Impact of Voice-Enabled Devices – Imagine a World where Digital Marketing goes Screenless

In a time when digital marketing’s so focused on video, is it possible we could be moving towards a screenless world – some say so. Personal assistant voice-enabled devices are taking over. Amazon Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Google Home, and more are sold by the truckloads every day in Canada and the US.

This is changing the way we market, as Toronto digital marketers. Assuming this is where things lead in the years to come, we could potentially see a shift away from image and video, and movement happening towards meeting the requirements of marketing through voice.

We are surrounded by screens every day, inundated by them through our smartphones, computers, at work, in the car, advertising billboards, in the grocery store, at the mall, and everywhere. You’d be challenged to find a place that doesn’t have a screen of some kind. It’s almost gravitational the way a screen can pull a person in and maintain someone’s attention for hours on end. For this reason, understandably, a lot of marketing has been focused on video in the past decade. After all, video has produced some very strong ROI and continues to generate a lot of press for the brands who use it. Combined with a larger digital strategy involving content marketing, social media, and email, it’s the perfect way to set up any business for success online.

Then, the rise of voice-based personal assistants happened. This is something no one expected. Most thought video marketing would be the next step towards marketing on screens. The rise of voice has meant that people are starting to do away with screens thereby rendering any sort of images or video virtually meaningless. This isn’t to say this digital marketing isn’t of some value to people using screens. There are still millions of people using screens, which is evidence video marketing and other forms of visual digital marketing still absolutely have a place. That said, we cannot ignore the rise of voice. A segment of the population is breaking off and going the route of using voice in their day-to-day lives.

In the next decade, expect to hear the term voice marketing a lot more. Voice marketing will blend together elements of content marketing and SEO to build text-based answers to queries made through voice-based personal assistant devices. This is already happening with the content being developed strictly with voice in mind. Thankfully, any content you have is not rendered meaningless by voice. If anything, it only picks up in value. Voice devices read what’s on the Internet. Assuming you’ve formatted your code correctly, any of these personal assistant devices can read your blog and communicate that information to a user.

Could we live in a world one day that is without screens – it’s very much possible. Some prefer podcasts to video, like to escape their screens, listen to audiobooks, or build entire calendar of events from voice-based personal assistants. From our perspective, a new marketing landscape is on the horizon and digital marketing will have to change to accommodate it.

We are Toronto digital marketing experts. Specializing in SEO, content marketing, social media, eCommerce, video, voice, and email, we can help in positioning your brand to maximize its success in the long-term. No matter the medium or channel, if you want to win big results, all we ask is for you to speak with one of our experts at Unlimited Exposure.