Learning how to build an Alexa skill just got easier. Watch the video and follow along so you can learn how to build a custom Alexa skill to delight your friends and family.
Amazon just released Blueprints (not to be confused with Facebook’s learning platform called Blue Print ) which allows you to use templates to build custom personalized Alexa skills for your home.
How to build an Alexa Skill in three steps with Blueprints
Creating an Alexa skill using Blueprints is very easy. Here is how to build an Alexa skill using three simple steps. It’s so easy I built one while writing this article.
Step 1: Pick a blueprint
First you have to pick a blueprint template to customize. Amazon makes it easy for you to just change what they already setup and add your customer content.
Step 2: Fill in the blanks
Add your questions, story and custom content to make Alexa yours.
Step 3: Use your skill
Once you are done Amazon will build your skill and then store it for you to update when you want.
Amazon Blueprints use cases
The Amazon Blueprints templates are extremely easy to use and are broken into categories that are focused on family, events and key moments in your life. This is a smart move for Amazon because they are working to embed themselves into the fabric of very day life. Below are a few use cases for these skills that we will start to see happening if they are not already.
AirBNB
If you use AirBNB to rent out your house or apartment Blueprints will be so usefully to you. You can build a custom Alexa skill to tell your guests the house rules and other instructions. You could also use the custom skill to really have fun and entertain your guests.
Game Night
Family game night will never be the same. Parents who are early adopters will build personalize Alexa skills that will call their kids by name and join in family time.
Bed Time Stories
Parents will be able to build custom Alexa Skills to tell their kids favorite bed time stories. This might seem lazy but imagine your kids delight when they’re clever parents weave them into the story.
Baby and Pet sitters
Leave detailed instructions for your baby or pet sitters. They can speak to Alexa and get the instructions you left them at anytime.
Adventures Stories
Parents will be able to create full stories where their children are the heroes.
Marriage Proposals
At least one person is going to build a custom skill that will be used to propose to someone they love. Hopefully this will cut down on the amount of people who actually propose to Alexa. Yeah that’s a real thing.
Next Level Netflix and chilling
I’m married so I don’t Netflix and chill. We just Netflix and sleep. However, for all of you casanovas who are in their Netflix and chill prime, a custom Alex skill can take your your Netflix and chill ambitions to the next level. Just build a custom skill before your hang out and trigger it when you need Alexa to be your wing woman.
Pitch Life & Prototypes
If you work in advertising you know life’s a pitch and then you die. Now you can have Alexa pitch with you by creating a custom skill you can bring into the room. This would be the easiest way to prototype a skill for your potential client. Note that Alexa needs to be connected to WiFi in order for her to work so be prepared to spin up a hot spot to connect her to.
Cards Against Humanity Integration
I’m waiting for the cards against humanity integration where you can customize Alexa to join your cards of humanity game. Guess what with Alexa Blue Prints you can create your own integration. Just create a custom skill that plays like a blank card. You would have to name each card and trigger your best ones for each scenario.
Alexa Blueprints are here to stay
Amazon just made learning how to build an Alexa skill very easy. That means Alexa Blueprints are here to stay. They allow you to really have fun with Alexa. This is a big step forward towards the personalization of voice assistants. Eventually brands like Coca-Cola will be able to easily deploy custom Alexa skills in their own brand voice to match multiple campaigns. This is all very exciting.
Lavall Chichester is a growth focused digital marketer who has helped brands make millions of dollars on and off line. He made Ad Age’s 2015 40 Under 40 list for turning the search group at Profero into a muti-million dollar business in less than a year. He has 13+ years of developing digital marketing strategies for brands like Apple, Western Union, the NBA, Kaiser Permanente, Vitamin Water and others. Lavall founded adculture.com where he gives digital advertising advice to help people grow their businesses and careers.
