Marketers can hear the impact of voice technology coming a mile away. New research from voice over and audio marketplace Voices.com, in partnership with voice tech researchers Voicebot.ai, illuminates the current status of voice app adoption among leading brands—and reveals sentiments about their voice app plans going forward.
“Voice apps, as a marketing channel, has crossed the chasm of adoption, according to our survey,” said Bret Kinsella, founder and CEO of Voicebot.ai, in a news release. “About one-quarter of brands have launched a voice app to date and the figure will climb to over one-third by the end of 2020. Most marketers today are focused on learning the technology and how to best utilize consumer voice assistants as a channel. However, they are tremendously optimistic about voice apps as a means to engage consumers, as well as with the future of voice shopping.”
Highlights of the report include:
Marketers are under-participating in a very important marketing channel
Despite the fact that 63 percent of marketers view voice assistants as a very important marketing channel, only 24 percent had launched an app prior to 2019, and half stated they have no plans to launch an app.
Mobile phones offer the most exciting placement for voice
Smartphone-based voice assistants rank as the most important channels for marketers to have a voice presence, followed by smart speakers.
Disproportionate use of the ‘default’ in voice apps
Of those who have created a voice app, 74 percent (or 3 out of 4) have opted to use the default voice. However, of those who opted to hire a voice actor (15 percent of app creators), ‘creating engagement’ was the top reason for doing so.
“The results of the study demonstrate the immense opportunity in front of marketers and advertisers,” said Voices.com CEO, David Ciccarelli, in the release. “Voice technology has proliferated faster than any other technological advancement today: smart speaker integration into our homes has progressed faster than the adoption of mobile phones. Yet, many in the industry are lagging. Now is the time to create a brand voice, or risk being left behind.”
Download the full report here.
The report was generated by surveying 300 marketers in North America.
