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Tutorial Video Links for Amazon Echo: Set Up your Echo Glow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM213lkNHcs
Learn how to set up your Echo Glow using the Alexa app. More: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GV8BX23Y4XRJPTXU

Tutorial Video Links for Amazon Alexa: Messaging

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqfylpE8qSo

You can message your contacts using your voice with an Echo device or through the Alexa app. Learn more about Alexa on Amazon Help: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202136210

Tutorial Video Links for Amazon Alexa: Reset Your Amazon Smart Oven

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSmmvYsaimo
If your Amazon Smart Oven is unresponsive, or you want to erase your device settings, you can factory reset your device. Learn more: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GTB7MQ8GMRTH65JX

Tips On How You Can Use Alexa As Part Of Your Marketing

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Prior to 2014, virtual assistants were seen as cumbersome, inaccurate, and unfit for mainstream use. It certainly didn’t help that people didn’t really want to use voice activation. After all, talking to a gadget seemed fundamentally uncomfortable — and no one wanted to feel ridiculous.

The release and subsequent rise of Amazon’s Alexa system, however, changed the game for virtual assistants. Through providing robust and reliable functionality, giving a name to the device, and having enough market dominance to compel people to take the leap, Amazon managed to make its virtual assistant a household name.

Indeed, over the years since, Amazon has sold over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices. That affords the ecosystem a lot of reach, so it’s no surprise that marketers want to know how they can take advantage of it. What does Alexa offer for promoters? Is it something that can be used to bring attention to products, services, or brands — and if it is, how can it work?

Let’s look at some tips for how you can factor Alexa into your digital marketing strategy.

Smartly list your products on Amazon

The Amazon marketplace is vast and incredibly influential, and if you want to market products, then simply having them available for purchase through that system is a potent tactic. When someone asks Alexa to suggest some product of a particular type, your product (or products) can be selected: it’s far easier said than done, but it’s possible, and thus valuable.

Furthermore, you can increase your chance of getting chosen by providing as much information as you possibly can. Settling for minimalist descriptions simply won’t suffice. The more relevant search terms you work into your descriptions, the more likely it’ll become that your products are thought to be among the most worthy of inclusion.

Even as you expand the detail, however, you must be careful to keep things succinct. Wherever possible, Alexa will serve a short and punchy response (rather than expecting the listener to endure several minutes of recital). Stick to the best practices for Amazon descriptions, answer questions (more on that later), and you should do well.

Create a helpful Alexa Skill

Alexa Skills are essentially apps for the Alexa ecosystem, and any brand can create one. So why would you want to go through that time-consuming development process? Well, there are two main reasons for offering an Alexa Skill:

  • It builds your brand reputation. If you make your Skill extremely convenient, plenty of people will install it, ensuring that they’re consistently reminded of your brand. It can offer general value, or do something to enhance the usefulness of your regular business service: for example, Google Ads tool Optmyzr offers an Alexa integration (among others) that makes it possible for users to easily check how their ads are performing (something confirmed by co-founder Frederick Vallaeys on the Marketing Speak podcast).
  • It allows you to sell more easily. Having your products listed on Amazon is one thing, but if you provide a Skill, you can make it trivial for someone to re-order. Even if you save someone one or two seconds per order through not requiring the system to search for your product, it can make a substantial difference in the perceived convenience.

Optimize your content for voice search

In the early years of the internet’s popular ascendance, the SEO industry sprang into existence with vast quantities of keyword stuffing and artificial constructions. Everything was contrived, with the user experience left as a secondary (or even tertiary) concern. Thankfully, things have changed enormously since then — today, an excellent SEO strategy will primarily focus on making changes that work for search engines and the searchers themselves.

A huge driver of this change has been the marked improvement in NLP (natural language processing). The more easily search algorithms can figure out what content means, the less artificial the writers need to make it. Suppose you’re trying to sell shoes, for instance: instead of trying to force in as many keywords about footwear as possible, it’s best to just include the most valuable and relevant shoe-related content and trust that the algorithm will figure it out. The visitor gets a better experience, and the ranking doesn’t suffer.

So what does this have to do with voice search? Well, it lays the groundwork, because content optimized for voice search is built around questions and answers. People are now comfortable asking questions such as “Alexa, what types of shoe can I buy?” instead of typing in search terms such as “shoe types” — and “What types of shoe can you buy?” makes for a strong subheading in a long-form article about shoes.

If you want your content to be selected for Alexa’s response when someone asks a relevant question, you need to clearly and succinctly answer that specific question. Fully detail the types of shoe they can buy, keeping your bias to a minimum. Answer other questions from throughout the expected customer journey. The resulting content will stand a great chance of ranking in general, helping your business across the board — and whenever your answer is chosen by Alexa, your brand exposure and reputation will increase.

Can you take full advantage of the influence of Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem? No, of course not. It’s under Amazon’s total control, so as with regular SEO, all you can ever do is follow the recommendations and look for ways to stand out. But simply doing that will plausibly be enough to set you apart, because plenty of businesses haven’t even thought about targeting Alexa when marketing — so give it a try.

Tutorial Video Links for Amazon Alexa: Troubleshooting Echo Auto Bluetooth Connectivity

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cotfb9YIF1w
If your Echo Auto loses Bluetooth connectivity, try these troubleshooting steps. More: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GGWFPREQX54FRKHQ

Tutorial Video Links for Amazon Alexa: Set Up Your Echo Auto

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zv19J8ptDQ
Learn how to set up your Echo Auto. More: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GGWFPREQX54FRKHQ

Tutorial Video Links for Amazon Alexa: Reset Your Echo Auto

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5MVccNiFVA
Learn how to reset an unresponsive Echo Auto. More: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GVFNZ6RYELNYLR3M

Tutorial Video Links for Amazon Echo Connect: Quick Fixes

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEWk-3B86U0
If you’re having trouble with your Echo Connect, check out these troubleshooting steps.

Tutorial Video Links for Amazon Echo Connect: Setup

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJFMZb2zliI
To make and receive calls with Echo Connect, register for Alexa Calling and Messaging, and link your Echo Connect to your existing home phone service and compatible Echo device. Learn more about Echo Connect on Amazon Help: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202209760

Amazon Launches New Developer Toolkit Custom Interfaces for Amazon Alexa

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Amazon’s Alexa is getting an exciting new update centered around new tools for developers to integrate its voice assistant technology into a broader range of smart gadgets and devices. The Custom Interfaces toolkit will allow for interactions beyond the standard smart speakers and TVs.

The main benefits of the new tools, according to Amazon, include:

  • Direct communication between your product and Alexa – no more device cloud or customer account management infrastructure required
  • Dynamic voice interactions for your product to extend the customer experience
  • Product adaptation and support for a wide range of capabilities

Image Credit: Amazon

With more than 100 million Alexa-enabled devices on the market currently, this new functionality could be a great opportunity for developers to further enhance their products, games, and toys. From creating an interactive basketball scoreboard that lights up when you score to a dog toy that counts how many times your dog plays fetch, the ability to be creative and design interactive products seems far more possible with Custom Interfaces.

To help developers get started using these new tools, Amazon has provided further example projects that can serve as a guide and be further built upon. These may be a good place to start if you’re just getting started with the Amazon Alexa Gadgets Toolkit and want to know what’s possible through the latest update.

Amazon also revealed that it’s launched a private beta for a Custom Interfaces project aimed at children. All Alexa products targeting children under the age of 13 must use an accompanying kid skill and require permission from a parent before it can be activated. The use of Custom Interfaces for children could unlock educational and interactive products for kids such as action figures, toys, role play games, and other smart gadgets. The beta is currently limited to commercial developers by invite only. Only time will tell when these additional features will be released to the public.

For help getting started with Custom Interfaces, check out Amazon’s resource library and included tech documentation. Stay up to date on the latest Amazon Alexa and other technology news on our website.