SylvainIntroduction
If you want to stand out from your competition in 2022 and increase your sales, voice can be a way to manage that!
We will go through:
- The fundamentals
- 7 voice commerce benefits you will notice straight away
- 8 important secrets you need to consider to excel in voice commerce
- Some actionable tips to have a powerful voice commerce strategy.
We will also look at how voice can benefit your local stores.
So, if you want to learn about voice commerce and implement it into your business, you’re at the right place.
Let’s dive in!
Voice commerce fundamentals
This first chapter will give you a good understanding of the voice commerce fundamentals.
If you’re new to voice commerce (don’t worry most people are) you will enjoy reading this chapter, and if you’re more advanced, a fresh look at the basics never hurts.
In later chapters we will get deeper into the benefits of voice, the things you need to consider when doing voice commerce as well as actionable tips to start your own voice strategy.
What is voice commerce?
Voice commerce is the practice of purchasing products (shoes) or services (martial art training sessions) by only using your voice on the Internet.
Currently, the major actors in the voice commerce industry are Google, Amazon, Apple and Vocads (soon as big as the four previous 😉 ).
You are selling products by having a natural and normal conversation with your clients.
How does voice commerce work?
Voice commerce relies on artificial intelligence with sophisticated speech-to-text and deep learning technologies.
But let’s be less technical!
Concretely, these AI technologies can take several forms (as a customer):
- Smart speaker (Amazon Alexa, Google Home Assistant)
- Phones (Siri)
- Websites, apps (Vocads – no code so easy to implement)
Teams at companies like “Say it now” or “Bespoken” help businesses build voice commerce apps on Alexa, Google Assistant and more
Other companies such as Slang labs (a low-code tool mainly focusing on the Indian market) or Alan can also help you implement voice on your e-commerce app.
Let’s look at an example of a voice commerce conversation:
Why is voice commerce important?
Ok so here we will have a look at a few numbers and trust me they will blow your mind!
Between 2018 and 2021, voice commerce, which is already a multibillion-dollar industry, has grown 120% (voicebot.ai)
According to Juniper Research, Voice commerce (“purchase by voice”) should reach 80 billion dollars by 2022.
47% of customers are open to personalized offers from bots.
You might wonder what these numbers mean?
It’s not that people aren’t ready for voice commerce. It’s that they haven’t yet found the tool that they would understand easily and that will convince them to get into voice commerce.
Once this exists these numbers could grow exponentially.
That’s why you need to start today and be already on the market when technologies such as Vocads become common usage.
How can voice commerce make your business grow?
Integrating voice shopping will not only make your business grow in the short term but massively blow in the long run.
According to Voicebot ai, consumer interest in voice shopping has been multiplied by 2.5 between 2018 and 2021.
By having a natural and normal conversation with your clients, they get a chance to tell you exactly what they are looking for so you can provide them with what they want.
This way you don’t disappoint your clients because you know what they need.
Voice is key as it is today the best way to have valuable feedback from a large number of people in a flexible way and at low costs!
7 Voice commerce benefits you will notice right away
Now that you know the fundamentals let’s get to the interesting parts: the benefits.
If there were no benefits, I wouldn’t have been writing this article and Vocads wouldn’t exist.
There are countless benefits to adding voice to your business and the good thing is it doesn’t have any downsides.
For you, I gathered what I consider the 6 main benefits of voice commerce that will help your business right away.
Speed accuracy and availability
It’s always faster to buy something by voice as we speak 5 times faster than we write text.
When you request something by voice as it’s more natural you tend to give more words which makes the requests more accurate. Often when you type you are lazy and you don’t write enough keywords for the research to be accurate.
This makes the whole buying process more fluid as you don’t need to bend your back and type. You can sit comfortably on the back of your sofa and speak.
And here you go the product is on its way to your house!
Another good thing about voice commerce is that it’s available everywhere!
You just need a device (laptop, smart speaker, phone) and if it has a microphone and an internet connection, you can make purchases from anywhere. Also, voice can be a fantastic solution for visually impaired and blind people. Adding this extra layer will enable you to be more inclusive.
This makes voice shopping more convenient as you can order from anywhere while doing something else.
Personalized experience and data
As I mentioned earlier, people want to get a personalized experience from bots, but they don’t want to give out data, that’s understandable.
So how can you provide a personalized experience by talking as little data as possible?
Well, you only get the data that matters.
You don’t need phone numbers, addresses or full names of people to sell them what they want.
As soon as a user has created an account with, let’s say, a pseudonym and password (because that’s the only thing that you need in the end), all you need to do is listen to them and the only data that you need is their request.
Vocads enables you to do that, the report panel algorithm only records data when the microphone icon is green and the client is speaking which means that you will be able to. This way, you’ll provide a personalized and ethical experience respecting your consumer’s privacy.
Push the right product for the right person
Nowadays, you see visual ads everywhere from small social media inserts to massive billboards passing by the more standard magazines and television.
People are now used to visual advertising which makes them less sensitive to it.
One good thing with voice is that you push a product in front of the customer’s attention in a way they are not that used to.
This increases the likelihood of the customer being aware of the product.
That’s why it’s key for you to push the right products to the right customer.
Vocads gives you the possibility to adopt an approach where you understand what the consumer wants by listening to the conversations they have with the AI and push the product they want to see.
This way it’s easier for the customer to find what they want.
Engagement, conversion and loyalty
Using voice commerce will increase your engagement as your prospects and clients will search for products and services through natural conversation with your AI.
They will embark on a smooth browsing journey without any hassle or any issues!
It will increase your conversion as it can transform your prospects into clients during a smooth conversation. You can lead your users into funnels and integrate adding to cart, upsells, promotions, advertising and more during the journey!
Finally, voice will help increase brand loyalty with your clients! Through voice surveys and different other voice interactions, you will get to know what your clients want and you will be able to provide it to them.
This will make clients want to come back to you as they will be more accurately guided by voice with a personalized experience.
It’s still new!
Trends and numbers are showing that voice will be everywhere in a few years.
It’s not a matter of whether you will need to implement voice in your business, but when you will do it.
Believe me here: the earlier the better.
By being an early adopter, you will be one step ahead of your competitors.
This will not only give you a boost in the short term but will make you more stable in the long run as customers will know that, if they want to use voice to buy something, they can do it on your website.
Money
All businesses are trying to find ways to make more money!
Well, I have good news for you if you’re reading this article!
There is no better method for it than voice!
And you don’t need to be an international singer to make money with voice (even though it’s a good way I agree).
Adding voice to your business can be lucrative as you will know your clients better. Combining this with a natural UX will lead to higher conversion rates and therefore higher profits.
It’s an additional feature that will make you different from your competitors
It is way easier to implement than you think
One thing that has pushed people away from voice technology is that they think it’s hard to implement.
Voice technology used to require development, integration and maintenance.
But not any more thanks to Vocads!
With Vocads you can implement voice on your website and have it running in half an hour by using a drag and drop interface!
No code is required, so if you are interested, feel free to ask us for a demo.
8 secrets to excel in voice commerce
Now that you know about the benefits let’s explore what you need to consider to excel in voice commerce.
In this chapter, we will look at different things you should take into account if you want to be successful in voice commerce.
Taking all these factors into account will give you an advantage against your competitors.
You might already have considered some but believe me, there are always some extra tips you can find!
Let’s dive right in!
Voice SEO (VSEO)
Classical SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is necessary for Google as it will determine where Google ranks your product, article or website.
The thing is, with voice, the device can only suggest one article at a time when on google you will be able to visualize the first ten results at the same time.
What does that change?
Yours must be the first result for the specific keyword you are trying to rank for to be suggested by the device.
But there is some good news!
On Google, most of the pages are optimized for short-tail keywords as, when we search for something, we type as few words as possible.
When we conduct a voice search, we always use longer sentences so think about this if you want your products to appear in voice searches.
For example, if we want to know the weather in New York we will write “weather New York” but we would say “what is the weather in New York today?”
Your customers
People tend to be more likely to make purchases by voice when they already bought the product before.
This is because when they haven’t bought a product yet, they want to know more about it before buying it.
This doesn’t mean you can’t sell products they haven’t bought yet!
You just need to bring awareness about them before and a good way of doing it is by voice.
To excel in voice commerce, you need to give your customer a personalized experience.
You can do this by suggesting the consumer to repurchase something, or by bringing attention to a product they might want to buy or which you want to push.
Intention
When you’re doing voice commerce you need to think about the intention behind a user request.
When you are responding to the user you need to figure out whether
- The user wants information (know more about a product)
- The user wants to do something (make a purchase, reserve tickets, sign up for a newsletter)
Focusing on this will make sure you don’t get your customers confused by providing the wrong service when they expect something different.
Voice marketing
Think about who you are talking to!
For voice shopping you will 95% of the time be doing B2C. But if you’re selling to another business you might want to have a different approach
This means you need to think about your buyer persona. It will be different according to each product so targeting your customer properly for each of your products is key.
Voice enables lots of different new marketing opportunities to increase your sales.
We wrote a complete guide on voice marketing that will help you create efficient voice marketing campaigns. Go check it out!
Copywriting for voice commerce
In some ways copywriting for voice commerce is similar but not always, it’s going to depend on what you are selling!
Let me explain:
When selling a product such as a phone charger for example, you will want the audio to be less descriptive than what you wrote for your product description.
If someone is ordering a phone charger by their voice they already know what they want and they will want the process to be fast and efficient.
For example, your voice message should not list all the technical functions of the charger!
You don’t want the voice device to read the description you wrote as loud.
Sometimes it’s useful to have both:
- The technical product description (written)
- Additional key information (voice)
If you are trying to raise awareness about a product and want to convince them to buy them, then the process is different.
The same way you will do normal copywriting, here you will need to build a need by calling the customer’s feelings (e.g. “pressing on pain points” and “painting the dream”) followed by an actual detailed description of the product to reassure them about what they are about to buy.
You want to be insisting on emotions, use adjectives and involve the user as much as possible.
So, pay attention when preparing your voice commerce copywriting.
So there are a few questions you need to ask yourself when doing voice copywriting:
- In which circumstances the prospect is buying? (replacing an item or purchasing something new).
- Am I trying to convince him to buy or is it the kind of product he buys on a regular basis?
- How much does the product matter to him? (product that matters will need the second type of copywriting).
By implementing Vocads your clients will be able to read the product description and hear additional information at the same time.
Safety (payment by voice) multiplication of payment
One of the things that concern people with voice technology is security.
While most people are comfortable when asking questions about a product, they get more reluctant when it comes to paying with their voice.
People are worried about making their first purchase but when they purchase by voice once they are likely to do it again. Technology is constantly improving to avoid scams and voice biometrics could be the next technology to be democratized to secure voice payment even more.
Companies such as Phonexia or Whispeak are leaders in that industry.
Be consistent in your messages across all platforms
Voice commerce strategy has to be a part of your overall strategy to stay consistent across all platforms.
I am not saying that you should say the exact thing that is written on your website or social media account!
you need to turn it into something that you could be saying but the main message has to be the same otherwise this inconsistency could damage your brand image.
All I am saying is that you should not reinvent the wheel because its voice.
You have to modify it, don’t get me wrong but not completely.
Use no code to be flexible and efficient
You might think it’s difficult to bring voice into your business!
Well, don’t be pessimistic, it’s not!
You don’t even need to know how to code!
With Vocads drag and drop interface you can have a campaign running on your website in less than 20 minutes.
You can modify it as often as you want and update it live on your website.
This ensures flexibility and efficiency!
4 actionable tips to make a good voice commerce strategy.
Now that you know what is necessary to excel in voice commerce let’s look at a few actionable tips that will help plan your voice commerce strategy.
If you want to see additional tips you can look up our voice marketing article which gives you more details on how to create a voice marketing campaign to increase your sales.
Even though sometimes the border between these two concepts is blurry as they complement each other, for now, let’s focus on voice commerce.
Voice, from first to last interaction
First thing’s first, I always recommend, in a voice strategy to put in as much voice as possible and as little non-voice action as possible.
When someone wants to make a purchase and starts using voice, that means they don’t want to sit down and type something on his device.
That’s why when it’s possible I suggest you always put voice from the first to the last interaction.
This will improve the customer journey as they won’t have any trouble making their purchase by going back and forth between typing on his device and speaking to his device.
Stand out by your visuals in a voice commerce campaign
Often when we think voice, we think that everything has to be done only with audio.
That’s not the case!
You can easily combine audio and images or video while audio is still being your main focus.
You will already stand out by using voice while your competitors are still waiting for the next train at the station. But if someone is in the same train as you, you must go in the front wagon.
By this I mean you can stand out by having amazing visuals next to your voice campaign (on your website for example).
Interactive, short, efficient: time time time!!
No one cares if your voice assistant is making long beautiful sentences to talk about your company, one of your services or your products.
When people use voice, they are looking for speed and efficiency otherwise they will be exploring all the options you have on your website and will be taking their time without activating the voice bot willing to make their opinion on their own.
So be short, efficient and choose the right words to not get your customer confused: they want to save time.
Make your campaign interactive to ensure the customer is guided the right way. This will also make your campaign livelier and will give you a better insight into the customer so you can provide them with what they want.
Work on your CTA (call to action)
A good thing about voice CTAs is that they have the potential to be way more powerful than written ones.
It’s as if when your prospect has finished reading your sales page you could give them a voice message.
That would be amazing right?
I’m sure that you dreamed of being able to come out of the screen to talk to a prospect when they are on your website hesitant whether to buy your product or not.
Well with the voice you are one step closer to this as you will be able to customize a voice message for any client arriving on your sales page.
Pretty awesome when you think about it this way!
On top of that, you will be able to ask your prospects for suggestions when they are hesitating and improve your page for the next customer.
Yes, I know It’s great!
And the good news is that you can have this running today with Vocads.
In-store voice commerce
We talked a lot about voice commerce online but what about in-store voice assistance. Walmart, in particular, is looking closely at voice commerce
Surely there is space for improvement in that sector and I could think of three main benefits, but they are plenty more.
Let’s take a look at these three.
Guidance
If you tell me that you never struggled to find a product in the supermarket well, I wouldn’t believe you.
Voice could help you locate a product in a supermarket without needing to ask a physical person. You could just ask a screen “where is the cheese?” and the AI would be able to tell you where to go.
Availability
You could also ask the AI whether X or Y products are available in the supermarket, so you don’t have to walk around for 20 minutes for a product that has already been sold out.
Recommendation
Another thing you could ask by voice would be “what are the cheapest tomatoes that you have?” or “which brand of toothpaste would you advise me to buy?”. That way customers could save money and time thanks to a technology that suggests what product is best for them.
Start today
Voice is easy to implement with the powerful tools that are available today.
You could have voice running on your website in a few minutes and completely customized according to what you want by using Vocads.
You will only need to use a no-code drag and drop menu to easily create a voice campaign on your website.
If you are interested just ask for a demo today!
Conclusion
Now I want to hear from YOU!
Are you going to implement voice commerce into your company strategy?
If yes, congratulations you’re part of the early adopters.
If not, what is voice commerce missing today to be valuable according to you?
Anyway, share your opinion in the comments!
Also, be generous, you might know someone interested in implementing voice commerce!
Share this article on your social media!