What is Alexa Skill Marketing?
“Hey Alexa” sounds like “The Next Big Thing”: With Amazon Alexa, companies recognize new potential for their own marketing. Read what Alexa Skills are – and how Alexa Marketing also works in B2B.
Alexa follows apps: apps for communicating with customers are now also popular with small businesses in B2B. Now the next trend in digital marketing follows: Alexa Skill Marketing. The voice assistant Alexa from Amazon is not only a topic of conversation in the private living room. Marketing departments are also talking about how they can reach customers through Alexa Skills .
1. What are Alexa Skills?
Skills for Alexa are programs that offer the user a wide variety of functions : from creating a shopping list to the latest news to brain jogging – anything is possible. Skills are therefore comparable to apps on the smartphone.
The “bring” shopping list is one of the absolute top Alexa skills . Users can simply add whatever product they think of using an Alexa command. Other top skills and Germany are the cell phone finder, the Wikipedia skill and – as a fun factor – the receptionist.
Alexa then starts the respective skill via voice control. An example: with the command “Alexa, switch bedroom on”, the light in the bedroom can be switched on via the Osram Lightify Skill .
The number of companies developing their own Alexa skills is increasing rapidly. Every day there are new applications in Amazon’s Alexa Skill Database .
2. How does Alexa Skill Marketing work
The special thing about marketing via voice control: You create added value, no self-promotion. Retain customers and new customers with the Skill offer: simplify processes, support B2B product understanding or simply offer a fun factor. But: Language assistance is the wrong place for brand advertising.
These 5 steps lead you to your first Alexa Skill:
- 01. Develop an idea
Alexa Skill Marketing works as soon as you offer your customers added value by using the voice function. Ask our Alexa Skill experts (Link creationell) how you can best reach your target group. - Create Skill
Now you can program and develop your individual Alexa Skill using the Alexa Skill Kit.
Creation of a new Alexa Skill using the Amazon tool “Alexa Skill Kit”
If you don’t have a developer in-house, contact a specialized agency for Alexa skill development .
Creation of a skill in the code editor of the Alexa Skill Kit
- Definephrases
Think about which questions your users can use to call up the skill. It is important to research keywords : What and, above all, how do users ask their Alexa? Your developer then defines the phrases in the Alexa Skill Kit. - Skill Upload
Once the skill has been developed, it is uploaded in the kit and published. - Skill marketing
Your skill can only be successful if it is actually used. Communicate the resulting additional benefits to your customers.
3. Alexa Skill Marketing in B2B
The Alexa Smart Briefings hold great potential for B2B . Simply put, Smart Briefings offer the Alexa user an explanatory function . The customer can easily have information about a product or a function read out to them.
As a B2B company, you can offer your customers the information they need on site. By developing skills with a briefing function, you can offer your customers spoken operating instructions.
Alexa Skill Marketing: These 3 B2B brands show how it works:
- SAP
The B2B software company is of course right at the forefront when it comes to digital trends: SAP uses the smart briefing strategy, combined with B2B content marketing (link to the article “What is content marketing”).
The command “What are the news?” Reads current SAP news to the user. The company previously published this on social networks or on its blog. The Alexa Skill uses content that is already there anyway – a double benefit.
- Digital practice
The American blog offers services in digital marketing. To a large extent, this includes social media campaigns. DigitalPraktik therefore developed an Alexa Skill that gives its customers social media tips that can be accessed at any time and at any time. - Salesforce
The CRM provider offers its customers access to its functions via Alexa: companies can use the Salesforce Skill to request current analysis results or customer information – and thus bring it directly into the conference room.
This is precisely why it is also important for small business owners to deal with Alexa – and to consider its use in communication and marketing.
