Why Sounds Is The Next Marketing Medium

Do you hear what I hear? Sure, you hear the traditional cacophony of life’s audible sounds as you go about your day. But did you know there is another background noise — one you can’t hear — that’s revolutionizing the way we connect and interact with the world around us?

Sound – specifically the ability to send messages, data and video over ultrasonic frequencies — has the power to become the new technological standard for real-time engagement and focused marketing initiatives.

Why do I think sound will be the next great marketing medium?

Speakers and Receivers Are Already Everywhere

Stop and think about how many inexpensive and efficient speakers there are in your day-to-day existence. In addition to being in all your devices, there are speakers embedded everywhere – at major sporting venues and big buildings all the way down to your car and your kids’ toys. In fact, there are more speakers on Earth than people.

If you think about each and every one of these speakers carrying data via sound, you realize there’s massive network potential for transferring information. In addition to the size and scope of this network, sound can also go where other technologies can’t. For example, Bluetooth technology only works at short range and connectivity is highly dependent on the physical environment.

On the other hand, sound travels through the air at great distances, needing nothing more than an existing speaker or microphone infrastructure. With so many outlets capable of transmitting and receiving sound, any previous limitations related to connectivity or location disappear.

New Tech Is Continually Expanding What’s Possible

Less than four years ago, we started using voice commands and asking Siri to organize our lives. Then came Google Now, which learns our search habits to provide information we might be interested in. Even  Amazon Echo wakes up through voice activation to tell us the weather and news, or even stream music.

Every day, our world is speaking to us through embedded technology that’s always on and always listening. And as more and more devices come to market with this new software, pretty soon everything around us will be listening. Sound will become the default method for efficiently and effectively sending and receiving the information we need – whether it’s a recipe, educational content or even marketing messages.

Sound Offers Limitless Potential

As a marketing medium, sound creates countless new opportunities to connect with users at scale, with hyper-focused precision. Imagine being able to use data-over-sound to deliver ride-sharing information only to fans leaving a stadium exit. Picture being able to automatically serve up different player stats to individual fans based on who they’ve liked on Facebook. And of course, there are countless other ways data-over-sound technology will continue to be developed and applied.

That’s the kind of meaningful marketing strategies I’d like to see more of. Wouldn’t you?

Follow @LISNR for more ideas on using sound to enable meaningful marketing moments.

LISNR is a high frequency, inaudible technology; a new communication protocol that sends data over audio. As the leaders of the Internet of Sound, we use inaudible sound waves called SmartTones™, to transmit information.  LISNR essentially transmits customizable packets of data every second that enable proximity data transmission, second-screen functionality, authentication and low-fi device to deviceconnectivity on any LISNR enabled device.  We enable this functionality better and more efficiently than bluetooth (proximity), ACR (2nd Screen), and NFC/RFID (authentication). As an integrated software partner, LISNR can power devices to connect with world around better than ever before.