VOICE ASSISTANT INDUSTRY CONTENT MARKETING PROGRAM
Building awareness and favorability with a content marketing program
Challenge
As a digital media writer and product developer wanting to stay on top of the rapidly-progressing voice space, I wanted to create a vehicle to showcase my writing abilities and provide a deep immersion into voice technology. Voice assistants were one of the fastest-growing media channels to emerge in years.
Discovery
In selecting a format, content marketing had experienced strong growth for the past decade. The lasting impact of content would also serve as a good foundational to build future efforts on. And while much of my past content marketing was focused on conference speaking and trade publication writing, the tight relationship between the voice industry and audio content made podcasting stand out.
Surveying the competitive podcasting landscape, the voice industry already had a number of excellent conversational podcasts. In addition, a more writing-focused approach would better reinforce the skills I was hoping to bring to the industry.
Solution
Homie & Lexy is the tactic I employed for establishing a creative presence in the voice industry.
The concept is about two voicebots. One a Google Home and the other an Amazon Alexa. Both live in the same house. When their owners step out, the voicebots conspire on how to deal with the human world around them.
Its short form sketch comedy, with each episode running about 2 minutes long.
Several things needed to happen. For one, I wanted to use synthetic speech, as it represented a large portion of voice app content. Furthermore, synthetic speech seemed appropriate for representing the AI component in the industry.
For the synthetic speech, I chose to use Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) to learn how to wrangle more emotional content out of the technology.
A major requirement was to generate enough personality distance between the two characters. Not only so the listener could differentiate them, but to give the series an ongoing premise based around the character’s differences. The voices are created using Speech Synthesis Markup Language with Polly, Amazon’s text-to-speech technology.
Studies indicate, not surprisingly, that audio quality is a key ingredient in the success of a podcast. Thus Homie & Lexy is mixed in stereo, using digital audio workstation Reaper, and employs a range of audio engineering effects. For example, mixing in stereo enabled mixing the two characters each panned 30% left and right, to add more separation and individuality to their voices.
The marketing plan included a range of tactics to generate a 360 degree presence for the brand.
Top industry influencers engaged via social media. In this case, an expert speaking on a leading podcast makes reference to MITs Eliza, the world’s first voicebot.
Interaction with top voice community leaders was also key to building awareness within the industry.
Brands mentioned in the script — often brands with large social media followings — are also mentioned in relevant social media channels.
The show created considerable industry awareness, generating buzz on multiple industry-leading podcasts. Lexy was a featured interview subject of Dr Teri Fisher on the Alexa in Canada podcast, the show was featured on the industry’s leading news source, Voicebot.ai, and ran in syndication on This Week In Voice, the leading podcast on the VoiceFirst network.