When you think about marketing an app it’s really easy to get carried away with the fact that it’s an app you’re promoting. Yes, app promotion is new, but marketing hasn’t changed. You are still simply promoting a product to a consumer and trying to leave a positive impression.
So what is the first thing you do when you start your marketing strategy? You ask yourself “Who’s the consumer?” “What do they do?”
Now let’s look at statistics. In 2014, mobile app consumption superseded desktop. So your best chance of grabbing your consumers attention is to go mobile. According to a study by Cisco, mobile video viewing is responsible for 55% of mobile traffic and is set to increase to 75% by 2020. So it’s a no brainer that the best way to grab the attention of a mobile user is to go video.
“Video is the best way to stimulate the senses of your consumer and leave a lasting impression”
That however, is not the only reason to go video… Video is the best way to stimulate the senses of your consumer and leave a lasting impression. You can show your app in the best light and instead of just saying what you do, you can show them! Then when your consumer opens their new app for the first time, they’ve already seen what the app does and they’ve also seen a few features of that app too.
Videos seem like an expensive trend that is out of grasp for many small business, when actually they can be an inexpensive and successful marketing tool if used correctly. Here are just three of many places you can promote your video:
Website home page
This sounds obvious but your homepage is the most important part of your online presence. People often think that a video is the last thing that should be added to a website, but that is not the case. Have your video’s ‘Call To Action’ to sign up and be the first to hear about a launch date. Emotional video will help generate buzz and help drive people to download the app once it’s released.
We made this home page video for the app Crocodile that encourages pupils to walk to school:
Social media
It will come as no shock that video is dominating social media. Post your video on social and customers can quickly view your message as they scroll through their feeds. Videos autoplay silently until the user taps on the video, so keep that in mind. We recommend keeping videos short, anywhere between 15 – 30 seconds.
We usually repurpose a home page video and create short teaser edits that can be released slowly during launch. Here’s one of three short edits we made for discount app Spirini:
App stores
The Apple App Store don’t refer to the videos on the store as ‘video adverts’ instead they call them ‘App Previews’. They have some pretty strict guidelines about what classes as a ‘preview’ and you’ll need your video in 5 different resolutions. You can, however, demonstrate your app in a visually appealing video that is engaging for your viewers. So make sure to talk with your video production company beforehand who should be aware of all Apple’s requirements.
Google Play on the other hand have fewer restrictions. One great marketing advantage of Google Play is that you don’t upload the video directly like you do in the App store. Instead you host your video through YouTube. Any views on Google Play count toward views on YouTube, and the more views on YouTube means you are more likely to appear higher in Google search results.
So there you have it, three places to promote your marketing video. Video is just the opportunity you need to get people as excited about your business as you are.
