Why You Should Consider a Professional Voicemail Message

I’m often contacted by small business owners or sole traders asking for a professional voicemail message for their business phone system (and especially for cell phones).  Sometimes they want something unique – funny or quirky – but most of the time they just want their business voicemail to make them sound like a business.

Why Might You Want a Professional Voicemail Message?

There are many reasons you may seek out a voiceover to record a voicemail message for you:

1. Quite simply, it makes you sound good!

How many times have you rung a business number and had to listen to the monotone voice of a member of staff who has been asked to record the voicemail message? They may have a lovely voice, they may sound great chatting to customers on the phone, but put the average person on the spot and ask them to record into the phone system and they suddenly sound stilted and uncomfortable.

Even worse is when you call a business line to have it answered by the business owner’s mother or cleaner, because there is no voicemail and they figure someone answering is better than noone!

A professional voiceover will make your company sound professional and reflect the brand you strive hard to maintain in all areas of your advertising. Telephone audio can often be your first point of contact with a customer (not recommended but an unfortunate truth), so you need to make sure it says – in style and content – what your business is all about.

2. It makes your business sound professional.

OK, this is a bit like the last point, but there is a slight difference. Most small businesses rely heavily on one or two people doing everything. You call them up and you either speak directly to them or to their self-recorded answerphone (sometimes with the kids screaming in the background). If you want your home-based business to sound like a real “player” having a professional voicemail message will set the tone for your dealings with clients.

3. It filters out the nuts and loons!

Well, maybe not all of them. And actually, some of us like working with those who are a little looney, but online marketers (especially those who appear to work alone) can often become targets of the less salubrious members of online communities. Having a voicemail message with another person’s voice on it, can go a long way to convincing them that there’s more than just you sitting in the office.

4. It can seriously boost your marketing.

A short message that says exactly what you do and how to initiate further contact (in a clear professional manner) can tell the caller exactly what they need to know about you. Many online (and offline) business owners are not able to be available for phone calls constantly so a professional, concise voicemail message (even on your Skype-In number) can field calls, promote your business to potential clients and enable you to focus on other things.

5. It can be fun!

Let’s face it, some of you are just thinking how cool it would be to have an English female voiceover on your mobile phone voicemail saying something witty or sexy.

Who isn’t a Professional Voicemail for?

If you market your business around your personality then you will probably benefit from recording all your audio yourself. There are still benefits to using a voiceover, but if people expect to deal with you on every level then recording your own voicemail will not harm your business.

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Tomorrow, I’m going to be offering you the chance to have your own Professional Voicemail recorded for a seriously discounted rate, as part of the Audible Marketing Summer of Sound.

If you haven’t signed up for email updates yet you can read more, sign-up and download a free report by clicking here:  Summer of Sound. Email subscribers will receive an even bigger discount.

Also, follow my updates on Twitter by following @LisaHartwell

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Post photo provided by “chaps1″ on Flickr under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence