Martech Trends 2018 (Part II): AR&VR, Voice search and Chatbots
These technological advancements will reshape the future — with or without you. Which one would that be? The choice is yours.
Our previous martech trends overview was about how new technologies like blockchain and AI will affect marketing from 2018 and on. Today we will cover other trends, such as AR&VR, voice search and chatbots, that will also change the way we think about and approach marketing.
Even if you are as far away from the new technology as humanly possible, this article will change your mind. We will show you that there is still a whole space for you to conquer.
What is the best thing about tech trends, anyways?
You don’t have to limit yourself to ‘humanly possible’.
Inhabit you communication land with robots
The era of convenience we live in is making us more and more spoiled every day. We want everything personalized and we want it yesterday. And shall we have any issue whatsoever with a good or service provided, we want it resolved immediately (or under 10 min max):
According to the HubSpot research, published this June, two-thirds of consumers find waiting on hold and repeating themselves to multiple support representatives to be the most irritating aspects of getting customer support. The other two factors that leave clients frustrated and unsatisfied are slow response time and inability to resolve their issue online.
The mother technology of bots is AI, the same one we covered in our previous article, however, chatbots have become a stand-alone trend and deserve a separate mentioning.
Bots create an impression of personal attitude, engaging in one-to-one conversation with every client, while, in fact, the technology handles hundreds of them simultaneously — something that no human can offer, no matter how large a company’s staff is.
Chatbots also eliminate the problem of information exchange between departments and teams — the very thing that makes people angry by forcing them to repeat their problem over and over again — because the aggregate and process data at a more advanced level.
In contrast to most martech trends, there is no technical challenge of turning a chat bot into a part of your business practice. The success of the implementation will rather depend on how well you know your customer. Even for those who have already built a bot ages ago, there is always room for sophistication:
To sum up, a chat bot is something you should’ve integrated yesterday to make both your and your clients’ lives so much easier. The trend has been there for few years so far, but it is only becoming more popular, since the breadth of technology keeps augmenting.
Rediscover the voice search universe
Another underestimated AI application that has a potential to grow into a huge trend is voice search. In our fast-paced world recording a voice message rather than typing seems like a logical solution, yet most people prefer an old-fashioned way, both clients and — what’s more surprising — marketers, whose role, among other things, is to educate their customers, if needed.
According to comScore, an American media measurement company that provides marketing analytics, more than 50% of consumer interaction will occur via voice-activated technology by 2020. The fact that voice search is currently underused, it means that it is probably still overlooked by your competitors, and you have a real chance to get ahead.
To take advantage of this trend you as a marketer should adjust your content marketing strategy accordingly. Instead of building you content atop of written keywords, you will have to ‘humanize’ them, taking into account the conversational nature of voice search queries. Set course for creating the content that would answer to voice search questions will help you increase your brand awareness.
Colonize the virtual world
AR&VR always go hand in hand in most lists of disruptive technologies, but it is still important to distinguish them from each other. VR stands for virtual reality and offers full immersion in an alternative three-dimensional world, like a video game, which you would need a personal headset to interact with. AR stands for Augmented Reality and creates an altered world on top of the real one, placing digital objects in public spaces or homes, or adding virtual features to existing ones. However, it is true to say that one technology shouldn’t exist without the other, as AR is, in fact, a prerequisite for the complete VR experience.
Since in most cases you only need a smartphone to utilize the technology, the new applications of AR appear faster. The world has already come somewhat a way in AR adoption, from catching Pokemons on the street and adding masks to selfies to using IKEA Place app to pre-try new furniture on our actual rooms. Nurses can now use AccuVein’s technology to find veins 350% easier, pilots can improve visibility and examine navigation points or terrain features with Aero Glass.
AR appears to be the most advanced technology in the latest Gartner’s Hype Cycle, leaving all the rest of emerging technologies far behind. As seen from the graph, both blockchain and AR are marked as having from 5 to 10 years until broad market applicability; however, blockchain is still falling from the Peak of Inflated Expectations, while AR is already halfway through the Disillusionment.
It means that blockchain, along with smart workspace or IoT platform, is now presenting an opportunity to be more realistic, while AR&VR, popping up with new use cases every month, are already offering an opportunity to be more innovative.
If lack of ambition or technical savviness is not the reason why you don’t implement new technologies, but mistrust in hype is, you are not completely mistaken and you are definitely not alone:
“[Sometimes] we get too carried away with hype and we expect it to do things it is not ready to do yet,” says martech pioneer Scott Brinker in his webinar on the disruptions that affect marketing today, dramatically altering the digital landscape.
However, to disregard the developments in tech completely and continue doing things the old fashioned way would be an even greater mistake.
“[Let’s] try the best as we can to keep a clear view on how these technologies are really advancing and not to get too far away of the hype and not to get too far behind the hype. That is the real opportunity.”
Scott Brinker, VP at HubSpot and Chair at MarTech Conference
Especially since, as it was shown in our article, these innovations are already providing real value for business. Now you can discover it too, because you know where to look.
Vanessa Emrith