"Hey, Siri." "Ok, Google" I'm sure you must have used voice search at some moments in your life. Indeed, the proportion of people owning and using voice devices has gradually increased in recent years. Now, marketers start to recognize the importance of voice marketing in the world of surging voice devices. What is voice marketing?
Voice marketing is another form of content marketing that creates value for customers by solving their problems. It is a set of strategies intended to reach target audiences who are using devices powered by voice assistants regularly. The rising of this marketing channel results from the improvement in voice technology and an increase in people's adoption of voice-enabled devices. Why do you need it? The reason is straightforward- it is a way to interact with your customers. You may wonder, are my customers really using voice devices? Yes, the people involved might be more than you thought. According to reports in 2019, in the United States, 24% of people over 18 own at least one smart speaker. The number equals about 60 million people. Also, it is reported that 38% of smart speaker owners used the service daily. On the other side of the world, there were 85.5 million smart speaker users in the same year in China. More recently, in 2020, 50% of all the searches were voice-activated. These reports also estimate a continuous penetration of voice usage in the future. From the statistics above, we can tell that the voice device market is rapidly growing. How useful could voice marketing be? If it's properly utilized, it can be powerful because it enables penetration of content almost everywhere, as long as your customers keep their voice devices with them. They could use the service with smart speakers at home, in the office, in the car, basically everywhere since most smartphones are voice-enabled. Voice marketing can actually be at every point of the customer's virtual journey. The potential of voice marketing is that it allows businesses to perform marketing activities at locations they normally can't. It can reshape all aspects of business and audiences' interactions, including how, when, and where. As mentioned above, voice marketing is a type of content marketing radically. Businesses should interpret this channel to produce value by solving problems following their brand's mission. However, it's slightly different from the others- the content can only be in the form of audio. In other words, any visual impression strategy will not work in these circumstances. Moreover, the usage of voices aims at the rapid exchange of information. The voice assistants often only retrieve and provide the information to users directly on the search results page. The users can get the information they need without engaging with the brand. The searching mechanism of voice devices would be one of the concerning factors in planning voice marketing. Despite some challenges in voice marketing, the crucial advantage of this marketing direction is the seamless user experience. Voices facilitate exchanging information with verbal communication, which is the most direct and natural communication method for humans. For instance, people can search and obtain recipes when they are cooking using verbal instructions only. Besides, with voice devices, businesses might reach visually impaired and illiterate people, an opportunity to broaden their range of potential customers. 3 elements in voice marketing As suggested by Emily Binder, Founder and Chief Strategist at Beetle Moment Marketing, voice marketing has three elements: Sonic branding, recoded audio content and voice search optimization. 1. Sonic branding Sonic branding is the audible version of visual branding. Instead of using visual elements, sonic branding use sounds strategically to build brand recognition. There is one classic example- the legendary Nokia tune. People can immediately link Nokia with its tune. That's a successful sonic branding in which customers can associate a sound to a brand. 2. Recorded audio content Recorded audio contents, such as podcasts, are commonly utilized strategies in voice marketing. According to IAB's forecast, podcast advertising revenues in the United States will exceed $1 billion in 2021. It indicates the popularity of podcast marketing and the potential of reaching audiences by voice marketing. By turning text-based content into audio content, it allows audiences to consume the information while multitasking. 3. Voice search optimization (VSO) With the launch of voice assistants, search engines now flavor audio content. Similar to search engine optimization (SEO), VSO targets to raise your content's ranking on the search result page. The higher the rank, the more likely the content would be chosen by the voice assistants. VSO can better serve your engagement with the audiences. Also, it is an opportunity to increase your brand awareness. VSO will be impactful on website and content design. A survey suggests that 48% of consumers apply "general web searches" using voices. By structuring your content to solve some commonly asked questions, the contents are more likely to reach your audiences. People foresee voice-based searching as the future. Therefore, brands should start optimizing their online content for voice search to prepare for receiving benefits in the future. Voice marketing is the future, and the present as well. More and more brands join the fleet of podcast marketing and make successes. The process of creating podcasts can be at a low cost. You only need scripts and voice providers. Nowadays, you can even consider using AI to generate your audio content, our AI-voice generator- Voicemom https://www.voicemom.com/ can perfectly accomplish that. AI tools are your best partners in achieving your voice marketing goals. References: Voice marketing strategy: How you can build one right now : Banfield Agency What Is Voice Marketing and Why You Should Use It | Trinity Audio 26 Smart Speaker Statistics (2021 Usage, Trends And More) (16best.net) Comments are closed.
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