In today’s world of digital marketing, the popularity of voice interaction continues to rise. To achieve success, companies across all industry’s must adapt to the evolutionary practices within our digital marketing landscape.

What is Voice Interaction?

According to Eamonn O’Raghallaigh (2019a), a voice interaction or voice search enables users to verbally perform an internet search by asking a ‘smart’ device, smartphone, or computer a question, rather than the traditional approach of typing a query.

The Popularity of Voice Interaction in Digital Marketing

Thanks to the technological developments of digital innovations such as Alexa, Google, Siri and many other ‘smart’ devices, voice interaction is continuing to climb. As machines have enhanced the consumer experience, allowing everyday users to search, shop and discover new things in their preferred way of interacting (The Digital Marketing Institute, 2020).

Currently, around 5 billion people use voice search assistants worldwide, over half of the globe’s population, it is forecasted that this figure will reach 6.4 billion in 2022 (Metev, 2021). O’Raghallaigh’s (2019b) research on The Rise of the Chatbot identified the supreme sophistication of AI-powered technologies, as the combination of both ‘smart’ devices voice assistance and AI problem solving technology generates an extremely low margin for error. In 2018, AI powered Google Assistance enhanced its understanding of the English language, as it reached a world error rate of only 4.9% and an impressive accuracy rate of up to 95% (O’Raghallaigh, 2019a).

Hence, the rising popularity of voice interaction and the digital tools technological sophistication reflects the criticality of the evolutionary practice to any organization’s success. The Digital Marketing Institute (2020) identified the importance of an organization’s voice engine optimization strategy, in saying:

“Adopting a voice search strategy isn’t just about remaining relevant – it’s also about creating a unique and optimized customer experience that will foster relationships and build brand loyalty.”

Digital Marketing Challenges

However, digital marketers cannot overlook the challenges created by voice search technology. The traditional approach of typing a query into a search bar causes the screen to display the corresponding results, whereas a voice search generates a verbal reply from the device, which frequently produces only one result (The Dublin Marketing Institute, 2020). In turn, as users ask for ‘the cheapest bag of sugar’ or ‘the best battery pack available’, the digital voice becomes a powerful recommendation and a significant source of sales (Mayer and Harrison, 2019). Therefore, competition across our digital landscape has become increasingly brutal as consumer’s purchasing decisions rely on the verbal suggestions of digital assistants (Mayer and Harrison, 2019).

Our voice era has made it vital for organizations to optimize their online content effectively to be identified as the first result by the digital assistant (O’Raghallaigh, 2019a). To read more on Optimising your website for audio search click here (O’Raghallaigh, 2019a).

References

• Mayer, D, and Harrison, N, 2019. “As Customers Begin to Shop Through Voice Assistants, What Can Brands Do to Stand Out?” | https://hbr.org/ | Retrieved Online: 16/03/2021 | https://hbr.org/2019/08/as-customers-begin-to-shop-through-voice-assistants-what-can-brands-do-to-stand-out?registration=success
• Metev, D., 2021. “2020’s Voice Search Statistics – Is Voice Search Growing?” | https://review42.com/ | Retrieved Online: 16/03/2021| https://review42.com/resources/voice-search-stats/#:~:text=Around%203.25%20billion%20people%20currently,2021%2C%20and%206.4%20in%202022.
• O’Raghallaigh, E., 2019a. “Optimising your website for audio search” | https://digitalmarketingblog.org/wp-admin/ | Retrieved Online: 16/03/2021| https://digitalmarketingblog.org/optimising-your-website-for-audio-search/
• O’Raghallaigh, E., 2019b. “The Rise of the Chatbot” | https://digitalmarketingblog.org/wp-admin/ | Retrieved Online: 16/03/2021| https://digitalmarketingblog.org/the-rise-of-the-chatbot/
• The Digital Marketing Institute, 2020. “10 Trends in Digital Marketing in 2020”| https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/ | Retrieved Online: 16/03/2021| https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/10-trends-in-digital-marketing-in-2020