059 - Celebrity Skin for Alexa: Novelty or More?

Amazon is charging users 99 cents to skin the standard parts of its voice experience with a celebrity voice. As we close out this decade, we can see a parallel between these early voice experiences and the beginning years of one of the most successful social media apps of all time: Instagram.

Filters—whether photo filters or voice skins—begin as a bolt-on and a novelty. But imagine where they’re headed.

Think rich, contextual voice experiences.

Hear this podcast in your favorite app:

Similar to what Google Assistant has done, Amazon is now giving customers the option to hear some familiar voices in addition to Alexa’s default voice. Today the company kicked off its celebrity voice program, and it’s starting with Samuel L. Jackson. - The Verge

Enjoy this mini episode! Our regular interview format will resume in January 2020. Find out when:

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Voice Marketing with Emily Binder

Finalist for Flash Briefing of the Year Award

054 - Will You Use One Voice Assistant or Many? Dave Kemp and Katherine Prescott

Listen anywhere:

Topics:

• Whether should brands create their own mini voice assistants like Beeb - which kind of brands should consider this? Katherine explains

• The newly announced Interoperability Initiative will strive to ensure that voice activated devices will work with multiple digital assistants like Alexa and Siri at the same time.

• The two camps regarding what the voice-first future holds:

  • A) People will mainly interact with just one assistant (see Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri Inc.)

  • B) We will all use multiple voice assistants

  • C) A middle ground of master and mini assistants - Dave explains how Alexa could launch Beeb (BBC's assistant) or Spot (Spotify's assistant) - and Beeb would be the master of that smaller domain / use case, making a better overall experience

• Alexa eventually functioning as an App Store - but for voice

• Plus, how devices like Echo Buds and Echo Frames fit in to a world of mini voice assistants

• What is the potential of Echo Buds to allow us to access web content we have never thought of as audio enabled?

• Echo Frames could be quite powerful to usher us into a world where the input is pure voice but the output/response is multimodal (visual and audio) - Katherine makes a great point here

Get in touch with Dave and Katherine:

Dave Kemp, Business Development Manager at Oaktree Products, Inc.

• FuturEar.co

• @Oaktree_Dave

Katherine Prescott, Founder & Editor at VoiceBrew

• @kbprescott

049 - The Killer Voice App - Dave Isbitski, Chief Evangelist Alexa - Pt. 2 of 2

Dave Isbitski, Chief Evangelist, Alexa at Amazon

Guest: Dave Isbitski, Chief Evangelist, Amazon Alexa. We discussed Alexa Flash Briefing and the future of AI and how it will teach us about ourselves. The killer app is the connection. Part 2 of 2. (Listen to Part 1.)

We also answered a top question among marketers: how do you overcome discoverability challenges with early voice to get your Alexa skill found? 

Friendly reminder: please mute your Alexa device before listening.

SHOW NOTES:

1:05 Flash Briefing - a consistent way to engage your customers. Beats a silly CEO email no one opens. This is a better company update.

2:00 "I want to engage and connect on a human level”

Cross modalities to drive engagements

2:45 Teri Fisher - Voice First Health Podcast: using SEO to share and promote all his Flash Briefings (Alexa in Canada, the top briefing in Canada). Put all the briefings onto a blog. This is how to harness Flash Briefing across modalities and web as well as helping your SEO. 

3:20 You offer customers value. You must give. Pippa.io is a good tool to get your briefings embedded into your site with a simple widget which is also search-friendly (thanks for sponsoring our show, Pippa!) Here’s how it looks for the Voice Marketing Flash Briefing:

Get a $25 Amazon Gift Card when you sign up for Pippa to host your podcast or Flash Briefing!

4:00 What do you see coming down the pike as far as interaction within Flash Briefing? How do we move from passive to interactive, if we do at all - in voice experiences?

4:30 Dave: I’m a product person. I love consumer devices. I feel strongly that you want someone to get a new idea or understand how something will work, it must be a physical product. That was Echo. People want devices that work with Alexa. That customer sentiment has evolved - the future will be similar. 

7:50 Alexa Conversations

8:00 The future of voice

8:20 We as humans don't think in terms of TASKS but in terms of scenarios, ideas, and things we want to get done (re:MARS example)

9:35 Burn your current ideas down. AI will help. Existentialism. 

11:00 There is no killer voice app. The killer thing is the relationship and context with AI. Like a long friendship - it’s not any one aspect that makes it meaningful, it’s the entire relationship. 

Connect with Dave Isbitski:

thedavedev.com

Twitter @thedavedev

LinkedIn

044 - Paying Voice Talent, Junk Alexa Skills, and Business Integrity - Melanie Scroggins

I spoke with Austin-based professional voice actor Melanie Scroggins, Owner of Melanie Scroggins Voiceover. Melanie found me based on my tweets about junk skills (Alexa skills with no content that are squatting on search terms).

Her story resonated with me because it opens the door to a larger conversation about how we value and pay talent.

For voice actors who are providing the important sonic branding that we in the voice community are effusive about, communities like SpokenLayer are underpaying freelancers to a surprising degree.

And somehow, no one is talking about it.

This hopefully serves as a conversation starter. Let’s openly discuss these things so we can create a better place for everyone, from users and customers to developers, brands, voice actors, and content creators.

We mentioned:
Here is the rate guide for GVAA (Global Voice Academy)

While this is a standard rate sheet a lot of voice actors use to rate out projects, there
actually is no end all be all. It's really up to the individual actor, but
this provides a solid foundation on which to start charging.

Connect with Melanie Scroggins:

melaniescroggins.com

LinkedIn

032 - Simple Works: Voice Marketing for Brands with Michelle Excell

Hear my SXSW interview about voice marketing with Michelle Excell of The Antipodean. Michelle is an innovation strategist in the emerging technology space. And an all-around badass AND kind person.

1-click play episode on Apple Podcasts

Brands, Voice AI, and AR/VR from The Antipodean

Michelle Excell, AR/VR and Emerging Technology Expert

Show notes and timestamps:

01:41 Discussing voice and Michelle’s clients: what are you noticing with recent briefs?

02:25 Brands are interested invoice but unsure where to start

02:40 Some agencies are jumping in head first

04:15 Brands must start somewhere: they should start small with voice marketing and smart speakers

04:50 Consider voice or AI within chat bots or retail where people will spend more time

5.08 Find contextual places where customers really interact

05:14 Is it worth doing a single use or delightful skill or should skills be intended for repeat use?

P.S. Michelle and Emily met as guests on Bob Knorpp’s marketing and advertising podcast, The BeanCast. <— A VERY good show worth catching if you’re in marketing, advertising, or the agency world.

Check out past episodes

Hear Emily’s top tips about voice marketing:

Click to hear Emily Binder discuss voice marketing strategy on Teri Fisher’s podcast. This is the #2 most popular episode of all time on Alexa in Canada!

Enjoy - stream it or hear on Apple Podcasts.

029 - Amazon Alexa In-Skill Purchasing Gets Upsell - Voice Marketing for Brands

Announcements - what's happening in February 2019 (first two minutes of show):

• This week I’ll be on Bradley Metrock’s show, This Week in Voice, which should air February 1, 2019

• If you’re in Atlanta, come to the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA) event on February 6, where I’m moderating a panel about voice technology with Kesha Williams from Chik Fil A (she was the main keynote at The Alexa Conference), plus speakers from Home Depot and 360i: How Voice Will Disrupt the Buyer Journey - Innovation Series presented by Nebo Agency

• Next podcast appearance: Alexa in Canada, the Voice Experience with Dr. Teri Fisher. This will air the week of February 11.

• Social Media Week Austin: #SMWATX Feb 19-22, I’m speaking about voice marketing. Date and time announced February 11.

Show notes:

• CPG and FMCG especially need to pay attention to the updates in Alexa: ISP (in-skill purchasing) just got a facelift in the Developer Console, making it easier to upsell. This is just getting started.

• Skills with very high conversion rates for upsell to premium version (34-50%!): Big Sky (weather) and Escape the Airplane (game)

• Voice in the car - HUGE opportunity (car is faster growing and has 60% higher MAUs than smart speakers)

• Today is like first gen iPhone: you can't multitask - only one app at a time

• Where we are with skills now: you can only do one thing at a time

• This will improve

• Voice is for EVERY brand

• Typing is unnatural, awkward, and slow. We are computing in computer-ese. Let's talk. We can speak and process so much faster than we can talk or read.

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020 - Voice Marketing with Alexa Flash Briefing - KiKi L'Italien Interview

I interviewed KiKi L'Italien, CEO and Creative Technologist at Amplified Growth, about Voice Marketing with Alexa Flash Briefing.

Topics:

1. How are you using voice for marketing? For yourself, #assnchat (Association Chat), or your clients?

2. What do you see being the biggest ways voice tech will impact marketing and business?

3. The popular stat is 50% of searches will be screenless by 2020:

4. What can brands and marketers do now to prepare for how prevalent voice search will be?

5. What are your favorite Flash Briefings or Alexa skills?

Mentioned: podcast about microphones on the bus picking up coughs to measure sickness in a region - I cannot find this - I thought it was on VUX World but apparently not. The agency and interviewee was based in Kansas City... anyone know? Will update here if I find it.

Get in touch with KiKi

Association Chat

IG & Twitter @kikilitalien

On Alexa: Association Chat News Flash Briefing

RELATED video: Why You Need a VOICE MARKETING Strategy Now

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