From smartphones to smart speakers, consumers are searching with their voices. What exactly they are searching for when it comes to health care-​related topics is explored in a new study from the market research team at Zion & Zion, a top-​ranked, full-​service national marketing agency.

The findings of the report have numerous implications for the healthcare industry, including:

• 24% of consumers have searched for health care information by speaking a question into their voice-​enabled devices, such as Amazon Echo, Google Home, or phones equipped with Siri or Google Assistant.
• The most popular health care voice queries are those pertaining to symptoms or treatments of an ailment, disease, or other health condition, posed by 65% of consumers who have used their voice to ask a question of their voice-​enabled devices. 32% have used their voice to search for a doctor or specialist.
• The top reasons for not using voice-​enabled devices to search for health care information are not having a need to do so (28%) and those who would rather type their question into a browser (26%).

Health care isn't the only topic Voice-​Activated Assistant Users are searching for. According to AudienceSCAN, 74.5% of this audience has used a search engine to research various products and services they were considering for purchase within the last month. Their preferred search engine is Google (favored by 91.3%), but only 21% will go past the first page of results.

This study, conducted by the Zion & Zion market research team, was based on a nationwide survey of 1,049 consumers (ages 18 and older) investigating how consumers are using voice-​enabled devices to search for health care information. Authors of the study are Aric Zion, MS; Fred Petrovsky, MFA; and Thomas Hollmann, MBA, PhD.

Health care providers/​companies can advertise to Voice-​Activated Assistant Users a number of ways. According to AudienceSCAN, 62.2% of this consumer group took action after receiving an email ad and 55.6% were driven to action by text message or advertisements on mobile phone apps last year. They're also 34% more likely than other adults to click on text link ads on websites. Also, last year, 72.3% took action after seeing a TV commercial.

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. Media companies and agencies can access AudienceSCAN data through the AudienceSCAN Reports in AdMall.