NEW STUDY: SMB Marketers Believe Amazon’s Alexa Marketing Potential; Are Cautiously Waiting for Voice Technology to Hit Its Stride

Uberall has just released a compelling new study that explores how small- and medium-sized business (SMB) marketers are looking at and using emerging interactive voice technology. The study found that SMB marketers, overall, are optimistic about voice marketing—expecting and seemingly preparing for the technology to take off—but they are still waiting for a clear ROI to emerge before they invest deeply.

Anyone who uses a smartphone or a home assistant is familiar with voice technology such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Microsoft Cortana and Apple Siri. These emerging tools have given consumers two-way engagement with the online and mobile technology they use every day. We use them to organize our lives, run our homes, buy online goods and also—more and more frequently, to shop in our neighborhoods.

For the study, Uberall commissioned a survey of 300 SMB marketers throughout the U.S. Here are some highlights from what we found:

Almost half of SMB marketers think Amazon Alexa has the most marketing potential

When we asked which mainstream voice assistant SMB marketers think has the greatest marketing potential the results heavily favored Amazon’s Alexa. Nearly half of respondents (48%) believe Alexa will be most useful for marketers, with Google Assistant (29%) in second place.

Voice isn’t a major part of most SMB marketing budgets — but it is growing

When SMB marketers were asked how their organization’s marketing budget for interactive voice channels is changing, more than one-third (35%) said they are increasing their investment in voice. 38% of SMB marketers polled said they don’t currently do anything at all with voice marketing.

More than three-quarters of SMB marketers believe interactive voice marketing is valuable

The majority of SMB marketers polled believe there is value in interactive voice marketing for their organization. Nearly a quarter (24%) think it is “very valuable,” while another quarter (25%) think it’s “somewhat valuable,” and 28% think it’s “slightly valuable.”

More than half of SMB marketers would invest in voice if they had better insight into ROI

When we asked what factors might make their organizations invest more in interactive voice marketing, respondents made it clear that additional information could tip the scales. The top two answers were “better insights into campaign success and ROI” and “more data for campaign targeting and personalization.”

40% of SMB marketers want control over their interactive voice content

When asked who should be in charge of developing content for interactive voice channels, 40% of respondents told us they should be controlling content, in-house.

Learn more about this study, along with more detail and analysis on these findings by reading the full report.