Oz Marketers Not Ready For Voice Assistants

Latest research reveals Aussie marketers are ill-prepared for the rise of voice assistants, despite growing demand for smart home devices.

Reported by Mumbrella, the news follows a survey by The Works and the University of Technology, involving 2,000 respondents.

Though voice-enabled technology has grown in consumer adoption, around 91% admit they have concerns using it.

Over a third worry about being hacked, with another third concerned about their conversations being recorded.

While Aussie marketers have invested heavily in SEO, Douglas Nicol, Creative Partner at The Works asserts smart voice assistants pose significant new challenges.

“With voice, users are only typically getting just one answer to their query, which means having a coherent and robust voice search optimisation (VSO) strategy will become more important than ever,” he reportedly said at Mumbrella360 this morning.

“While some larger organisations are now actively building capabilities in this area, the majority are not and this has the potential to impact on future revenue growth.”

Mr Nicol claims “human voice interfaces” are “here to stay”, with marketing and advertising strategies inevitably affected.

He affirms a “coherent and robust” voice search optimisation (VSO) strategy is now more important than ever.

The survey reveals most consumers want voice assistants to ask news and entertainment queries.

Around 2.9 million Australians reportedly own a smart speaker, with 56% owning a Google smart device.