What is Voice Marketing: Definition, Strategy, Advertising
The core principles of voice marketing are very close to other forms of content marketing.
Businesses have to take the advantage of voice marketing in order to solve their customers’ problems and answer their queries to fulfil businesses’ mission. But before that, you need to know what is voice marketing?.
To implement a voice marketing strategy some steps are essential such as audio/voice ecosystem is a must in voice marketing that starts with making the content available in the audio form, developing the strategy through valuable content and recommendation, emphasizing on more channels and voice-operating devices.
US consumers are expected to shop 34.7 million smart speakers at the end of 2021 according to eMarketer.
And the use of voice technology is increasing day by day.
It’s high time businesses started marketing strategies utilizing this opportunity.
What is Voice Marketing? Definition
Voice marketing is a method to connect and reach the audience who are using voice devices on a regular basis. Through that marketing, strategy businesses are prompting those targeted people in a voice form to catch those audiences to on boats their services or products.
Voice Marketing Strategy: How to Build It
The biggest advantage of using voice technology is the new opportunities it presents.
With voice-activated gadgets, businesses can now reach audiences in places, such as the kitchen or car which were previously off-limits.
A voice search in the kitchen is an opportunity to facilitate a user with a recipe.
People are using voice-enabled speakers to make purchases.
Many brands are already given the opportunity to make a purchase by using voice technology and making the ordering procedure easy by doing so.
Again, companies are focusing more on voice marketing to attract potential customers.
It’s a new way and new customers are being attracted and trying this technology.
Also, this is making people’s lives easy and better.
It’s a creative way to reach customers.
Voice marketing creates a connection between brands and prospective customers and helps to make a better bonding and trustworthiness.
No matter what, voice is the most natural way for humans to communicate.
It depends on the companies and brands to provide creative marketing strategies that consider how and why customers use voice recognition technology.
While using any type of content marketing, every brand should be using voice marketing to solve customers’ problems and answer their burning questions.
It’s important to make sure that voice marketing is in-line with the brand’s mission and works well with voice technology.
If a band is doing it right, the brand looks good and can offer the customers an enjoyable experience.
A few well-known brands are leading the way of voice marketing and experiencing a boost in brand recognition and sales because of it.
A few times ago, Walmart began offering voice marketing with Google Assistant.
People say, “Hey Google, talk to Walmart” to their Google Assistant then say “Add soap to my cart” (or one of the other hundreds of items provided).
The more users take benefits from voice purchasing, Google Assistant will recognize the name of the items and brands that each person prefers and automatically choose them from the alternatives.
Core Concept of Voice Marketing
Voice marketing refers to the techniques used to grab the attention of the target audiences by using various voice-enabled devices supported by voice assistants.
Here are some examples of using this technology :
1. Looking for any necessary information in the kitchen used to be really tough.
A person has to clean his/her hands and then pull out a phone or a recipe book to look for that info.
But if he/she uses voice technology, that’s no longer necessary.
2. Users can now conduct unlimited searches using their voice even when they are busy or have less time.
3. Drivers can now quickly use a voice search while driving to find the location or where the nearest gas station is or find out how late a store is open.
4. Voice is making the exchange of information very easy in the lives of users worldwide.
Buyers can learn and input information from and in various sources that were previously outside of marketers’ reach. People can search with less effort and in less time.
Elements of Voice Marketing: Voice Advertising
The mention of voice-enabled devices immediately creates a visionary of smart speakers.
As a result, voice technology is being used in smart devices such as televisions, watches, headphones, various home devices and cars.
The future opportunity for voice marketing is huge due to its ability to be virtually present in customers’ journeys and make them related and attractive.
Basically, there are three elements of voice marketing:
- Sonic branding
- Podcast
- Voice search optimization
- Recorded audio content
Sonic Branding
Sonic branding is a relatively new and innovative aspect of the marketing world that refers to the strategic utilization of sounds and music to establish brand recognition.
Through this way, it can be controlled what the customer hears and how they relate to the brand, such as the Nokia tune, Windows starting sounds et cetera.
Podcast
Podcasts are relatively only audio forms of marketing. However, podcasts are not new in the industry.
People use various platforms to listen to podcasts. Both organic and paid marketing is on podcast marketing.
Businesses individually need to work on podcasts and spend money and need a proper strategy to connect with people like Youtube or text basic search engines to read articles on your website or show ads to other websites/blogs.
Podcasts represent voice advertising more than the text-to-speech type of audio content in every way.
More people are interested in podcast marketing in recent years.
How Podcast Marketing Organically Work
To work in an organic way to marketing in the audio then you should start your own podcast on your business-related topic. Build a strong strategy to grow your podcast and your business.
These types of marketing are more sustainable for long term business. However, it may take time to reach your targeted audience if you don’t want to work in paid marketing.
Voice search optimization
Converting website content into audio brings about an entirely new dimension of marketing to customers and consumers who are multitasking and are not able to focus on this consumption.
In addition, as search engines start favouring audio content, providing an audio experience of the written content, sets the stage for getting benefits.
Thanks to consistent development and improvement in AI, machine learning, and natural language processing, being able to get a share of the very important voice search traffic may be a massive opportunity in the future.
It is assumed that COVID-19 may be a turning point for the voice marketing industry because people now want interaction without using their hands.
Device screens contain germs more than toilets.
More businesses will try to make good use of voice interactions with a greater sense of urgency, especially those with a physical presence.
Voice search is becoming bigger and bigger because of new voice devices like Google assistance, Amazon Alexa, Siri/iPhone etc.
In voice search most of the time the result of Google Snappit and the top 3 results of the search topic.
And, Google will take those content text to speech which talks to the point and give the answer of the query. Most of the time the question is asked by what, who, why, how, whom types.
So, you should arrange your answer with those types of question frames.
Companies with voice experiences that add value or comfort, will remain ahead and get market share.
The people’s habits will continue to evolve toward greater regular use of voice where voice search fits in.
Voice is the most natural and intuitive way for us to communicate and so it has a profound impact on how people interact with technology.
As an interface, it makes the use of smart devices easy and smooth.
In addition, voice marketing and voice technology is a blessing to visually impaired and illiterate people.
Voice Advertising
Voice advertising still means podcast ads as other forms of ads still do not that much converting and give the ROI of that level.
In podcast advertising, you can choose a particular topic channel and talk to the host with a direct conversation with their team or personally with the host via email.
There are some platforms that are trying to use a central point of the advertiser to give ads on certain shows or channels based on the advertiser.
But still, you can promote your business product or service in the voice or audio format on a distinct channel via connecting with the channel owner. And then you can promote after dealing with how much cost it will take to promote a product or service.
There are some other platforms like Youtube in Podcast: Anchor, Spotify etc where you can give you ads via the advertising platform.
Necessity of Voice Marketing
Very few businesses have taken benefits from using voice marketing yet to communicate directly to their users, but they should begin before their competitors start using and get benefits from it to beat them.
As the use of voice technology keeps rising, businesses need to start considering how they may improve marketing strategies suitable for voice technology and the way they can use voice data to create a better user experience.
Here are some case studies of brands using voice advertising and marketing to connect to customers and assist them to accomplish tasks.
Starbucks is using an app that lets customers place an order and pay in advance.
Starbucks expanded it so people can order drinks with voice cues while doing other tasks.
This marketing technique works properly as it simplifies the process of purchasing drinks. People can place orders and make payments for them while being in their cars, and thus reducing the need to wait in line.
Marketers consider adopting a similar strategy to ensure there is a need in the marketplace first.
Starbucks introduced people to app-based ordering.
Then, once that alternative resonated with the target users, the brand decided to adapt voice ordering.
It is also important to determine if a product is the one which people usually use with their cars.
It’s common for coffee lovers to enjoy the drink while they ride their cars, so Starbucks’ marketing technique made sense.
Challenges In The Field Of Voice Marketing
Like any other new technology or a new invention, in voice marketing too, there are many problems that need to be solved.
A few well-known brands are already using this technology.
Nike is using Siri to tie and untie customers’ shoelaces and Burger King is also effectively using voice marketing and boosting brand recognition and sales because of voice advertising and marketing.
Still, the voice industry and technology have a few obstacles to overcome.
A vital part of any digital platform experience is privacy concerns, and the voice industry is also one of them.
Users worry about data theft, hacking, and particularly government eavesdropping and hackers.
All of these are influencing the demand and future growth of voice advertising.
Then, there is a matter of tracking metrics. In this regard, voice is a new technology and still an unknown platform and its value is hard to prove in terms of ROI to the marketers.
The development and advancement of voice assistants, as well as websites offering their content through audio, have invented a new customer-facing channel in the marketing world for marketers.
Voice-enabled devices provide a better experience as a good mixture of digital and physical realities, which creates an opportunity for a good interaction with users.