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Alexa Developer Portal Brings Branding to Voice Activation

Alexa Developer Portal Brings Branding to Voice Activation

“Alexa order a Dominos pizza….”

or

“Alexa call me an Uber…”

or

“Alexa what is the available credit on my Capitol One card?”

or

“Alexa [INSERT YOUR BRAND’S PRODUCTS AND/OR SERVICES HERE]”

Think it is impossible for a small to mid sized business to get their brand into Alexa’s database of skills? Think again. Amazon wants your company’s brand in Alexa’s voice activated database. As a result they’ve released the Alexa Developer Portal and gave web developers a large index of tools and resources to get your brand on Alexa’s radar.

Decide on a skill.

First you need to decide what skill you want Alexa to perform. For example, if you’re a music streaming service you’d want Alexa to be able to play music. If you sell office supplies, you’d want Alexa to be able to access your database of products. It’s all about functionality. Amazon compares Alexa’s skills to apps for a phone or tablet. When you want to know the weather, you touch the app that will give you the weather forecast. However Alexa is voice activated so you’re not touching an app to access the weather but rather asking a question verbally to trigger the weather forecast.  Therefore when considering what skill you’d like Alexa to perform you can consider what function you’d like a mobile app to do. Of course, this will almost always coincide with the products or services of your business.

Attach a brand to your skill.

After you have established the skill you want Alexa to perform you’ll need to attach your brand to it. Fortunately Amazon gives web developers the tools to do this using the Alexa Developer Portal. To illustrate I’ll continue with a music streaming service as the example. “Alexa play music” won’t trigger Alexa to play music from Spotify. Rather it will probably play music from Amazon because they want the traffic themselves. However code can be installed into an app and/or website that allows Alexa to recognize a particular brand and link it to your specific products and/or services. So now when a Spotify subscriber can says ‘Alexa play music from Spotify” they’ll have access to all their music and playlists from their Spotify account. 

The possibilities for Alexa’s voice activation recognition are fascinating and endless. However this amazing feature is not getting the use that Amazon had hoped for. In fact, Amazon has reported that of the 7,000+ skills Alexa is capable of performing only one-third are actually being used. Therefore they are making is easy for web developers to gain access to the Alexa platform. And as a small business owner you can reap the benefits! Contact one of our marketing professionals today to learn how you can get your brand into’s Alexa’s voice activated database.

 

 

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