Ep#93: Build Your Audience and Go Consumer Direct with Your Own Alexa Flash Briefing

This 2018 episode explores using Amazon Alexa Flash Briefings as a consumer-direct marketing channel for loan officers and real estate agents. Guests David and Kayla share how they built a Flash Briefing for their Venice, CA farm, combined it with door knocking to grow awareness, and used raffles to drive skill adoption. Best for LOs interested in early-mover positioning on emerging audio/voice platforms.

Takeaways you can run this week

• Go to the Amazon Alexa Skills store right now and search your city + 'real estate' to see what competitors (if any) exist in your market — if fewer than 5 results show, your zip code is open.
• Record a 60-second Flash Briefing covering 3 things: current average home price in your market, one mortgage tip (e.g., 'stated income loans are available again'), and a single call-to-action URL. Keep it under 3 minutes max.
• Set up your Flash Briefing via your Amazon.com account or the Alexa smartphone app — enable it yourself first, then ask 5 past clients or agent partners to enable it and give feedback.
• When door knocking or attending open houses, hand out a postcard offering a raffle for a free Echo Dot to anyone who enables your Flash Briefing skill — this marries old-school prospecting with the new channel and gives the raffle prize relevance.
• Add a personality element to your briefing (intro jingle, a quick blooper, local flavor) so listeners distinguish your skill from robotic news feeds — the Venice team used wave/bird sounds and got homeowners to actually remember them.
• At the end of every Flash Briefing episode, include one explicit call-to-action: a URL to a landing page, an open house event, or a contest entry — treat it like a podcast outro, not dead air.

The playbook

1. 1. Search your city + 'real estate' in the Alexa Skills store to assess competition in your zip code.
2. 2. Create an Amazon developer account and set up a Flash Briefing skill (audio RSS feed — Amazon provides setup docs).
3. 3. Record a 60–90 second episode: local market stat → one actionable tip → personality moment → CTA.
4. 4. Publish on a consistent cadence (weekly minimum).
5. 5. Drive adoption offline: door knock or attend events with a postcard offering an Echo Dot raffle in exchange for enabling your skill.
6. 6. Track skill enables and iterate content based on what gets engagement or drives inbound contacts.

Worth quoting

“If I'm going door to door giving a raffle and people are enabling a skill where they're reminded of me daily — then door knocking is worthwhile long term.”

“Voice is about convenience and less friction — and that's exactly what we as marketers are always looking for.”

Best for

LOs who want to be early movers on a low-competition channel and are willing to experiment with short-form audio content to stay top-of-mind in a geographic farm.