Digital marketing is constantly undergoing changes. Digital marketing broadly encompasses aspects such as content marketing, social media marketing, the interaction of users with technology and so on.
Every year, we see different social media marketing trends and constant changes in content marketing strategies. We see how the users who interact with technology is constantly evolving. All these factors contribute to the changes in digital marketing.
The constant evolution of technology sets the pace for the growth of the digital marketing industry. Every day we discover something new, something unique about how customers interact with products and how technology can enhance and optimise the overall user experience.
One latest trend that is currently causing waves in the digital marketing industry is voice search. The idea of voice search is quite simple. The users interact with technology by the use of voice commands. An example of this is the virtual assistants in our smartphones. Siri for Apple, Cortana for Windows, and so on.
But how does voice search affect the whole process of digital marketing?
A study by Location World reported that nearly 40% of adults use the voice search feature at least once a day. This means that people are much more comfortable with the concept of speaking to their smartphones, and also, the over the years, voice search has grown more advanced with the rate of speech recognition errors at just 8%.
Let us delve into the way voice search is changing digital marketing
Impact on content
The more we study about digital marketing, the more we understand the importance of optimising content in order to rank better on the search results page. Till now, we have focused on improving our content marketing strategies for text search. Now it is time to consider optimising our content to suit voice search for better ranking and higher conversions.
People use the voice search for queries and to easily access information. This means that now content has to be optimised not only for text searches but also for voice searches.
In a voice search, people tend to speak to their chatbots and therefore, the search entails the use of words such as what? when? why? where? how? and so on. Brands will have to take into consideration the keywords that are most commonly used in voice searches and incorporate them into their content marketing strategies.
Voice search quickens the process of decision-making and buying. Websites need to be developed in such a way that it can respond to such rapid decisions within the shortest possible time frame.
Among the companies that have incorporated voice search commands into their content marketing strategy is Purina, a pet care company. The team at Purina developed the Ask Purina bot for Alexa, the voice service for Amazon. The marketing team at Purina did quite an extensive research on the kind of queries it would be receiving from its audience and managed to create very thorough content related to all kinds of pet queries.
Impact on local SEO
Local SEO is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. Optimising content according to local SEO is quite important as it plays a great role in helping local businesses grow.
One of the interesting aspects of mobile-related voice search is that most of the queries are locally based as compared to the queries in text search.
For instance, a person driving a car needs to find a gas station, even if they are driving an EV and need to charge it (without considering the OCPP gateway used at the charging point). It is natural that he/she will want access to the gas station that is the nearest to him/her. So, his/her voice search command will be something akin to “Gas stations near me”.
Voice search has a great impact on local businesses and hence, content marketing strategies for local businesses will have to be optimised according to voice search commands that are likely to be used by customers.
Safeco Insurance realised the importance of local SEO in promoting their business. They created an Alexa app called the “insurance advisor”. Using this app, customers can locate the Safeco agents closest to them. The app also allows customers to modify their search based on the types of policies they require. Safeco’s app makes brilliant use of the voice search feature making the whole process of locating one of their agents faster and more efficient.
Voice search helps to widen the consumer audience
In today’s world, there is no dearth of information. We can find answers to almost any and all of our queries by simply typing them into search engines such as Google. While the information that we receive is quite comprehensive, often, most people simply don’t have the patience to go through paragraphs to understand what they are looking for.
Voice search is the answer to this dilemma. Voice services such as Alexa are offering users audio content. This means that a user does not have to sift through content as carefully. Instead, all the relevant information will be read out by voice service. Several brands have incorporated voice-controlled platforms into their marketing strategies in order to provide more value-based content in the most efficient way possible to their customers.
One of the examples worth mentioning here is how the American Medical Association has made use of the Alexa voice service to provide users with useful content. The Alexa skill provides information such as a step-by-step guide on how to perform CPR, the warning signs of a heart attack and so on. All one has to do is use the voice command “Alexa, enable American Heart Association” and you are all set to ask your medical queries.
The example of this Alexa skill is an indicator of the crucial role that voice search has in an industry such as healthcare.
The increasing use of voice searches creates the need for companies to rethink their marketing strategies. Voice searches are intent based and companies are realizing the impact of voice services in areas such as brand promotion. This marks a new future for digital marketing.