How to use Amazon Alexa and voice search to promote products

As of February, more than 500 million (!) Amazon Alexa-enabled devices have already been sold. This is a clear signal that the importance of voice assistants in the lives of Americans cannot be ignored any longer. It’s time to take your marketing strategy to the next level.

Here’s how to increase sales of your products on the marketplace and get into the focus of virtual assistants.

“Turn on the light and order me dinner”

As always, we start with the theory. What is Amazon Alexa? It is a digital personal assistant developed by the company of the same name. It is like “Okay, Google” on Android or Siri from Apple. It works on watches, TVs, speakers, tablets, mobile devices, and integrates with smart home systems.

With voice commands to Alexa, you can turn on the lights, change the room temperature, close the door, and perform a dozen other useful actions. Of course, this is provided that your home is equipped with the appropriate devices.

Alexa is integrated with many services, which allows it to perform various tasks: ordering a taxi or food, managing finances, listening to music, planning current tasks, etc. But this is not the most important reason why we, as entrepreneurs, should be interested in Amazon Alexa. We have already figured out what it is. Now let’s discuss how you can increase your store’s sales using the virtual assistant’s capabilities.

Amazon’s selection criteria for the Alexa voice assistant

Let’s assume that a conditional user asks Alexa to order dog food from Amazon. How will the personal assistant determine which product to deliver as a result?

Of course, the platform keeps its algorithms secret and never tells ordinary users the nuances of the results. However, we know exactly who has the advantage of being among the first:

1. Products with the Amazon’s Choice icon. It usually indicates high quality, good reviews, competitive prices, and fast delivery. Therefore, it is not surprising that Amazon’s Alexa assistant, choosing among thousands of similar items, offers the user a “marked” product.

Unfortunately, the Choice badge cannot be obtained through a request. Moreover, the criteria for awarding it are far from transparent. However, our experience shows that participation in the Fulfillment by Amazon program significantly increases the chances of getting into this recommendation rating.

2. Authorized Prime sellers. Products, stores, and brands participating in the program have always had an advantage in positioning. This has not changed when using voice search.

How does Amazon Alexa work if it does not find the products that match the query among the Prime/Choice offers? It offers to go to the app and make purchases manually. In this case, the algorithm will select products that the user has bought before or those that are ranked first in the regular search results.

Optimize your content

Amazon Alexa works on the basis of voice commands, so another way to increase your chances of being discovered is to adapt your content to voice search. How to do it?

Use long-tail keywords. Users often formulate queries based on natural speech. That’s why including long keyword phrases in product descriptions and titles can be extremely useful. For example, if you sell kitchen products, add phrases like “the best set of kitchen utensils for a beginner chef” or “stainless steel kitchen set”.
Create skills for Alexa. For example, if you sell food, you can create a skill that gives recipes using your products. Then, when a user asks “What should I cook for dinner?”, you may well find yourself in its search results with your product.
Answer customer questions. For example, if you sell e-books, add information to your listing that they support PDF format and have a long battery life.

Constantly study and analyze voice search trends to know what queries and phrases users most often use when searching for products. Adapt your content optimization strategy to these trends.

Conclusion. We have fully analyzed Amazon Alexa: what kind of program it is, how it works, and why it is needed. But in the end, it all comes down to basic recommendations: work on the quality of your products, provide unsurpassed customer service, and manage balances efficiently. The marketplace promotes such sellers even without much marketing effort on their part. Moreover, it promotes them both in the context of conventional SEO and in the positions of modern voice queries.

If you need help building a marketing company or organizing your business, you can always contact us for a free consultation.