Radio Commercial Production is fun and easy… well maybe because I like it so much it comes off as more of a hobby than something serious like a job.

I have been producing radio ads and doing voice overs since 1993, that would sum up to almost 15 years…. wow, has it been that long?

These are the steps I usually take in producing radio commercials for our clients, granting this is the entire creative process. Sometimes clients already have copy that they would like us to simply produce, but the truth is most clients are not copywriters, so it would be best for us professionals in the field to be proactive about the process and really start from scratch.

Step 1 - Research & Analysis

You cannot possible sell a product if you know nothing about it, it’s competition, target market, its strengths and weaknesses, etc. You have to know the product inside out. I know it sounds a little complicated but the thing is, radio commercial production is not simply about writing copy, recording and sending the finished material to the radio station. There is a lot more to it than that.First of all, you have to write copy that works, copy that catches a listener’s attention and keeps that attention long enough for your radio commercial to deliver the pitch and the call to action.

If there is available information or data on past radio campaigns and radio commercials, it would be best to study them. The thing about advertising and marketing is, it actually is easy, contrary to what most people think. It is just a matter of making informed decisions based on facts, and constantly tweaking to find out which chances yield better results. When you make decisions out of assumptions or notions without hard fact to back your actions, then you are flying blind and wasting your advertising budget.

Step 2 - Copywriting

With all the information you have gathered, studied, and analyzed… you may have now a couple of conclusions. You can now prepare a project or mission statement and declare, you want to put together a radio commercial that is this and that, because this works based on past data, or your customers react favorably to this kind of commercial, etc. Always present a basis for your proposal, the rationale behind the copy.

Prepare two different pitches and two different offers, to alternate and identify which one works best. To do this, it would be best to also present two different contact methods in order to evaluate results. For example for one offer or call to action, 1800 number A is used, and for the other offer, 1800 number B is used. That way, you can measure which offer appeals more to your audience, based on the number of call ins for each number. Split test… marketing is constant testing to find which brings in better results.

Some clients rarely practice this, but it is best to do small tests on copy before going all out on a campaign. It is important to split test copy, offers, etc. Only then will you know if your copy can sell. Once you know which works well, develop and plan out the strategy. This testing is however done at a later stage, I just had to mention it now since we were talking about the copy.

Step 3 - Production

This is the part where you find the right voice actors for the parts on the copy or for the narrative. This is also when someone puts your radio commercial together, combining elements such as voice, background, effects, etc.

Step 4 - Testing

I like to refer to this portion as the mini campaign, a test period where you allocate a certain amount of money to test the effectiveness of your offer. This may not have anything to do with you if you were just a radio commercial producer or supplier, but you have to think like an agency who wants to ensure that the finished product you are giving to a client is something that will really benefit them. The trick is to let your mini campaign run and very specific times of the day for an identified number of days and with a predetermined success metric. You just simply want to find out which turned out better results, A or B, and then finalize.

Step 5 - Finalizing material

The results of your test will show which copy performs better and which didn’t. Prepare a final material that is based on the copy that performed. This is what you shall submit to your client as the final material.

Of course, those were just broad strokes of an otherwise long process, however I hope you got the idea and now have a guide in radio commercial production for advertisement that do work.

Recording your voice has gotten easier and simpler, especially with the availability of tools and technology that allows an ordinary user to record voice.

In the old days recording voice was done on a recording device or apparatus, this was the machine that would capture the sound, of course you needed a microphone for that. The sound was usually captured on a tape recorded, open reel tape machine and even beta.

These days sound can be captured and stored directly into your computer as data, for quick integration into digital movies, presentations or whatever applications needed.

Many people also include voice on their websites; majority of these are online marketers selling products on a sales page. Now, knowing how sales pages are, they could get quite lengthy and tiring to read, so some marketers provide their visitors with the option to simply click a button and play an mp3 or wav file that is a voice narrative of the content on the sales page.

I have not yet done that on a sales page, but I have included audio on some of my sites and some of my blogs. The statistics show, that audio used properly on a website or sales page, increases conversions. The only other reasons why I record my voice is for radio commercial and voice over jobs, a hobby I have been into since 1993.

Since it is now easy to get the equipment and software needed, many people create their own small voice over studios in their own home, mine is even inside my bedroom. To ensure that no other sound is captured, the room has to be sound proofed and properly insulated.

If you are planning to record voice, for whatever reasons there be, here are the thing that you would need.

1. A Microphone

When you are first getting started I would not suggest getting an expensive microphone. You can just get a cheap computer microphone and work with that; it would be good enough for recordings that are going to be uploaded into your server.

Eventually if you become more discerning about your sound, you might consider investing in a real microphone, however othing expensive. Some microphones may require a mixer and some don’t . I used to record straight into my computer with just an ordinary Electro Voice 635, cabled into the audio port. But that was years ago, since I produce a lot of radio commercials that need to be of good recording quality, I had invested in a more expensive microphone, a tube pre amp for the mic, a good sound card, and a compressor / sustainer device. You don’t really need to get all that, unless you make some serious money from voice recording.

2. A Computer

Most of the modern PC’s are powerful and fast enough to handle audio editing applications; if your PC is not up to date a Pentium 3 running o 256 RAM would be sufficient for simple voice recording and editing tasks.

3. Audio Editing Software

There is a lot of audio editing software in the market, some are simple recording applications which allow you to record your voice, play it back, do some cut and paste, and maybe apply some special effects to your voice like reverb or echo.

However there are also some software which are professional grade and are actually entire virtual studios that can be used to record and master entire bands or mutliple instruments, with multiple tracks.

I have been recording digitally since 1997 and I have been with one brand ever since. The software used to be called Cool Edit Pro once owned by the Syntrillium Corp, but later on it was bought by Adobe and thus, today’s Adobe Audition. This works well, whether for simple recording for commercials which may take not more than 5 tracks, and can be as flexible as 64 track mixing.

I would have recommended free software for beginners, if only I knew any, but I don’t and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t recommend them if I had no working knowledge of the software. But most software is really easy to learn, it just takes a little messing around with and practice.

After recording and mastering the file, Adobe Audition gives me the option to save the file into wav, mp3 or a lot more. It depends really on what you want to use the file for. WAV files are ideal for mastering into CD and mp3’s are what I usually upload on websites.

So basically, that is what you need to get into voice recording.