The best thing you can do for your brand is to stay ahead of the trends. Following the trend is effective, but it’s not always enough. If you want to stand out, the best thing to do is to predict future trends. We’ve already talked about the upcoming trends in marketing. Still, these are currently happening trends — now it’s time to ask, what will the trends in the near future?
With digital marketing on the rise, it’s essential to keep your eyes on technology and how it’s going to change. This would, after all, impact digital marketing significantly.
Voice technology is one such area that is predicted to grow a lot. Though it has been around for some time (the first digital speech recognition tool dates back to the IBM Shoebox launch in 1961), voice technology has never been developed until recently.
Now, voice technology is beginning to permeate our lives everywhere. From Apple’s Siri to Google Home to Amazon’s Alexa, more and more consumers are starting to use voice technology in their everyday lives. Why not look into this area and figure out how we can incorporate voice technology into digital marketing?
Statistics on voice technology
BrightLocal conducted a study in 2018 on how voice technology could impact small businesses. They found that 46% of voice search users look for a local business daily, and 27% of these users visit the business’s website after searching. In fact, 76% of smart speaker users perform local searches at least weekly, with 53% of those searching using such devices daily.
The results above were collected back in 2018, so the numbers would have changed now — most probably reflecting an increase. Many consumers feedbacked that they would like to use voice search to hear business prices and find out which products businesses have.
Campaign Monitor also conducted a survey and found out that consumers use voice technology mainly for music, emails, checking news and blogs, and making purchases. When it comes to voice and audio technology, an area to keep in mind is podcasts.
Podcast Insights has recently updated its website on the latest podcast statistics and will continue to do so, with the most recent update in January 2021. More than 1.7 million podcast shows exist, and within this month alone, 43 million episodes were created.
Marketing statistics for podcasts show that 54% of podcast consumers consider purchasing an advertised product, and brands who engage in podcast advertising witnessed a 14% increase in purchase intent. In 2018, businesses spent almost half a billion dollars just on podcast advertising itself — perhaps it’s time for you to start as well.
How this affects digital marketing
The point is, people, listen to hours of content every day — a perfect opportunity for brands to take advantage of voice and audio marketing. Pandora refers to this as the audio renaissance. As voice technology becomes increasingly omnipresent in the digital marketing landscape, using such platforms to brand and market your business would be a lucrative idea. Here are some suggestions you could adopt for your digital marketing strategy:
1. Podcast marketing and advertising
Previously, we’ve already covered how influential podcasts are in our everyday lives as consumers. To maximise your podcast advertising and branding efficiency, keep in mind these few facts about podcasts.
Podcast-marketing specialists from Income School found out that consumers download the most episodes on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. On the other hand, Saturdays and Sundays are when consumers are least likely to download podcast episodes.
Additionally, 60% of all podcast shows are downloaded from Apple, while 43% of podcast consumers use Spotify to listen to podcasts. Whether you decide to publish your podcast on Apple or Spotify, remember that smartphones are the most popular devices amongst consumers for engaging with podcast episodes.
Beyond that, 67% of podcast audiences are made up of people between 18 to 44 years of age, so make sure your podcast content targets that specific demographic. Take all these into consideration when you plan out your digital marketing and podcast strategy.
2. Create branded playlists
Podcasts aren’t the only lucrative platform for digital branding and marketing. One of the most common uses of voice technology is listening to music. Furthermore, according to Pandora, streaming audio has become a mainstream lifestyle activity by 53% of the US population. So why not connect with your audiences via music and playlists?
Create a branded playlist that resonates with your core values, and share them with your audience. You could even use these playlists for your events or on your video content. Allowing your audience to stream your music online will enable you to engage your consumers further and emphasise your brand.
3. Brand yourself with specific alert tones and notification chimes
Voice and audio technology give us plenty of opportunities to market ourselves in vastly different ways. For instance, imagine creating a notification tone unique to your brand and app. Just as your logo is a visual cue that audiences relate with your brand, your notifications and alerts can be an audio cue for your audience as well.
Even if you do not have an app for your business, you can use such tones for your website to alert visitors to new content, downloads or messages. Again, you can also use such audio cues in your video content, events, and any other platforms that require sound. This will help your audience identify your business aesthetic and develop your audio branding.
Overall, voice technology is still an underdeveloped area. However, with voice assistants becoming more pertinent in our lives, this might soon change. People who use voice technology regularly rather than sporadically don’t dismiss it as an inefficient method for marketing.
While we wait for voice technology to improve and incorporate itself into our lives, we can also take charge by getting ready for what the future voice technology has to offer us. We need to keep in mind that regardless of which strategy you choose to go with is your target demographic and the devices you decide to launch such a strategy. Make sure it is in line with what your consumers are using — you do not want to lose out on a potential audience that you could effectively market too! Contact us for assistance on how you could better brand yourself to your audience — we offer free consultations.