Voice is the new mobile app

One of our partners – an interactive agency – told us the other day that, in the search for exciting new mobile applications, they’ve concluded that voice is the real killer app. They like that everybody can use the voice channel, and all you need is a phone number to get somebody interacting. These are critical characteristics for a promotion; you can throw a phone number up on any surface, from a Web page to a billboard, which is a helluva lot more than you can say about downloadable applications. Even text messaging campaigns with short codes rely on educating consumers that what they are looking at is an address to be entered into the phone, and only work for demographics (read: teens) where texting is commonplace.

What was even more exciting is that the advertiser this agency is working with completely understood and agreed with the agency’s conclusions. Mobile spending is important to them, but they recognize that mobile can and should often mean voice, that voice is the most accessible channel for the vast majority of users, and that it’s time for agencies to start bringing voice-channel mobile promotions to the table.

It’s always a happy thing when you get ready to preach your gospel… and find that your audience is already preaching it back to you, before you even get there. Mobile marketing agencies need to get ready for the idea that mobile is not just SMS, WAP pages, or downloadable apps – it’s equally, if not more so, about voice applications.