When I was younger, I dreaded taking standardized tests in school. It was never a strength of mine, and I would have much rather had my skills measured in other ways. However, there was always one section I did look forward to: pattern recognition.
Sequencing and predicting what number, symbol or shape was to come next in the pattern has always come naturally to me. Unfortunately, teachers in school never really shed light on what this meant for real-life application or a career path.
Today, I’m fortunate to have the ability to put these skills into play. I spend a good deal of time in my day-to-day paying attention to trends, technology, behavioral patterns and people. I believe that the ability to recognize patterns and sequences from an early age has allowed me to be better equipped for decision-making and strategic planning into the future. With that being said, I forecast there will be a shift in how consumers request information through search engines and believe that this new direction is much more verbal.
Is voice next in the ‘search’ sequence?
For the last 15 years, Google and other search engines have been ingrained in our day-to-day lives as a way for us to find virtually anything we are looking for. Google started out as a website that brought information to our fingertips, and it has evolved into wearables, at-home products and voice devices that we have familiarized ourselves with as users.
I think these voice devices are going to become a commonality among all of us for a simple reason: They make our lives more convenient. When looking at trends and what’s to come, a simple rule of thumb is to ask the question: Is it practical? Often, when we see new trends take off, it is because they address an issue or solve a problem. In the case of “voice,” I believe that we need to look at it through a macro lens. Over the course of the next decade, my opinion is that voice will make much more sense than text. It is convenient, faster and also safer, in most cases. Today, at least 20% of all mobile search queries on Google are done by voice, with predictions of it increasing to 50% by 2020. Other companies, such as Amazon, have also capitalized on this technological revolution to create products like Alexa.
Still, we are in the infancy stages of voice. As users, we’re still trying to figure it all out and get comfortable with it as a tool. In 2009, I remember thinking about how smartphones would scale to the public and become the only option for mobile devices. It was a natural progression to combine a cell phone and a computer and made life easier. I believe that this same thing is going to happen with voice and that we will see a shift over the next five years in which voice search will begin to take market share from mobile/desktop search.
How will this affect B2C marketing?
Fast forward to five years from now: It’s 2024, and if the majority of homes have at-home voice devices, we need to understand how it’s being used. The technology has had the ability to mature, and we should start to see a shift away from traditional desktop/mobile search in favor of voice. Consumers are now more comfortable placing grocery orders, buying shoes, ordering pizzas and sending rideshares all from their at-home or at-work voice devices.
Today, the majority of us do most of these things with our eyes. The brands we are loyal to are recognizable to us because we can see them when we go to do the research before purchasing. This will inevitably change with the adoption of voice, which will lead to another thing: the value that is now placed on brand awareness.
Moving forward, if you (as the brand) want your customers to order your pizza for family game night, they’d better know who your company is and what your brand stands for. As speed and convenience continue to reign supreme, I believe users will be less apt to navigate to search engines for a query like “pizza near me” and do the research on their own. Instead, I expect the buyer journey to be triggered by a query more like this: “Hey, [at-home device], order a large cheese pizza for home delivery.”
Even now, in the nascent stages of voice search, we in some ways are already seeing this pattern beginning to take shape. At this point, however, it’s only a handful of brands, such as Domino’s and Pizza Hut (if we’re sticking to the pizza example), joining the vanguard of those actively working to usher in this new era.
Where the mystery remains for the future is for generic non-brand actionable queries (such as the “order a cheese pizza” example) as this space begins to saturate and grow more prevalent among average users. What kinds of results will voice devices serve for these types of generic queries in a few years’ time? Which pizza shop will get that order? Is it the pizza shop that ranks closest to the device that is being triggered? Or is it based on our previous order history and personal preferences? Will it all still be contingent upon voice skill activation, or is it based on the company that offers the best “voice ad” bid for that query? Obviously, there are questions that are still to be determined.
What brands need to realize is that this technology is going to be powerful. When the use of voice is widely adopted, it will change the landscape of purchasing, researching, branding, marketing and more. If this self-proclamation of pattern recognition is accurate, we have time — some, but not much — to learn and pivot toward being ready for voice adoption. In the interim, keep testing your limits with voice technology, and learn how it can serve you in your everyday life and then be applied to your brand. If you ask Google Home something it can’t do just yet, it will tell you, “I don’t know how to answer that yet, but I’m always learning.” Me too, Google. Me too.