I imagine that you have heard that voice control is going to emerge in the coming years or even that business and marketing will have to adapt to a new context. So thats it. Not because I say so, my intuition, or because I am a marketing guru. I say this because the data speaks for itself and I will tell you about it in the next few lines. First of all, dear reader, I want to ask you the following: Do you have a voice assistant?
If you have answered yes, nothing to add. But if you answered no … let me ask you another question: Sure? I say this because if an icon similar to a microphone appears in your WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger app, Google search or even Word, it is more than likely that you have a voice assistant even if you don’t call it that.
That said, we are going to focus on those voice assistants focused on searches within the internet. These are the names that some brands give their assistants: Siri from Apple, Google Assistant from Google, Alexa from Amazon, Bixby from Samsung, Cortana from Microsoft, Aura from Movistar or Celia from Huawei; and the list is even longer …
As you can see, there are many but among the wide range 3 clearly stand out above the others: Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. As if this were not enough, every day there are more houses that integrate a smart speaker on the shelves of their dining rooms, bedrooms or kitchens and these popular “appliances” have already become an indispensable part of many homes around the world and again these Christmas the curious voice assistants will lead the rankings of the most gifted products this Christmas so different from the one we face.
If we enter the words “Amazon Alexa” in Google Trends (tool to analyze search trends in search engine # 1) and filter in Spain, we will see that the growing evolution of searches of this assistant is constant. So I encourage you to try it and see what I’m talking about. You see it? It is not a trend, it is a reality. Voice control is there, stronger than ever, hidden and waiting to make the final leap.
If we were to carry out the same search filter worldwide, we would see that the highest peak of interest was generated in 2018, which would clearly indicate that it is no longer a new product, but a more consolidated product than it may seem. Now, since what was promised is a debt, I will give you some irrefutable and official data. At this point, now yes, I must talk to you about statistics.
I promise I’ll be brief … In 2018 Google declared that 27% of mobile searches were already by voice . According to the consulting firm Kantar, in 2022 voice searches will already account for more than 45%. In 2019 Google published that it had already sold 1 billion “Google Assistant” devices . For its part, in 2019 Amazon acknowledged having sold more than 100 million devices with integrated Alexa.
According to the apple brand, Siri is integrated into more than 500 million devices and growing … Okay, I’m done with numbers and statistics. But the objective is to show you that if we talk about technologies related to voice control, we are not talking about a more or less distant future, we are talking about a reality that is more than settled in our lives.
At this point, brands, companies and organizations can and should take advantage of a technology that is characterized by bringing search engines closer to the reality of everyday conversations. If they don’t, they won’t appear, it’s that simple, they will never realize it and others will take advantage of the void that their brand or company is leaving.
I did the experiment asking for a barber with the question “which is the closest barber?” . Nothing, the one that was closest to my home just 15 meters did not appear. Of course, both Siri, Alexa and the Google assistant recommended 3 alternatives and all further away by the way; even one more than 20 minutes away.
I’ll be honest, I had no intention of going to the barber, I did it just to experiment but if I had needed barber service it is likely that I would have chosen a distant alternative despite having a barber around the corner. I have the choice whether to warn you without taking it the wrong way, although it is likely that you are not aware of the potential loss of customers from your business.
If you want, stop for a moment, do the test yourself and talk to your assistant ; If you mention the name of your company and you do not appear, something is failing in your strategy. You should start to take care of your strategy from a 360º perspective and stop investing money in SEM as in the past, ignoring millions of users who could one day become your clients.
Understanding technology, its behavior and its algorithms is essential to face an increasingly omnichannel and competitive market in which voice control will undoubtedly have its place in e-commerce but also in offline commerce (if it is that have yet to be separated).
In short, if you have doubts about your strategy, apply rigor and knowledge in your company by hiring accredited professionals, believe me, it will be the most effective. Who knows, maybe if the barber in my neighborhood had done it, his business would be more sustainable and now he would have one more client …