Voice for Marketing

Voice is set to become a necessity for driving site traffic and a ticket to increased conversion

Businesses that want to drive traffic to their site have had to learn how to optimize for search and then how to optimize for mobile. Now they are going to have another medium to consider: optimizing for voice search.

“Voice tech is on the rise and will continue to grow,” said Dan Drapeau, Head of Technology at Blue Fountain Media, in a phone interview. He compared its transition to mainstream connection to that of social media and mobile.

Read more in 

Why Marketers Should Be Thinking About Voice

Women speak

photo from
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Podcast_hosted_by_women.jpg

Podcasts, which are becoming increasingly important as a journalistic medium,  have generally been male-dominated. But the medium is getting more diverse, thanks in part to a new podcasting studio dedicated to giving women a voice.

Raina Penchansky, founder and CEO of Digital Brand Architects, (DBA), a digital talent management and social media marketing firm, spoke to me about her company’s latest endeavor, the recently launched  Dear Media (DM). Located in West Hollywood, this new podcasting studio focuses on leading female voices and narratives that can now be heard on Apple iTunes and Spotify. .

They reach a “highly engaged listener,” through this medium Penchansky explained.  “It’s a targeted millenial audience, and in a lot of ways,” which makes it “very much the right medium” for this demographic that has been “cord-cutting and consuming content differently” than the previous generation. 

The business model for  Dear Media follows the pattern set by DBA back in 2010. It  helps individuals conceptualize, develop, and produce customized communication through new media. The difference is that it puts the emphasis on female hosts and voices, placing women and their stories at the forefront of conversation.

Read more in Giving Women a Voice

Amazon May be Giving a Voice to Marketing

We've seen a rapid evolution in shopping interfaces, ranging from letting our fingers do the walking on our keyboards, to letting them swipe their way to what we seek on touchscreens. The next big thng, it seems, is a touchless interface made by possible by voice-activation.

As people are coming to expect the convenience of talking to their devices, companies like Google and Amazon are accommodating that form of navigation, and exploring new ways to monetize it. 

Read more in Alexa May Give Voice to Targeted Marketing

The eyes have it with AI

The camera is already starting to replace the keyboard,” asserts Netra CEO, Richard Lee. The content that will dominate digital information flow will be visual, and for that reason image recognition is becoming a key component of marketing.

His company derives insight from visual data, fostering understanding of how consumers engage with brands through engagement with images. Netra  is a leader in visual intelligence and search that uses machine learning to help marketers make sense of imagery on social media.

Some brands are already using image recognition to connect with and effectively market to their customers. They include Neiman Marcus. The upscale retailer offers its customers the Snap. Find. Shop  app that enables them to use their phones to snap pictures of styles they like and find similar styles carried by the store.  The app is demonstrated here:

The app allows customers to bypass typing in description of the clothing and rely on the image alone to convey what they seek. That kind of search is what we will be seeing more of in future, according to Lee. 

Read more in AI Makes Visual Intelligence Possible

Voice powered shopping

Like the captain of the Starship Enterprise, we too can now ask a computer for information by talking to it. We can even order tea, Earl Grey, though maybe not at the preferred temperature just yet. As voice activation is being directed toward shopping, there are new opportunities for marketers to explore.

With Siri, Cortana, Alexa, or the Google Assistant available, voice activation and queries have become an integral part of smartphones and smart home technology. According to Thrive Analytics, voice search among smartphone user hit 65 percent in 2015 in the US. That's more than double what it was just two years before, which indicates a very rapid rate of growth. The voice control option is also growing  among users of smart home products. 

Taking note of this trend, Google is now nudging its Google Home customers to start using their voices for shopping. It recently announced that Google Assistant could not be used by people with Google Home to order a variety of products from over 50 participating Google Express retailers. 

Read more in OK Google Goes Shopping

Don't you recognize my voice?

What's your mother's maiden name? 
Which street did you live on when you were growing up? 
What's the name of your first pet? 
In what city was your parent born?

Sound familiar?
These are standard identity authentication questions that all have to be answered before you get to bring up what you really called about. Certainly, we want measures of security, though it is possible to authenticate the caller other ways.

Voice biometrics is becoming increasingly popular. It's not a complete solution on its own, as all security experts insist single-step authentication are not secure enough for anything you really wish to protect. But it offers the advantage of convenience and likely better security than questions whose answers can often be obtained with some online searches and a view of your Facebook profile.

Read more in  Securely Yours: Voice Biometric Authentication Gains Traction

Related: Detecting Fraud With Voice Analytics

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Like much of the tech featured in the original Star Trek and other futuristic shows, communicating with a computer directly through speech has long been a reality via an interface dominated by Nuance, the company behind the virtual assistant female voice many hear on their smartphones and computers. But Google is upping the game with software that promises to deliver more than its competition does now and down the road.
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Google Cloud Speech API: A Step Forward for Voice Activation

Biometrics for voice to prevent fraud and save time on calls

The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but people's voices are what belie their emotional states and even identities. For businesses, that type of insight can help authenticate callers and prevent fraud. Making it work in real-time allows businesses to save time on calls without compromising security. Read more in 

Detecting Fraud With Voice Analytics