It took you and your team at least months to go from just having a cool idea to creating your new app. Along the way, you probably invested a lot in things like expert software development, graphic design, and expensive focus groups to finally bring your idea to life.
But there’s a problem: people won’t download it!
To effectively promote your app on digital platforms, you need to put as much work into your marketing strategy. The fact is that people have many different options to choose from, so you want to think of a plan to get them hyped about yours.
Fortunately, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel! By making videos part of your marketing toolkit, you can ease your way into promoting your app. But as the best video companies know, there are important details to be clear about.
When should you use a video? What production decisions come with that? How should your video look? These are some of the questions we’ll go through to help you raise awareness about your app.
But first, why video?
Hopping on the Video Marketing Rush
For the last decade or so, as social media and digital platforms took hold on the Internet, video content has gained celebrity status. Whether people use videos for education, business, or entertainment, the general impression is that they get the job done.
Now when it comes to promoting apps, the general practice is to settle for screenshots and detailed text descriptions. But, unless your app is so simple that it can be illustrated by images, you should consider using videos as part of your strategy.
But you don’t have to take my words at face value! It has been proven that video content helps raise conversion rates for mobile app downloads by 85%. That can’t be a coincidence! The truth is that the combination of visual and narrative resources into a piece results in a type of content that is easier to consume, understand, and retain.
Videos can boost your app marketing campaign like no other type of content. But before going over the critical decisions involved in producing great videos, let’s first compare the two leading app venues.
How Do Videos Work on Google Play and the App Store?
If you’ve created a multiplatform app, you should have videos ready for both Google Play and the App Store. But the issue is more complex than reusing the same content, as each store has its own rules regarding video.
Previews for the App Store need to be pre-approved by Apple’s team, which has very defined requirements on the types of videos they accept. Some of the most important include:
In contrast, Google Play doesn’t require prior approval, and its guidelines are more versatile, with almost no limitations. But for many apps, this freedom results in low-quality homemade videos, which you certainly don’t want for your brand.
For that matter, we have these recommendations for you on what to post on Google Play:
When proper, show real people using the app—seeing how a human hand uses the smartphone is easier to follow than random images.
Optimize your video with subtitles or even a professional voiceover when your video demands it, so you can make your message crystal clear.
Unique Types of Videos to Promote Your App
By doing a quick search on the platforms, you will notice many types of videos that developers use for promotion. There’s simply not a one-size-fits-all style, but there’s a wide catalog of videos you can choose from to entice your audience, present your app’s features, or even showcase a positive review.
Let’s go over some of the most popular types of videos to see which one will best fit your purposes.
Preview Videos
When most of us think about mobile app videos, the first images that come to mind are the brief teasers we usually find in social media ads. Previews are the gold standard of app videos because they give viewers the chance to see how the program exactly looks and works.
Of course, in theory, screenshots can work just as well. But there is something to be said about being able to appreciate in advance how we can use the product and whether it really aligns with our expectations and tastes.
Preview videos pair well with any type of app. However, they are particularly valuable for entertainment and gaming apps, as users want to concretely see the basic functionalities and/or story.
Explainer Videos
We’ve stressed that you need to distinguish your product from the competition. Many times, it could be hard to convey with a promo video how your solution stands out: in the viewers’ eyes, yours is just another option with nothing particularly special.
With animated explainer videos, on the other hand, you can approach your audiences from a quite different angle. This class of videos focuses not on your app’s looks as such, but on a story. By using colorful animation and engaging characters, you can pose a problem for your viewers, and then explain how your solution can help them improve their lives.
Explainer videos are perfect for dating and business apps, for which there are generally plenty of indistinguishable options in the Store. By focusing on what your app does best, you’ll get an emotional response from users that could lead them to choose your solution above the rest.
Customer Testimonial Videos
You wouldn’t think that many people (including myself) are hesitant about downloading apps. It’s understandable since apps take up space on our smartphones and, well, we might end up not using them at all!
To feel comfortable about the app they will download, users sometimes need social proof. Luckily, video testimonials can provide just this. These videos feature satisfied customers or experts giving their first-hand take on your product and its features, and how it’s helped simplify their lives.
By showcasing other people review your app, testimonial videos are the best way to improve your brand image. They give users the validation they need to know that your app is the one they’re looking for.
Pro Tips and Tricks
Once you choose the type of video that best suits your app, you need to know that there are certain production principles that apply to all videos in general.
Producing videos is complex, as the process involves important technical and creative aspects. But there’s no mystery about it!
To simplify the issue, we’ll go into three of the most relevant aspects to keep in mind.
Make Your Video Short
With so much information and distractions available online, you have limited time to connect with your viewers. It’s no surprise that after just a few seconds, viewing rates start to drop significantly.
That’s the reason why most mobile app videos tend to be really, really short—about 10 to 30 seconds, 2 minutes maximum. With so little time, you want to keep your video simple and fast-paced, bringing attention to what’s truly interesting about your product.
Easier said than done, right? It’s challenging to keep your video that short, so you want to focus on your app’s main highlights. Figure out which features make your product a distinctive and attractive choice and convey that idea to your viewers.
Take Your Video Through Social Channels
Although we’ve been focusing on the app’s profile page, we can’t downplay the crucial importance of social media. App ads are a constant presence on platforms like YouTube and Instagram because marketers know that that’s where the most important conversations are taking place.
In terms of visibility, launching a thorough social media campaign is a must. But there are other advantages that come with having videos on your social accounts.
Facebook, for example, is particularly useful to run your ads, as the platform offers analytical tools to gather key data about your ads’ performance and how users behave with them. Take advantage of these tools to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your videos and make informed decisions on the future.
Include Relevant CTAs
Whether you’re uploading your video on social media or your app’s profile, you want to give viewers one last little push to motivate them to download the app. Now, you don’t necessarily have to be too promotional to do this.
By simply adding CTAs in your video, you can inform users about the next best step to take. To get started, use clear, short phrases like “Sign Up Free” and “Learn More” to lead audiences to your app’s page. But if you want them to “Upgrade” or “Go Premium,” you can also use these CTAs.
Lastly, in social media videos, remember to always add the platforms where the app is available and can be downloaded by the audience.
Takeaways
As videos have the unique quality of being entertaining, informative, and easy to consume at the same time, they are a powerful tool to add to your marketing campaign efforts.
Embed them in your app’s listing page to show users what to expect from your product. Focus mainly on the features that make your solution distinctive, so that users take notice of your app’s virtues. Finally, take your videos to where your audience is to spread the word and continue the buzz.
