What Marketers should prepare for when the usage of smart speaker devices overtakes the mobile and the internet becomes Voice first.

1. MAY 2Shashi4TH 2017Shash
marketing@surefirelocal.com
GIVING MARKETING A VOICE
10 steps for marketing with voice assistants
Shashi Bellamkonda
CMO Surefire Local &
Adjunct Prof. Georgetown University

2. Computing Waves Signal A New Era
Websites Mobile/Apps
AI &
Conversation
Agents
Desktop
Browser Smartphone
Voice
Assistants
1989-------> 2007--------> 2016-------->

3. AI is already here
Artificial intelligence is already happening all
around us
55% of CMOs expect AI to have a “greater
impact on marketing and communications
than social media ever had”.*
*Source: AI-Ready or Not: Artificial Intelligence Here We Come! Weber Shandwick & KRC Research 2016
3SurefireLocal.com

4. Google Has A.I. Across Products
Search
Search ranking
Speech recognition
Gmail
Smart Reply
Spam classification
Photos
Photos search
Translate
Text, graphic, and
speech translations
Android
Keyboard & speech input
Drive
Intelligence in Apps
YouTube
Video recommendations
Better thumbnails
Cardboard
Smart stitching
Play
App recommendations
Game developer experience
Ads
Richer Text Ads
Automated Bidding
Chrome
Search by Image
Maps
Street View image
Parsing Local Search
4SurefireLocal.com

5. Voice Era
● Smart Speakers creating demand for Voice Content
○ Always listening
○ Intelligent Conversation
○ High-fidelity audio
● Consumers want the convenience, intimacy,
and discoverability of Voice Content

6. 67% of US Population
will use Voice
Assistants by 2019
35.6 million
Americans will use a
voice-activated
assistant device at
least once a month in
2017
Google- Almost 70
percent of requests
to the Assistant are
expressed in natural
language, not the
typical keywords
people type in a web
search

7. SurefireLocal.com 7
● Everywhere you need help, there’ll be a
voice assistant
● Not just search transactions
● Knows your location
● Has Android/Smartphone Pay
● History of your actions
On Demand Assistance Through Conversation Assistants

8. Amazon Leading in Voice-Enabled Speakers
● Amazon ahead in
devices
● Google ahead in
Machine Learning,
voice queries
● Google introducing
Assistants in all
devices including iOS,
Android

9. SurefireLocal.com 9
● Need to enable Skill
● Alexa is better at transactions but not at
search, has a persona
● Good for voice commerce
● Amazon Strategy is to win with device
strategy -
○ Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Look,
Echo Show
Alexa Skills

10. SurefireLocal.com
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2. Google’s strength in search,
geographical information, image
recognition and natural language
processing
Google Shifts from Mobile First to A.I. First
1. A.I. first world, digital assistants
follow you from device-to-device,
phone, computer, watch, or living
room speaker.

11. Marketing: Learning from A.I./ML and
Voice Interactions
● Discover - Predict quality of your leads
● Experience - Design your process to sale
● Recommend - Customize your products
● Automate - Lead management, communication
● Content for Voice search
11SurefireLocal.com

12. SurefireLocal.com 12
● Fragmentation Challenge:
○ Develop
■ Google Conversation Action
■ Alexa skill
■ Siri ...
■ Cortana and Bixby
● Lack of Publicly available voice query data
● No unified analytics
Challenges today for Marketers

13. 10 Point Strategy for
Marketers

14. SurefireLocal.com 14
1.Start Building Structured Data
● Location: Proximity to Search
● Reputation: Google’s A.I. learning on
Consumer-Business interaction and how
“good’ the business is
● Presence: User needs vs. Information
about the business

15. SurefireLocal.com 15
● The voice era is already disrupting the
connection between brands and
consumers
● Connecting with consumers simply and
conveniently by voice and owning a
“name space” will be even more
important than web SEO.
2. Own the name space

16. SurefireLocal.com 16
● Voice Content Connects with Consumers
○ Presence with on-brand messaging
○ Differentiate with Voice Persona™
○ Intelligence to engage
○ Discoverability – Voice SEO & Voice Media
● Opportunity: Connect Direct with Consumers with
Skills and Actions
● Urgency: Act NOW to create a presence for your
brand.
3. Setup Voice Content Best Practices

17. 4. Build a Voice Map
Talk to
Insurance

18. 5. Measure Customer Journey Across All Channels
ThinkWithGoogle 18SurefireLocal.com

19. 6. Collect Data on Stages along the
customer journey across channels
Post
PurchasePurchaseEvaluation
Fact
Finding
Idea
Exploration
Source: Mapping customer journeys in multichannel decision-making
Wolny, Julia; Charoensuksai, Nipawan. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 19SurefireLocal.com

20. 7. Get First Mover Advantage - Voice Space
Structured Data & Analytics
● Customers intent
● Devices they are using
● Frame of mind before choosing a product
● Machine learning over time to find best route to
choosing products
● Reduce or remove unnecessary steps

21. SurefireLocal.com 21
Cross Platform Voice Engine
● Design and prototype a Voice Persona
● Integrate, test and deploy
Supplement A.I. with continuous enhancements
● Natural Language Training & Cross platform hosting
● Voice SEO
● Diagnostics
● Voice Ads
8. Deploy A Voice App Platform

22. 9. Set the Right Expectations
● Voice vs. Web search results different
○ Voice is one chance to engage
● Still learning and developing at a rapid
pace
● Too early to measure ROI to leads

23. SurefireLocal.com 23
10. Integrate A.I. & Voice Platform Into Existing
Marketing
CRM & STRUCTURED DATA PLATFORM
VOICE APP PLATFORM
Amazon Echo -
AI
Structured
Data
Actions By Google Cortana by Microsoft Siri by Apple
Analytics,
Voice SEO

24. Questions?
Download this presentation from
Surefirelocal.com/dsdc17

25. Thank you
Let’s Connect
Share your marketing story
with me:
shashi@surefirelocal.com