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Voice Search: What Small Business Owner’s and Marketers Need to Know
We have a voice. You have a voice. Everyone has a voice. Heck, robots have voices. So do cats, dogs, and elephants. And for that reason, we’re heavily intrigued by the growth of voice search.
Ready for a mad stat? Bright Local said, “53% of people are using voice search daily to find information on local business” Need another? Alrighty, we’ll indulge you a little more, “50% of searches will be voice-based by 2020.”
DuctTape Marketing is talkin’ need-to-know’s to add voice to your text-based strategy.
Get your pencils out, here’s how to take action:
- (5:20) Google My Business. Take advantage of new features like book listing and Google posts to build loyalty and highlight your niche.
- (6:10) Featured Snippet. Google’s way of keeping consumers on the search results page. For example, if you google, “social media marketing plan,” you’ll see an informational summary by DuctTape Marketing. 70% of the information given through voice search comes from Featured Snippets.
- (6:50) Map results. “Hey Google, show me where to find the best coffee near work.” Voice search will most likely show you the top three listings given by Google Maps.
- (7:10) Site Speed. If your loading speed is slower than molasses, then voice won’t give you the time of day. This is solely due to the user experience aspect.
- (7:25) According to Backlinko, “70.4% of Google Home result pages were secured with an https or SSL certificate.” Businesses need to make sure their site is secure because Google will warn consumers otherwise.
- (8:15) Reputation matters with voice search. Think reviews and ratings. Local media mentions are currently underrated for some reason but deserve attention. As well as social signals.
- (8:50) How to get in the Featured Snippet. Competition is real in this space. Aim low. Brainstorm low-intent terms that don’t have a featured snippet today and write a list or answer based blog that gets at the intent. Tool to use: Answer the Public.
- (10:10) Create content that calls out the search term more specifically. Better yet, do things better. If you see that a featured snippet has pulled an answer that isn’t correct or could be more accurate, act on this!
- (13:15) Using existing content. Blog articles that have already ranked highly for you can be repurposed to make it more relevant for voice search.
It’s due diligence time fam, listen to this one.
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10 Ways to Get More Survey Respondents
We’re huuuuuuge fans of surveys. We use them for internal marketing initiatives and to develop our client’s personas, brands, websites, marketing campaigns, basically everything.
A good survey will take your gut feelings and turn them into data. It’ll also help you uncover things about your audience that might not be obvious to you.
So much love for surveys. But time and time again, we always hear the question, “Surveys sound great, but how the heck do we get people to actually respond to them?”
That’s the challenge, and we’ve got 10 ideas to help you get over that challenge today.
- Remove up-front friction. Don’t ask for emails, names, phone numbers, or anything before the participants start the survey.
- Find one (or more) distribution partners. Partnering with a company who has a bigger audience than you is always a great idea. Offer to do all the hard work of data collection and analysis, all they have to do is promote your survey to their audience.
- Offer respondents a resource in exchange for completing the survey. Yeah, you could offer a gift card, but surprisingly that’s not the best option. If you create a killer toolkit, or some sort of helpful resource, which relates to your survey, it’ll definitely get conversions.
- Record a short video asking for participation. We all know how important video is on all social platforms. This is such a simple idea, but people usually overlook it.
- Get personal. Hit people up directly on social media and through email. Rather than blasting messages, DM the people you want to get some insight from. This can be a little time consuming, but its worth it.
- Proactively ask people to be quoted in your research. People love being quoted. Build your survey in a way that includes quotes from important people in your industry. Then, reach out to those people and tell them that you included them in the survey, and would they be willing to share it with their audience (credit goes to Andy Crestodina for this idea).
That’s only 6. There’s still a few we couldn’t fit in here…
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Handcrafted
Don’t call it a comeback. We’ve been here for years…
No, not the daily carnage. We’re only a year old babies. We’re talking handcrafted products. Authentic, handmade products have been around since cavemen figured out how to start a fire. Well, it could’ve been sooner. We don’t know for sure.
We do know that handmade items are in.
The issue is most handmade items can get overshadowed by the big players. When competing against giant industries, you really have one option. Do it better. Waveknit by Mizuno is taking on the shoe industry. Completely made of thread, Mizuno analyzed maps and running track of the three most important cities that host major running events in Brazil and incorporated those tracks into the shoe.
It’s a pretty interesting concept with a well put together ad campaign. Every marathon has the signature shirt, metal and tons of sponsor gifts. But, wouldn’t it be cool if marathon runners were able to have a shoe that literally had a section of the running course on it.
Check out the shoe for yourself!
“I’d rather spend money on things that improve the customer experience than on marketing.”
Tony Hsieh
