Building these best practices into your voice marketing strategy will give you a much greater chance to see positive results

Voice marketing can be a very efficient way of attracting customers to your business. Consumer adoption of voice-activated devices is growing quickly. An estimated 66.4 million people own smart speakers in the United States alone, and that doesn’t even count all the phone assistants, voice remotes, and other gadgets on the market today. If your target audience can’t talk back to your brand, you’re missing a huge marketing opportunity.

However, if you provide them with an unsatisfying voice experience, you can end up turning customers off your products. How can you make sure you get it right?

Here are five best practices that will help you plan and optimize voice marketing campaigns to provide the best user experiences and call more customers into your brand.

1. Optimize for voice search

When a user asks a question to a voice-activated device, the technology scans the web looking for the most relevant answer. Once the device finds the desired information, it verbalizes it for the user. As a marketer, you’ll want to develop a search engine optimization strategy that makes your website this place to go for content that’s important in your industry.

Your voice marketing strategy won’t pay off unless potential customers can actually find you. Remember that people speak differently than they type, so you need to target conversational keywords.

Start by identifying the types of questions customers are asking about products like yours and answer them on your website. One strategy is to look at what consumers are asking you and create an FAQ page where they can find easy comprehensive answers. From there, search engines like Google will see your website as a relevant answer when users ask similar questions, and your website has a chance to come up with voice search queries when customers ask those questions to their voice gadgets.

Remember, however, at the moment there is little difference between the search engine algorithms for a voice search and a typed search. Therefore, you should interlink your entire SEO strategy, rather than separating voice and text SEO.

2. Listen to your customers

As you implement voice marketing technology, your customers will surely provide feedback and let you know what is and aren’t working. For example, you can present consumers with surveys after they use your voice services to see how they liked it. Make sure you use this information to improve the user experience, rather than ignoring it and hoping that it isn’t an issue for the next searcher.

Your goal should be to anticipate what your customers want and provide it to them seamlessly. By listening to how the technology performs early in the integration process, you can work out the kinks and provide an overall better experience down the road.

Don’t be afraid to take a step back if something isn’t working. Technology is always a work in progress. If your customers are telling you about an error loop or other issues, take the time needed to get it right.

3. Make your business more visible

Because many people use voice search while commuting or otherwise on the go, you need to make it easy to find information on your business.

For example, post your hours of operation clearly on your website so potential customers know if you’re even a valid option at that time. If customers don’t know whether or not you’re open, they’re less likely to visit.

You should also keep an updated address at the forefront of your business page. Since users tend to end voice queries with the term “near me,” and Google knows where these people are located, showcasing a valid address is essential.

4. Design with humans in mind

No one wants to feel like they’re talking to a robot. Voice technology should allow users to speak naturally and receive clear, satisfying answers to their questions.

The goal is to create a system where users don’t have to adjust the way they’re speaking just because they’re talking to a voice-activated device. Frustration follows when users have to think about how to phrase a question so the machine understands.

When implementing voice marketing technology, you should look for ways to simplify the commands needed to fulfill a task and ensure that there is a consistent response to these commands. Consider providing a Voice Activated Call to Action (VACTA) that allows people who see or hear your ad to easily take the next steps via voice-activated devices. Your customers will appreciate how easy the technology is to use and will look to interact with it more often.

Implementing voice marketing technology

Because voice marketing technology is in its infancy in the grand scheme of things, you might struggle at first to use it efficiently. Respond Fast integrates Voice Activated Call to Action services seamlessly into your marketing campaigns. Through this technology, customers can respond to the offers you present directly through their smart speakers or mobile devices. Contact us today for more information on how we can maximize your advertising efforts.