much easier to use in foreign markets.

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Adapting one commercial is no small feat. It requires a huge team and a massive budget to localize an ad into different languages. A big advertising agency would be hired to manage the costly adaptation process. Large companies can usually handle these issues. However, small- to medium-sized companies and startups would find this impossible.

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The traditional process of adapting commercials is time-consuming and expensive. To remain competitive in a global market, companies need to be faster in order to promote their products to consumers and compete in test markets. Companies that do not have budgets large enough to use traditional processes will find themselves unable to test other markets.

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Using AI voice over can reduce the costs and time needed for adapting ads for foreign markets. Big companies will be able to do more with smaller budgets. Meanwhile, smaller companies will find that costs may no longer be prohibitive to entering international markets. Once the process of adapting ads is sped up, companies may find it easier to validate and find the best markets to target.

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5. Social videos (Tiktok, Instagram Reels, Facebook videos and more)

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Video is the main type of content consumed by Millennials and GenZ. GenX and Boomers also enjoy watching videos, but not as much as the younger generations do. It’s no wonder that many social media platforms host social videos. Content like TikTok videos, Instagram Reels, and Facebook videos are very popular with global audiences. Most of the content posted is recorded by users on personal devices like cell phones and webcams.

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Social media platforms have sprouted a multitude of social influencer businesses for specialties like beauty, travel, cooking, fitness, home improvement, etc. Amateur video creators have gone from obscurity to having a global reach with millions of followers while bringing in lucrative income for sponsoring a multitude of products. And many other creators are following in the footsteps of successful influencers in hopes of achieving monetary success too.

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To get noticed on these platforms, many creators experiment with many types of editing features. For GenZ, AI voice over blew up in popularity when the online tools became readily available. In 2021, TikTok users discovered apps that would allow them to replace the voices in their videos with celebrities and fictional characters. 

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But these are not the only voice changes TikTok users made. Some GenZ creators on TikTok preferred the sound of synthetic voices. Some even liked using a robotic monotone voice, the kind that developers were trying to get away from using. 

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And creators aren’t just experimenting with tools the way developers intended. Some are using accessibility features designed for users who may have visual challenges. Creators discovered they could edit transcripts of their videos and use TikTok’s text-to-speech features to force actors to say amusing things. Some of these videos have become very popular.

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Besides individual creators, social media marketers use these platforms to promote products and services for companies. If social media marketers are targeting consumers around the world, adding voice-over in multiple languages to video is essential for expanding their reach. Once videos are assembled and ready to be posted, marketers can easily distribute them on different platforms like Tiktok, Instagram, etc.

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6. Youtube videos & other streaming videos

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The video hosting platform YouTube is popular with many kinds of users. Companies and content creators often post videos to YouTube as part of their social media strategy. Some creators create channels on YouTube for the sole purpose of gathering followers and using their videos to generate profit. Companies may use YouTube to post product information (like tutorials) and other videos.

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YouTube creators often make money in two ways: 1) by generating ad revenue based on the number of views for each video and 2) through company sponsorship of an episode. The quality of the video often determines how often a video is watched and how many new followers are added to a creator’s channel. The more a video is watched and liked, the more money and new followers the creator could get. This means creators who reach international audiences could have higher followings and payouts than those who don’t reach beyond their own country.

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If companies are interested in competing in international markets, having videos translated into other languages and posted on YouTube is one way to form connections globally. The better the video quality, the better chances of engaging a global audience becomes.

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No matter who is creating a professional video for YouTube, the process is the same. Someone must create a script and then translate the video into each target language. Voice overs must be chosen and then applied for each language translated. Without AI, this process is time-consuming and costly. 

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However, with the help of AI voice over, translation can be quick and digital voices applied almost seamlessly to the original video and with little cost to the editor. Once the videos are completed, they can be published on channels. These videos have the potential to reach more viewers with the AI voice over edits than if they had just been published in one language. 

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Conclusion

AI voice over is increasingly popular among video marketers and content creators. At Hei.io, we help content creators speed up their process of adapting videos into 70+ languages using our huge library of 250+ AI voices and our advanced technology in speech.

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