How to Record a Voice Message
Learn how to record & edit voice messages with Audacity and WavePad.
You have spent a lot of money and resources getting leads for your business, and losing a hard-earned prospect can be costly.
Depending on your business, acquiring a lead could cost $50, $500, $5,000, or more. Even more costly is losing the sale and missing out on the lifetime value of that customer. ReachASAP™solves this problem by automating follow-up sales calls and giving you more time on the phone to convert your leads into long-term revenue-generating customers.
To get started automating your follow-up sales calls, you first need to record several voice messages. When creating your recordings to use with REACHASAP, you will need an audio recording application that supports saving or exporting your voice messages in the MP3 file format—our favorites for the job are Audacity and WavePad. And while you could use your phone for recording, the quality will not be as good.
Installing the Audio Applications
In this section, there are links to download Audacity & WavePad, user manuals, and other resources.
Audacity
The software is free and requires no registration. Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder. Developed by a group of volunteers as open-source, Audacity is available for:
Mac OS X/macOS
Microsoft Windows
GNU/Linux
Audacity Download Links & Resources
Download Audacity for Windows, Mac, or Linux from their partner at FossHub
https://www.fosshub.com/Audacity.html
Visit the Audacity Home Page
Getting Started Quick Help
https://manual.audacityteam.org/quick_help.html
User Manual
https://manual.audacityteam.org/
Audacity Resource Wiki
https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audacity_Wiki_Home_Page
WavePad Audio Editor
Developed by NCH Software, WavePad is a full-featured professional audio editor that needs to be purchased for commercial use. It has all of the standard features of audio-editing and is intuitive to use. WavePad is available for:
Mac OS X/macOS
Microsoft Windows
iPhone & Android
WavePad Download Links & Resources
Download WavePad for Windows, Mac, iPhone & Android
https://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html
You can also download WavePad Audio Editor from the app store on your mobile device.
User Guide
http://help.nchsoftware.com/help/en/wavepad/win/help.pdf
Recording & Editing Tips
Recording Basics
To get professional sounding audio and avoid echos, use a good quality microphone and make your recording in a room with good acoustics without echos.
To avoid audio distortions, use a pop-filter or place the microphone below or to the side of the speaker's mouth.
Sample Rate or Project Rate
While you are working with the application, you might see Sample Rate or Project Rate in the audio dashboard—it will look something like this: 44.1 kHz, 44100 Hz, or just 44100. This is the default setting for Audacity and WavePad—there is no need to change it.
Editing Basics
In the Effects menu of the audio editing application, there are many options from which to choose. We recommend experimenting with the following three effects. Refer to your specific documentation for instructions on how to use each of these effects.
Use Noise Reduction to get rid of background noise
Use the Equalizer to remove background noise and smooth our hard sounding voices
Use Amplify to increase the overall sound level. This effect is useful to restore the sound level when other editing effects have reduced the volume
Some effects like Fade In, Fade Out, and Noise Reduction requires that you have a portion of the clip selected before applying the effect. To select a part of the audio clip, drag your mouse over the sound waves in the editor. The selected area will be highlighted.
Another editing tip is Cut or Delete. To get rid of pauses in your recording, select the area of the recording you want to delete, and then use the Cut or Delete to remove the selected area.
Keeping MP3 Quality When Editing Your Audio
The MP3 format is a ‘lossy’ format which means that every time an MP3 audio file is exported it will lose a bit of its quality.
To avoid quality loss when editing and exporting your MP3 file, save a version of your audio file in a lossless format such as WAV, AIFF, or FLAC. With a lossless format, the audio quality is maintained when the file is exported.
Then, when making additional edits to your audio file, load the WAV file into your audio editor, make your edits, then export the updated audio file in both the WAV and MP3 format.
Pro Tip: When saving different versions of your audio files, add a version number to the file name to keep organized and save time finding your files. Here is an example:
Version 1
follow-up-sales-call-v1.wav
follow-up-sales-call-v1.mp3
Version 2
follow-up-sales-call-v2.wav
follow-up-sales-call-v2.mp3
Saving Your File in WAV Format
The settings for saving your WAV file are:
Sample Size: 16-bit or 24-bit
Encoding: PCM
Depending on your audio editor, you might see other settings. If you see any of these settings below, set them as follows:
Sample Rate: Match Source
Encoding: Signed 16-bit PCM
Channels: Match Source
Settings: Auto
Saving Your File in MP3 Format
Standard settings for saving your MP3 voice message file are:
Bit Rate Mode: Constant
Quality: 96 kbps
Force export to mono: selected (Audacity)
Channel Encoding Mode: Mono (WavePad)
Give it a Try
Getting started automating your follow-up sales calls is simple. Review the specifications for Audacity & WavePad documented in this article and select the best application for you.
Try making some recordings of your own and experiment with the audio editor keeping in mind the recording & editing tips above.
After you have mastered the technical aspects of creating a quality voice message, review Voice Messaging Best Practices for strategies about writing compelling voice messages.
Not ready to create your custom messages?
Below are links to professional voice artists that can record your custom message and get your MP3 recordings up and running quickly.
Female Voiceover Artists:
https://www.fiverr.com/jackihydock
https://www.fiverr.com/poppyvoiceovers
Male Voiceover Artists: