Since first becoming widely available to consumers in 2015 with the launch of Amazon’s Echo, the buzz surrounding smart speakers hasn’t slowed down. In fact, according to a recent report from NPR and Edison Research, it’s only continued to gain steam. The Smart Audio Report revealed that 21% of US adults (53 million) own a…
Amazon’s Dave Limp revealed in an interview that the company had sold “more than 100 million” Alexa devices through the end of 2018. In August, the online publication The Information reported that internal Amazon documents reflected 50 million Echo device sales at that point. That’s 50 million Alexa devices sold in roughly four months. Ahead of…
Voice search readiness is a concept that not many have embraced wholeheartedly yet, but that has to change. I understand that the idea of 50 percent of all searches being made by voice by 2020 can sound far-fetched — after all, how could consumers change their search patterns so much in a little over a year?…
Software reviews portal Capterra recently sponsored a survey of 715 small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to determine their attitudes toward technology investment and adoption. The survey, which included small and larger SMBs, showed that most are aware of the importance of new technology but many hesitate to invest, in part because of a fear of…
Digital is disrupting marketing. No big news there, right? Not for those of us working in digital and local marketing. But what’s most interesting to me is the tumult that digital is causing on Madison Avenue with traditional ad agencies — and what digital-first agencies can take from it. Namely, that technology and marketing are…
The latest Pew research related to US internet usage, device ownership and social media usage revealed very little activity. The most notable takeaway is that, compared to 2016, growth in these areas has stalled. The only exception being a 5% decline in desktop/laptop ownership and usage from 78% to 73%, and a 2% increase in…
According to chiefmartec.com’s MarTech Landscape infographic, there are almost 7,000 companies providing marketing technology in the market. This is a huge jump from the 150 listed companies in the 2011 version of the graphic. Globally, the MarTech industry is estimated to be a $100 billion market, with half of that concentrated in North America and…
For nearly 20 years there has been a heated debate about small businesses (SMBs), digital marketing and self service. The basic industry bias has always been that sales reps or some human involvement is required to close sales and that most SMBs won’t “self-serve.” There are still many people who would maintain that today. However,…
The ease with which consumers can research a product, service or business has called into question long-standing sales tactics and philosophies. In many ways, modern consumers sell themselves and if a sales rep is part of the journey, he or she is merely to fulfill or close the sale. As it relates to SMBs, this…
In recent years, voice search has emerged as a convenient and useful technology for consumers within their daily lives. However, despite reports that smart speaker ownership is projected to reach 76.5 million in 2020, many consumers are hesitant to utilize voice commands regularly, according to recent data from Social Lens Research. The study revealed that…
