As marketers and businesspeople, we’re kind of obsessed with finding the next big thing. After all, if you’re the first brand to provide great content on whatever the hot new app is, you’re going to find yourself picking up plenty of followers and interaction regardless of how big your company is.
AIn fact, we’ve entered a new economy in which attention is at a premium. The internet gives people unlimited choice – especially thanks to services like YouTube, Spotify and Netflix which provide entertainment on demand – and it also makes it easier than ever for people to block ads or to filter out content that they don’t want to see.
The result is an ecosystem in which relevance is key, and that still holds true when we look at voice, which is arguably the next big battlefield for sales, marketing and lead generation. Here’s why.
Why voice?
Gary Vaynerchuk put it well in a recent video called ‘The Future of Voice’ in which he predicted that “voice (Amazon Alexa/Echo, Google Home, etc.) is going to be huge because of how much time it saves in our lives.” We’re already starting to see virtual assistants and voice technology taking on a bigger and bigger role in our lives, and Siri is just the beginning.
Alexa and other voice technology apps are even being touted as a way to revolutionise the way that we deliver healthcare. At a basic level they can be used by surgeons in the operating theatre to change the music or to read out patient information. At a more advanced level, they can provide companions to the elderly or remind people to get some exercise and take their medication.
Imagine the power a brand would have if it was the first result when people said, “Alexa, buy me toothpaste.” Or in a B2B arena, imagine coming up first for, “Alexa, find me a stationery supplier.” Better still, if you provide software that can be ported to an Echo device, you could offer up free trials of your software by providing real value through an application.
For example, imagine a transcription app for meetings that will listen in and send the minutes to every attendee – for a monthly fee, of course. Or what about a finance app that allows you to easily make office purchases through Alexa and then reconciles it with your taxes and expense accounts on your behalf?
The bottom line is this: voice has huge potential to change the way we live our lives, in part because after several false starts, the technology is finally getting good. The odds are that even if you can’t find a way to make voice work for your company, you’ll end up using someone else’s service as some part of your daily life. You might as well get used to it now.
Conclusion
People have always been quick to seize upon something as “the next big thing”, and history has proved that they’re not always correct. Ultimately, the best marketers tend to hedge their bets, investing time and resources in proven marketing efforts while simultaneously keeping some budget aside to experiment with new techniques and new technologies.
So go ahead and invest in voice technology, whether you’re optimising your site for voice search or whether you’re developing specialist apps for home hubs and other devices. Just make sure that you don’t go all in.
Feeling uninspired? Need a little help with lead generation? Help is at hand. Request a demo of Bant.io to find out how we can help your company to grow by sending hot B2B leads directly to your inbox. You won’t regret it.
Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.