Getting Your Voice App To Go Viral
Lessons from Gal Shenar, Founder of Stoked Skills
How did hobbyist turned viral Alexa Skill developer, Gal Shenar (Founder of Stoked Skills LLC) create the top Alexa Skills on the store? With over 30 published skills and 200,000 active monthly users, he has a knack for building highly engaging skills.
We interviewed Gal and discussed his journey (will be in another blog post) starting from learning about voice technology at a hackathon to creating some of the most loved Alexa Skills in the store, earning over $25,000 in 6 months. In this post, we will learn more about his 5 lessons on creating viral voice applications.
1. Build, Test, Iterate
Great apps take time. There are many tools to help build voice apps, and many of the top apps have been built on them. However, voice apps are very difficult to build because of the inherently different user interface from what people are used to. Humans are becoming more accustomed to speaking to a device/voice assistant. For developers, this means that they need to be able to thoroughly understand how users interact with their products, placing a large emphasis on building great conversations, getting constant feedback, and improving the user experience. Gal knows when he has a great product when users tell their friends and families about it leading to organic growth in his skills. This is what he strives for.
2. Building an Online Presence
One of the first things that Gal did to market his creations was to make a landing page that allowed anyone to browse his website for products, additional information, and services that he offered. It is also a great way to collect subscribers or a mailing list for the creations. A landing page draws users in and showcases the product very visually. Through this online presence, he was able to showcase his skill outside of the Alexa Skills Store, which gave him the freedom to convey his messaging how he wanted. In addition, the website included walkthroughs for his best skill, Escape the Room, and leaderboards for others. This kept the subscribers engaged, a key metric in retaining users.
3. Keep Subscribers Engaged
In addition to retention, Gal dedicates a lot of his time to his mailing list/subscribers from his website. A typical method of subscribing is simply providing an email on the website opening a line of communication for the user and creator. He uses a mailing list where to update subscribers, informs them about new updates, and new apps. By building out a list of your users, you have access to a potential avenue for new ideas to improve your skill for many. Even more importantly, these emails act as a reminder for followers to use the products. When your users see a new update, they’ll be likely to use it given their great experience with your product in the past.
4. Market your Apps!
There are several marketing tactics used to market voice apps, which include sending emails to his mailing list which would often be the first users. Social media posts on Facebook groups and Twitter are also an effective strategy. However, there is little done in the marketing space and much is reliant on word of mouth because discovery is not easy for applications. Other potential strategies including paid advertisements (Facebook, Google, etc.) might also be helpful, but spend your money wisely.
5. It’s all about the numbers
After going through all of the steps and launching each voice application, there are many tools that help with measuring each aspect of the application including user experience, engagement, usage, revenue, conversion rate and many more. Gal has used applications such as Dashbot.io, PulseLabs.ai, Amazon’s Developer Console Analytics, which have given him insights on engagement, dropoff, conversion, usage rates, user testing and more.
“I want to find new ways to create meaningful and fun experiences on this platform for all” — Gal
Closing
Building a voice app has never been easier, but building a viral app is the challenge. There are constant improvements in the voice ecosystem which will only improve the quality of voice apps, but it’s up to you to gain traction and be the best one out there.
About Gal Shenar
Gal Shenar is a Boston based web developer and founder of Stoked Skills, which has created over 30 published skills and has over 200,000 active monthly users. He is the pioneer of some of the most highly rated skills including Escape the Room, Escape the Airplane, Wordplay and many more creating meaning voice experiences for individual users and their families.
About VoiceHero
VoiceHero is an analytics platform that helps businesses measure performance and make data-driven decisions on voice. Get started today at www.VoiceHero.ai!
