7 Powerful Stats About Voice Technology & #VoiceFirst Marketing

Last week my smart friend Michelle Excell from The Antipodean (and my cofounder at quartet.agency) asked me for some stats about voice.

Michelle is not the only one who’s asked. So let’s all share. Here are the top stats about the power and rapid growth of voice technology, voice search, and #voicefirst marketing.

Voice Marketing Stats for 2019:

Smart speakers are the fastest growing consumer technology of all time, reaching 50% of U.S. population in under five years.

1.  Smart speakers are the fastest growing consumer technology since the smartphone (above - this is the popular chart from The Alexa Conference - see my top takeaways here).

2. In 2018, voice purchases increased 3x on Alexa compared to the 2017 holiday season.

3. Typing is very slow compared to what our brains can process through speaking and listening. 

   1. The average person speaks 110-130 WPM (words per minute). 

   2. However, we have the mental capacity to understand someone speaking at 400 words per minute (if that were possible). 

   3. We only type 38-40 WPM. Think about the implications for voice search:

4. Voice searches will account for 30-50% of all searches by 2020. (Gartner predicts 30%, Comscore predicts 50%).

5. Two stats from my most recent podcast focusing on Alexa in-skill purchasing (ISP) and high conversion rates inside skills for purchases with voice:

   1. Early results show that voice skills have higher conversion rates for purchasing than any standard website or mobile experience. E.g.: Two skills with very high conversion rates for upsell to premium version (34-50%): Big Sky (weather) and Escape the Airplane (game). -voicebot.ai, 1/24/2019

   2. Voice in the car - huge opportunity: twice as many U.S. adults have used voice in the car compared to smart speakers and monthly active users are 60% higher. 

6. 75% of smart speaker users interact with their speaker daily.

7. Ownership rates for smart speakers are nearly equivalent among people 25, 35, 45, or 55 years old. -Edison Research, The Smart Audio Report - 7/18/2018

Amazon Echo First Generation. Photo by Loewe Technologies on Unsplash.

Want more information about voice? Great resources:

• voicebot.ai - the most comprehensive and updated voice stats and news

• The Smart Audio Report from Edison Research and NPR, Spring 2018. (Sample: based upon a national online survey of 909 Americans ages 18+ who indicated that they owned at least one smart speaker)

• This Week in Voice Podcast - Bradley Metrock’s show, part of the VoiceFirst.FM podcast network. Bradley and a rotating panel of voice technology experts discuss weekly news relating to voice technology. Get it on iTunes.

• Daily news: I talk about voice marketing on The Daily Beetle Moment (daily under three minutes on Alexa Flash Briefing and Google Home)

• I have guests on my weekly podcast about marketing, usually focusing on voice: Beetle Moment Marketing Podcast (on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify)

Alexa Conference 2019: Live Stream, Takeaways, and Most Requested Chart about Smart Speakers

The Alexa Conference just wrapped. Get top takeaways, Emily’s short livestream interview with VoiceFirst.FM, and the most popular chart of the conference.

Smart Speaker Penetration - Most Powerful Chart

Several people have asked me for this chart from my presentation, How to Crawl into Your Customer’s Ear - The Alexa Conference 2019. Bret Kinsella’s opening keynote included it too, as did a few others. I did not create the chart but I’m sharing it from the publicly available Activate Tech and Media Outlook 2018 Slideshare. If you need to convince your boss that voice is a thing, send them this:

Smart speakers are the fastest growing consumer technology of all time, forecasted in 2018 to reach nearly 50% penetration in the U.S. in less than five years. This chart is tracking to be an accurate prediction. Chart courtesy of Activate, U.S. Census Bureau, World Bank.

Livestream - Emily Binder interview with Ian Utile for VoiceFirst.FM

Click to watch (01:39 minutes) or press play below:

Best takeaways from The Alexa Conference 2019:

#AlexaConf2019

Tweet from Brian Roemmele about my best voice marketing advice: you need a sonic brand ASAP.

Katie McMahon from SoundHound shared some great info about the power of Houndify and the connected car.

Our friends from Nebo Agency came up from Atlanta. Read Founder Brian Easter’s article: The Next Disruption: Voice Tech and the Buyer Journey

“When we have diverse tech teams, racial profiling and gender bias won’t even make it to production.” -Kesha Williams, Senior Software Manager, Chik-Fil-A (overall keynote speaker)

Brielle Nickoloff with Witlingo gets it: we have a pristine, quiet place with voice right now - so take advantage with marketing your brand early. It will get crowded like the bloody red sea that is the rest of the internet - fast. Brielle and I did a live audio Castlingo from the conference - enable the Emily Talks skill then say “Alexa, launch Emily Talks” to hear it.

Jen Lehner shared one of my favorite pieces of content via Brian Roemmele: David Bowie predicting the future in 1999. Powerful.

Notice that Alexa (Echo) isn’t the center of this photo. It’s in the upper corner. Peripheral. That’s where we’re headed: ubiquity of voice assistants. (My reflection on this slide from Paul Cutsinger of Amazon at The Alexa Conference 2019 - Chattanooga, TN).

#VoiceFirst Community and Thank You

It was great meeting so many of the smart, forward-thinking people who make up the #voicefirst community. It is one of the most exciting, supportive, diverse, and pro-women communities in tech. Thank you to Bradley Metrock, Peggy Kilburn, and the VoiceFirst.FM and Score Publishing teams for putting this event together. See you soon!

Keep Listening - Short Voice Marketing Shows to Enjoy:

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