voice Archives - McLellan Marketing Group

Change like we can’t imagine (yet)

August 26, 2020

Voice technology is changing everything. I know that’s a ridiculously bold statement. But let’s go back in time.

It was about 1989 and I was walking through an airport. I spotted a man on one of those bag phones and thought, “why in the world would anyone ever want to carry a phone with them all the time?” If someone had stopped me that day and said, “mobile technology is going to change everything,” I wouldn’t have believed them and I certainly couldn’t have imagined the critical role that our cell phones play in our lives today.

In fairness, voice is changing everything, at least initially, thanks to our cell phones. We’re at the caveman stage of understanding how to harness voice technology and how it will dramatically alter the way we live, work, play and communicate.

This sounds like hyperbole but we’ve been watching our world build up to this since cell phones came on the scene. As they became commonplace, another element that is critical for voice was also gaining some steam – artificial intelligence (AI).

Remember back in the 90s, when you first experienced an automated phone tree, where you were asked simple questions and based on your answers, routed through a series of pre-recorded messages? I don’t know about you, but for me, that was rarely a positive experience. I typically ended up shouting at the phone in an attempt to be understood and hitting zero as often as I needed to, to get to a human being. The natural language processing technology just wasn’t that good yet and while the intention was sound, the experience was not.

Fast forward to this past week. Using my cell phone, I was able to contact United and get a real-time update on where my lost luggage was in 37 seconds. Thanks to AI and voice technology, it was seamless, easy, and efficient. Think about the conversations you have with Siri, Alexa, or Google. And even with that huge leap forward, we’re still at the inventing fire stage of this shift.

As marketers, we are always looking at whatever is new and wondering, is it a fad? Is this just another channel? Is this something that is going to be widely adopted by my audience or industry? We’re already working with limited resources – do I need to invest in this too?

Voice, I believe, is a seismic shift, like the internet and mobile phones were. And in a way – they’re all simply the next wave of the same shift. But voice will touch everything. It is already changing SEO and search. This year, it is estimated that over 50% of all searches will be conducted by voice. The whole idea of wanting to be on the first page of a Google search result will go by the wayside because voice searches don’t offer up ten options. It offers up one. Suddenly it’s the featured snippet or nothing.

There will be a day when people going to your website can navigate through it without ever clicking on a link. How we think about our owned media, like our websites, is going to be flipped on its head.

If you aren’t learning more about voice, as a marketer you need to make that commitment. Here are two conferences worth considering:

MAICON: The first annual Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference took place in July 2019 and although the 2020 conference has been canceled due to COVID, the dates for the 2021 conference are locked into place – July 13-15, 2021. We heard a lot about the merging of AI and voice at the first conference and the conversation is bound to grow in 2021.

Voice Summit: This event has been in existence for four years and is the largest voice-first event with over 5,000 attendees last year. They are still on track for their event, October 5-15, 2020 but keep up to date here for any changes.

Now is the time to learn and explore this new opportunity.

This was originally published in the Des Moines Business Record, as one of Drew’s weekly columns.

Should your brand take a stand?

May 29, 2019

Almost a year ago, Nike released a “just do it” ad campaign for their 30th anniversary featuring Colin Kaepernick, the football player at the center of the “taking a knee” controversy in the NFL. The reaction to the campaign was immediate and loud. The media exploded, social media couldn’t get enough of it, politicians tweeted about it, and investors reacted to this brand taking a stand.

The hashtag #Nikeboycott emerged and within 48 hours of the campaign’s launch, the stock prices fell as people voiced their objections to the campaign. People posted photos of them burning their Nike gear and swore they’d never buy another Nike product.

That’s what made the news but there are other facts that we should take into account.

Kaepernick has been a Nike sponsored athlete since 2011 and he’s been featured in many campaigns for Nike football and training gear
The campaign also featured other athletes like Serena Williams, LeBron James, Lacey Baker, and Odell Beckham Jr.
The focus of the campaign is showing athletes overcoming obstacles
The initial drop in stock prices (there was a reactionary sell off the day the campaign came out) righted itself (It was $82.20/share the day before the campaign broke and dropped to $79.60 24 hours later. On Thursday, 9/13/18 it was at an all-time high of $83.90)
Nike added over 170,000 followers on Instagram in the weeks after the campaign launch
Online sales were up 27% the week after the campaign launched but have now gone back to a more “normal” level
In a December 2017 Harris poll, virtually no one had a negative opinion of Nike. The same poll, taken a few days after the campaign launched, in September 2018, showed that 17% of respondents viewed Nike in a negative light. However, 29% of men 18-29 said they were going to purchase more Nike products. 19% of respondents of all ages said they were more inclined to purchase even more Nike products in the future.

We have always advocated that brands need to stand for something. A brand with no point of view can’t really differentiate itself from its competitors. But does that mean a brand should take a stand on a controversial issue or topic?

A brand can’t exist in a vacuum. It must believe in something. It must stand for something. Every great brand has a set of core values that drives its decisions and determines how that brand will connect with its audience. According to Edelman’s 2018 Brand survey, “over 50 percent of consumers worldwide say that they will make belief-driven purchase decisions more than they did three years ago. They will buy your brand, switch from it, avoid it – and at the extreme – boycott it over your stance on a controversial or social issue. This is the new normal for belief-driven consumers.”

Today’s consumers, especially those under 50, believe that every brand is either part of the solution or part of the problem. 69% of Millennials are belief-driven buyers. 67% of Gen Z and 56% of Gen X also fall into that category.

Nike’s campaign is a great case study on the courage it takes to live by your brand beliefs. I’m sure there were sleepless nights before the campaign launched and during its first few days as the general marketplace expressed itself.

But to survive and thrive, they didn’t have much choice. Today’s consumers are demanding that brands stop hiding in the mushy middle and step into their beliefs. How will you respond to that expectation?

Use your marketing voice

March 20, 2019

Voice is one of the most significant trends we marketers have had to face in a while. Remember when the proliferation of mobile devices changed the way we designed and built websites? Voice is going cause the same upheaval and it’s going to come even faster and be more wide-sweeping than mobile ever was.

If the last decade was our mobile marketing revolution, then the upcoming decade is the era of voice.

The mobile revolution made it possible for brands to reach their audiences wherever they were, gather all kinds of data and then use that data to create near or real-time interactive experiences that felt personalized and intuitive.

That’s nothing compared to what voice is going to do to our daily lives. We talk about the proliferation of smart speakers like Amazon Echo, Google Hoe, and Apple’s HomePod but we forget we’ve been carrying a voice assistant in our pocket for years.

Almost 80 percent of Americans own a smartphone, where virtual assistants are included by default. Combine that with the fact that over 55% of American homes have a smart speaker and it’s easy to see how voice is going to influence marketing channels and choices.

Voice is expected to drive half of all searches on mobile, and it’s already having a huge impact on retail. Research done by NPD Group, Inc., found that online spending by consumers rose overall after the purchase of an Echo in every category except for travel. We haven’t seen the results of the relatively new partnership between Google and Walmart that will allow customers to “voice shop” via Google Assistant but you know it isn’t going to be minuscule.

We aren’t and won’t be limited to smart speakers or our phones. Soon we’ll all be chatting with our fridges, washers and dryers, our cars, and even our toilets.

Voice assistants of all shapes and sizes are going to have us thinking differently as marketers. Here are some of the more significant ways we’re going to need to re-think marketing:

The featured snippet: When we type our search query, the search engines serve up a list, and we choose the specific link we want to click on. But with voice search, it’s what is called a direct answer. The device answers your voice search with a voice response of one answer. If you’re asking Google, it’s going to serve up the featured snippet. The growth of voice search means that being on page one is no longer the holy grail that it was. The new goal is to be the featured snippet.

A whole new channel – Alexa skills and flash briefings: Brands are creating Alexa skills (because right now the Echo is the dominant leader) to interact with their consumers. Take a look at Purina’s Ask Purina Alexa skill that lets dog owners ask Alexa questions about their pets. This sets Purina up to be the authority in a very profitable and popular space on a broad spectrum of dog-related information. Not only are they helpful but the interaction builds trust and mindshare.

The biggest one? Writing for conversational search as opposed to keyword search. It shifts our focus to natural language and the intended meaning behind the searcher’s specific query. When we’re speaking out loud, we tend to use more words and longer sentences than we do when we type a query. Marketers need to think about how someone would ask the question that should serve up your answer. Those full sentences need to be added to your keyword list.

This is a fast-moving trend so find some sources to keep you informed. While you’re doing that, you should start experimenting with a refreshed search strategy, some Alexa skills and trying to become a featured snippet.

Are you in good voice?

January 16, 2019

When I think about the trends that are facing marketers and business owners in 2019, the one that I believe is going to be most significant is the influence of voice on search and content. Not only do I think it’s critical, but I think it is growing faster and stronger than anyone could have imagined.

Let’s define the term, so we’re all on the same wavelength. When we talk about voice what we mean is all voice-activated or operated devices, apps, and the Internet of Things accessories that you may have in your home, vehicle or office. What’s so fascinating about this trend is that even though it’s just beginning to truly emerge, it’s already so woven into our daily habits that we’re taking it for granted.

Think about how often you give voice commands. While you’re making breakfast are you asking Alexa to play your favorite podcast? Are you telling Nest to lower the temperature in the basement or asking Siri to give you an update on how the Cubs did last night? These devices aren’t just in our homes. How often do you talk to your car, asking it to call someone or give you a traffic update?

According to comScore.com, the number of U.S. households with smart speakers grew by 49 percent from June to November 2017. Today, smart speakers are predominately the Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple HomePod, and a few other emerging brands. Because they were the first to launch, Amazon Echo dominated and had 88% of the market share in 2016, but Google Home is gaining ground quickly since its introduction in October of 2017. It’s already trimmed Amazon’s control of the market to 52%.

Controlling our home, car or office is interesting but how does all of this technology intersect with marketing? The most obvious place is search. According to Branded3 and data collected from IBM, 25 percent of searches on Windows 10 taskbar are by voice. A report from Search Engine People cited that 20 percent of mobile searches on Google are made via voice command now. 55 percent of teens and 41 percent of adults already execute voice searches multiple times per day, and the forecast is that by 2020, 50 percent of all searches will be via voice.

This is where Google can quickly become the defacto market leader. When you ask Alexa to search for something online, she is only able to search the topic using Wikipedia, which is not as comprehensive as using Google, which comes native as part of Google Home.

This provides Google with a huge advantage to penetrate more and more areas of our home. A recent Google survey estimated that 72 percent of people who own a voice-activated speaker say that their devices are often used as part of their daily routine. And it’s just an emerging trend.

So from a practical point of view, what does this mean for us as marketers? Let me answer that by leaving you with this question.

Today we fight for a page one ranking in Google because we know the user will review a few of the listings before they click on one. But with voice, you ask a question, and the device serves up a single answer. How might that change our strategies around PPC, search and organic SEO? How do you become the one answer?

And that new wrinkle is just the tip of the iceberg. As this technology weaves itself into our culture, it’s going to have lasting impact on how we go through our daily lives and how, as marketers, we intersect with people in new ways.

Your voice is powerful

March 14, 2018

One of the most remarkable aspects of marketing in this era is that every human being is a publisher. We can write reviews that impact businesses. We can share our expertise to create a position of thought leadership. We can amplify the messages that others create/share by volleying their content to our audiences. Each of us has a voice, and it is powerful.

As I scan through my social streams, I watch people exercising that power and it seems that for many of them, they’ve missed a key consideration that comes along with that voice.

You are always on stage. No matter where you are, what you say or who you are with – it is being documented, and it paints a picture of you for all to see. Like it or not, people draw conclusions based on those glimpses into your thoughts, actions, and attitudes.

No matter what your privacy settings are – what you share is not private. Google never forgets anything and in this day of instant sharing, screenshots and phones that serve as video cameras — someone can always capture your most private moments and make them public.

We live in complicated times. Between the most polarizing presidential election I can remember, the Parkland shooting, the Black Lives Matter crisis, police being gunned down in the street, terrorist attacks happening with increased frequency and all of the other social issues – there’s a lot going on. Every one of these moments in history has the capability of inspiring deeply held emotions, opinions, and beliefs.

It’s human nature to have a very visceral reaction to these events. Heck, it’s human nature to have a strong reaction to the more personal events we individually face like canceled flights, a business deal gone bad or the loss of a loved one.

Today – some have a tendency to voice those reactions through all channels, regardless of who can access those channels. And if my social feeds are any indication, people often post those responses to these highly emotional events without thinking about how their reactions might be interpreted by the wide variety of people who see them.

I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t share your political beliefs, your feelings about the tragedies our country is dealing with or anything going on in your personal life. But I am suggesting that you remember you’re not just talking to a few people anymore. Everything you say, like, share or comment on becomes a reflection of who you are, both personally and professionally. We all need to have a very clear understanding of the implications of that sharing.

Depending on how/what you share – you may very well attract people to you/your business based on your common attitudes and beliefs. You may also, especially if your opinions are expressed in a very strong/pointed manner, repel people from you/your business. And it’s not just potential customers. It’s future employers (who doesn’t Google job candidates today?) and even potential employees.

If you own your own business, there’s freedom to do as you please. After all, no one is going to fire you. But there are many examples of employees being fired for what they’ve posted online.

None of us, from the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to the owner or employee of a locally owned retail business, can expect our digital activities to go unnoticed or to have no consequence. Every action adds to your brand – intentional or not. Keep that in mind as you’re about to fire off your next Facebook post, tweet or share that photo on Instagram.

You are what you share. And who you are has always had a huge influence on whether or not someone chooses to do business with you. Today, more than ever.

Coming in loud and clear – Podcasts

December 27, 2017

When I was a kid, I loved listening to the old time radio shows that my parents grew up with. The Shadow was my favorite. I loved the storytelling but I also loved the portability — I used to listen when I was mowing the lawn (on my old Walkman, if that doesn’t age me!). Today, my old time radio fix is met through podcasts. There are so many podcasts out there – I don’t care what your interest, personal or professional, there’s a show for you.

I can listen when I’m driving, taking a walk, working out or on a plane. I love video but it requires all of my attention. One of the best things about a podcast is that I can consume them during “down time” and turn it into productive time.

I believe that podcasts are one of the most under-utilized marketing tactics out there today and if you haven’t considered it, I want to make sure it gets on your radar screen.

We probably do them a disservice, calling them podcasts. Who actually listens to them on an iPod anymore? The new term that seems to be gaining momentum is on-demand radio. 64% of podcasts are being consumed via smartphones or tablets today.

Consider these stats (from a study done by Edison Research):

36% of all Americans have listened to at least one podcast
21% listen to podcasts on a monthly basis
Podcast listening has increased 23% from 2015
Podcast listening has increased 75% since 2013
The same number of Americans listen to podcasts as there are Twitter accounts
The average podcast listener consumes five podcast episodes a week

This medium has huge potential as a part of your content strategy, but only if you build it with your audience in mind. Podcasts aren’t about selling. They’re about teaching, entertaining or both. Just like I’ve preached about your blog posts, videos or any other form of content — your podcast needs to be engaging and helpful. Otherwise, you will never build an audience.

Here are some other best practices if you’re going to launch a podcast.

Use good equipment: You don’t need to spend big bucks, but you do need to invest in a decent microphone and headphones. You’ll have to decide if you’re going to do the editing yourself or hire someone. For my podcast, I don’t have the time or technical expertise to do the editing/uploading to iTunes etc. I’ve got a great partner who handles all of that for me. If you’re interested in an introduction – shoot me an email.

Time is of the essence: The average commute is 25 minutes. Podcasts that are shorter than 30 minutes tend to have more listeners and get more downloads. But if you are providing high-value content, people will stick around.

Don’t wing it: Even though the best podcasts feel like they’re just casual conversations – they are anything but. You want to do some serious prep for your podcasts. It takes a lot of poise and preparation to sound unrehearsed. At the very least, have your intro and closing comments drafted and an outline of how you’d like the conversation to go.

Consistency wins: This is one of those “don’t start if you’re not serious” marketing tactics. Your efforts will not be rewarded if you’re inconsistent. Podcasting is also not a once a quarter or once a month effort. Weekly seems to be the ideal frequency for a busy brand that isn’t trying to monetize their podcast.

I guarantee that you have plenty to teach and that there’s an audience out there that’s hungry to learn. Why not consider jumping on the podcast bandwagon while it’s still building up steam?