Content marketing Content marketing & voice interfaces
Content marketing is an approach where consumers are addressed using informative, useful and entertaining content to get them excited about the brand, products and services. What do brands need to pay attention to when conducting content marketing in this age of voice interfaces (e.g. Amazon Alexa)?
In this online age, brands are increasingly interacting with consumers using written content. But with the rise of voice interfaces, spoken content is starting to dominate. This requires a re-think of content marketing. The following three theories illustrate this re-thinking process.
Theory 1: consumption of spoken content is an activity shared with others
The smartphone offers a highly individualized consumer experience, with the small screen engrossing the consumer. This is frequently seen in restaurants, for example, where people are glued to their smartphone screens and feel unable to tear themselves away even for dinner. Voice interfaces, by contrast, enable content to be consumed collectively, i.e. the spoken word can be heard by every consumer in the direct vicinity. For content marketing, this means decisions need to be made about which information is offered in written form and which in spoken.
Theory 2: consumers process spoken content sequentially
Written content can be processed by consumers in parallel. This means consumers can jump between products on a web page and compare them based on various attributes (e.g. price) in milliseconds. By contrast, the processing of spoken content is more likely to take place sequentially. A menu is a good illustration for this: a written list of meals makes it easier for consumers to compare various starters, learn about the ingredients and choose their dish. If the waiter only presents the menu of the day, i.e. informs diners of the dishes in spoken form, it makes it far more difficult for customers to decide. How can spoken content be presented to consumers in such a way they can process and retain the information?
Theory 3: consumers want to be addressed in a more personalized way when it comes to spoken content
Voice interfaces can be considered gateways into the lives of consumers. Smart speakers, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are making their way into living rooms and bedrooms, and even into bathrooms. How do consumers want to interact with brands in these environments? On websites, brands often still tend to use formal language, whereas on social media more informal language is preferred. According to our empirical studies, smart speakers are perceived as human-like and as members of the family that are sorely missed when travelling. This close relationship between consumers and smart speakers implies that what people are looking for is to be addressed personally and in a familiar tone during brand interactions.
Prof. Dr. Johanna Franziska Gollnhofer speaks on this topic at Connecta Bern.
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