Union launched an Alexa Skill with marketing tips. Has your brand used Alexa Skills or Actions on Google for voice marketing? Take a look at the benefits.

Alexa Skills for Voice Marketing | Union

Why You Should Test Out Alexa Skills for Voice Marketing

“Alexa, turn off all the lights.” “Hey Google, what’s the temperature outside?” So many of us incorporate voice commands and questions into ordinary life, it feels as normal as a conversation with our human companions. That normalcy is widespread: in 2018, about <a href="https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/17/heres-what-people-are-really-doing-with-their-alexa-and-google-home-assistants/#:~:text=Between%20Alexa%20and%20Google%20Home,%E2%80%9CAction%E2%80%9D%20on%20Google%20Home.">50 million</a> devices between Alexa and Google Home existed in the U.S. That number has only been going up.And according to Amazon, which takes up a sizable chunk of the U.S. smart speaker market <a href="https://voicebot.ai/2019/03/07/u-s-smart-speaker-ownership-rises-40-in-2018-to-66-4-million-and-amazon-echo-maintains-market-share-lead-says-new-report-from-voicebot/">share</a> (61.1%, to be exact), customers <a href="https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/grow-your-business">use</a> their Alexa voice assistant billions of times weekly. Wouldn’t it be great if brands had just as many chances to casually connect customers to their content, services and products while they’re using their devices at home, in their cars and elsewhere? Voice applications like Alexa Skills and Actions on Google are a good place for your business to start to tap into those voice marketing opportunities. As we’ve experienced from our recent Alexa Skill creation, individuals and businesses can customize the capabilities of the device by <a href="https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/ask-overviews/build-skills-with-the-alexa-skills-kit.html">determining</a> intents (the requests the app can address) and utterances (the specific words people say to trigger them).Since businesses will generally be reaching individual voice assistant users with these skills, this option is ideal for B2C businesses, though HubSpot <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/alexa-skills-marketing">reports</a> that Alexa is starting to be incorporated with business tools more.Branded voice apps like Alexa Skills and Actions on Google can help with three goals:<ul><li>Growing brand loyalty</li><li>Boosting sales through ecommerce </li><li>Increasing brand awareness and brand interaction</li></ul>At the same time, you’re adding a level of convenience for your customers. Smart speaker devices are already consistently used for research and purchasing behavior:<ul><li>25.2% of smart speaker users <a href="https://voicebot.ai/2020/05/03/streaming-music-questions-weather-timers-and-alarms-remain-smart-speaker-killer-apps-third-party-voice-app-usage-not-growing/">surveyed</a> have made a purchase</li><li>83.1% have asked a question</li><li>47.9% have used a favorite Alexa Skill or Action on Google</li><li>38.2% have searched for product information</li></ul>Need some inspiration? A lot of big-name brands are making use of Alexa Skills to help meet their goals. Starbucks created a skill that allows coffee enthusiasts to reorder their cup of coffee from one of the 10 most recent stores they visited. Uber added a skill that gives people on the move a chance to ask for a ride. And TED built a skill that offers the opportunity to listen to the latest TED talk. The first two may boost sales, interaction and brand loyalty. The third may boost brand loyalty and interaction.At Union, we recently experimented with branded Alexa Skills with that third goal in mind, increasing awareness and interaction by offering users the opportunity to tap into daily marketing tips. Since our team and so many other businesses are still working remotely, it seemed fitting to offer this virtual interaction with our agency – and our nuggets of marketing insight.To experience the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Union-Marketing-Tips/dp/B086D28G9Q">Union Alexa Skill</a> at home, just say, "Alexa, ask Union for a tip" to your Amazon Echo device and you’ll get a marketing tip. We’ll tell you why there’s almost always a place for paid media in your marketing strategy, why it’s worth focusing on one channel at a time, why you should conduct an SEO audit and more. So, is your brand ready to add voice marketing to your strategies for reaching more customers? Have questions about Alexa Skills for business purposes? <a href="https://union.co/contact">Let’s talk</a>.

Valtech + Union is a creative &amp; performance marketing agency that creates omni-channel campaigns, unleashing creativity on a data-driven world, helping brands produce memorable, measurable and repeatable results. Obsessed with data-driven performance, we believe every marketing dollar should be viewed as an investment. Our clients expect a meaningful return and we prove the ROI of our work with quantifiable data.