By Justin Rezvani
When Amazon launched Alexa back in 2014, a whole slew of industries looked skeptically at the product. They weren’t quite sure what to do with it, wondered when and how it would integrate into the everyday lives of consumers, and, most of all, whether this “novelty product” would ever become a worthwhile medium for communication.
Then, in January 2017, a Business Insider article first announced Amazon’s exploration into the world of paid voice search — and highlighted the boom in popularity around the technology’s use. Voice, marketers agreed, is going to be the “next big thing.”
It’s not perfect yet, but voice technology can already be found in almost every facet of our lives. We can talk to our cars. We can talk to our “smart” appliances. Major companies like Apple have invested heavily in their own virtual assistant, Siri. We can dictate messages to our phones instead of typing texts or emails. Voice is, and certainly will be, part of the future. At this point, it’s really only a question of technology integration and continuing to improve upon voice recognition features. But the consumer demand is clearly there.
What is going to be interesting is how Alexa and other voice-responsive mediums make their way into new industries, specifically in terms of B2B.
We already see it happening with influencer marketing. For example, at my company, we have Amazon Alexa in our office and frequently ask, “Hey, Alexa, how’s this campaign doing?” Alexa then starts firing off all the top analytics related to a specific campaign, providing information in real time without having to look at a dashboard.
This is what I mean when I say that Alexa and voice-responsive platforms are still very early-stage, but the potential is there. Thinking in terms of how Alexa and other mediums may integrate with influencer marketing in the future, the real “X factor” is going to be two-fold: how influencers themselves can play a role in the dynamic, and what analytics and insights from voice technology can do to improve the performance of a given campaign.
The key, however, is going to be figuring out how to weave paid search and other marketing tactics into voice platforms without intruding on people’s lives. When you view this issue through the lens of influencer marketing, what comes to mind are all the benefits of working with an influencer for your advertising campaign — except instead of visual content, you’re dealing with voice and sound.
It would be kind of like hearing your favorite artist on the radio endorsing the station. Something about hearing the voice of your favorite artist makes the message seem far less intrusive than if the host or DJ were to say the exact same thing.
This is where I think things may be headed in terms of voice in the marketing context. Actually, it’s somewhat similar to what we’re imagining the future to be for virtual reality and influencer marketing, which is this idea that you can interact with your favorite influencers from anywhere. Just strap on your goggles. With VR, people all over the world could join an event, a meet-up or a Q&A session and feel as though they’re actually there. That’s a step forward in terms of communicating visually, just like social features such as Facebook's Stories and live video were steps forward.
One of the ways the medium of voice may push things another step forward is by allowing consumers to vocally communicate with their favorite influencers. Think of it like a Snapchat takeover via Alexa. That’s powerful and it’s also really intimate. After all, what’s more personal than being able to have a one-on-one conversation with your favorite social content creator, even if it’s just for a moment or two?
This is just one potential route for how Alexa and other similar devices will weave their way into the world of marketing, specifically influencer marketing. But already, we’re seeing that the shift is inevitable. The real question is: What is that world going to look like? And how can we, as marketers, stay ahead of the curve?
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Justin Rezvani is a first-generation American entrepreneur, investor, Forbes’ 30 Under 30, and Founder and CEO of theAmplify.