Voice technology has become a part of our daily lives and will continue to integrate further into our routines with the goal to help us be efficient, find relevant information and control settings in our homes or business. Google Home and Amazon Echo are the most popular voice technology smart speakers among consumers. In this blog, I am going to show you recent sales data and discuss Google ‘actions’ that your brand could be leveraging.
“Chuck, do more people have a Google Home or Amazon Alexa?” This has been a frequent question I have gotten throughout 2018. The truth is, more people had an Alexa device when voice technology started to become common – but in 2018, the gap between Amazon and Google seems to be getting smaller. Take a look at the chart below:
Source: https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/amazon-reclaims-top-spot-in-smart-speaker-market-in-q3-2018
The year over year growth for Google is much greater, suggesting a shift in consumer purchasing behavior. Google has spent a large chunk of advertising budget on pushing the Google Home and having strategic partnerships with large retailers – so let’s assume a good marketing campaign is one reason why Google Home has seen higher growth than Amazon Alexa.
Another reason why Google Home has become increasingly popular could be the integration it allows with the rest of your Google or Android technologies. Building tech products that allow consumers to link to other products they use every day is certainly a plus. With Google Home, integration with your mobile phone, home speakers, smart watch, laptop, smart TV and vehicle are all possible. Furthermore, things like notes, calendars, emails and reminders are also then all synced – so no matter where you are, your Google Assistant will always know what you are asking or searching for.
If you have an Amazon Echo, you are probably familiar with the Amazon ‘skills’ that developers can build and then have consumers download. Google has developed ‘actions’ that work in a similar capacity, but instead of having a developer build the action first – Google uses their technology to crawl the web and creates actions for your business that you can claim. For example if your company sells cooking products online, Google could have created actions that tell users about recipes. If you own a gym, Google could have created an action that gives users your daily workout routine. The actions cross many verticals and they are intended to give users access to popular inquiries they may have searched for anyway. In order to see your current Google actions, here is a link to how you can claim your page: https://developers.google.com/actions/claim/
The recent rise in Google Home sales and their more user-friendly approach for actions, does not mean Amazon Echo will eventually fade away. More importantly it means you should develop a marketing strategy around voice search technology for your brand. Reminding your audience that your brand offers Google actions and/or Amazon skills is a useful resource and will further indicate your brand is adapting with new technology.