Voice activation is an untapped tool in promotional marketing. Since the first implementation of voice technology nearly a decade ago, VA tools have seen a huge rise in sales, like voice speakers Google Home or Amazon Alexa. The majority of smart speaker usage is for things like checking the weather, playing music, or asking a question. However, the amount of purchases made through voice speakers is on the rise. The 2019 U.S. Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption Report reported that “15% of U.S. smart speaker owners say they were making purchases by voice on a monthly basis at the end of 2018. That is up from 13.6% that were using voice for retail purchases at the beginning of the year” (https://voicebot.ai/). In addition to incentivizing purchases, brands and marketers can use voice activation to increase consumer engagement with their brand. Imagine having a consumer entered into a sweepstakes with each purchase via smart speaker. Or, giving consumers the chance to earn extra loyalty points for interacting with your brand on Alexa or Google Home. In this article, we will dive into the many ways voice activation could benefit your promotion, be it a sweepstakes, contest, loyalty program, or more.

Sweepstakes

When it comes to gamification, sweepstakes are king. Consumers run into this type of promotion everywhere, from large brands to small businesses. Despite that, sweepstakes have yet to break into VA. A voice-activated sweepstakes could take on many forms:

1. Consumers could use voice activation to learn about a sweepstakes (rules, prizes, etc.)

2. Interested fans can enter via voice activation (“Hey Google, enter me in the ‘Spring Cleaning Sweepstakes’”)

3. Sweepstakes entries could be rewarded after purchases are made with smart speakers

4. To increase voice awareness and participation, brands can use voice activation for additional entries (for example- enter on the microsite + enter from your smart speaker for extra chances to win each day)

5. Instead of visiting a microsite and entering an email (and sometimes more), fans can link their amazon or google accounts to the promotion so they will automatically have an account.

A voice-activated sweepstakes can generate excitement for your brand and also create a seamless interaction for your consumers.

Games

Instant win. Collect and win. Match and win. Peel and win. There are many types of promotional games, and this list is just a portion of them. As you can see, there is a big emphasis on winning. Typically, consumers have a chance to win with every purchase, so it creates an incentive for customers to buy because more purchases means more chances at winning. With VA, you can add on to that feeling by giving consumers extra chances to win when they use a smart speaker for purchases.

A lot of brands have seen success when they add additional ways for customers to participate in a game. Take for example, Raising Cane’s annual ‘Peel the Love’ instant win + collect and win game. Fans can find game pieces on cups with either: letters for the grand prize (collect and win), instant food prizes, codes for online instant win prizes, or codes for bonus plays on their augmented reality game. By playing the bonus augmented reality game, fans can have extra chances to win instant prizes with every bonus code. VA can serve the same purpose for consumers while also creating excitement for your promotion.

Contests

You might be wondering, “how could you possibly run a contest via voice activation?” The answer: you can’t. Or rather, you shouldn’t. Would it be cool? Heck yeah. Would anyone use it? Most likely no.

Like most promotional services, voice activation is not one-size-fits-all. It’s an amazing tool, but for the right type of promotion. Since contests include a component of skill (typically seen as a photo, video, or essay contest), there isn’t much reason to use voice activation with this type of promotion. Like with sweepstakes, you could include contest rules and prize information via voice activation. Outside of that, there isn’t much room for the application of smart speakers in a contest promotion. And at that point, why include voice activation in your contest at all?

Perhaps it’s best to keep contests and smart speakers separated… for now. However, with potential advancements in smart speakers and increased VA usage in the near future, running a contest with voice activation could be possible. Until then, there are still many ways you can combine voice activation and gamification in your promotional marketing strategy.

Loyalty Program

And that leads us to loyalty. Everywhere you look brands are coming out with a loyalty program of some kind. A lot of brands are looking for ways to create excitement about their program by introducing technologies, like augmented reality. This is where voice activation fits in. Not only will it create buzz for your loyalty program, but it can also get consumers excited about your brand. Consumers could interact with your loyalty program by:

1. Using voice to find out how many points they have (or how many points away they are from their next reward).

2. Daily voice check-ins for points. With each day’s voice check-in, brands could tell consumers about current discounts and offers

2. Receiving exclusive rewards for using voice activation. For example, “enable our rewards program skill on your Alexa for a 10% discount on your next purchase”

3. Making purchases with voice activation to receive exclusive rewards

…And that’s just to list a few.

Voice activation makes purchasing as seamless as possible. Give your consumers the incentive to purchase with their smart speakers by adding voice activation to your loyalty program.

Conclusion

The application of smart speakers in promotional marketing is an untapped market. The key to successfully implementing voice activation into your promotion is to provide value to your consumers. Give your consumers the incentive to make purchases with voice activation by rewarding them with a sweepstakes entry, game piece, or coupon. Contact MRi’s experts for more information on running a voice-activated promotion. With our effective four-step IDEA process, we can help brands Identify their promotions’ unique purpose, Develop an effective strategy, Execute with efficiency and security, and Analyze the data with our real-time reporting tool.