iPhone app marketing is the final frontier today: you have done a great app or game and you release it, is it enough to sell? Unless your app is unique in its kind, which gets harder to achieve every day, that is not enough.
One of the key press and marketing materials you should consider producing for your iPhone app or game is a promotional video and an instructional video.
A promotional video is a short commercial-like video that shows off your app selling points. It should include real-life video of your app running on the device, some tagline and possibly some cool animations and effects that take the idea, background and elements of your app to a level not possible on the device itself.
An instructional video is a “how-to” video, more similar to a video review, that shows real-life video of your app running on the device (you can take small parts of your promo video) and extend the video with more clips of the app running (either on the device or the simulator) and a voiceover comment covering the key features and basic functionality of your app.
In this post I’ll cover the basics of creating a great promo video.
First things first. Whenever you work with video, you need to create a storyboard. A good first step is creating an outline of the scenes.
Let’s analyze some videos of great apps and games to make an idea of how the video should be structured. I’ve selected 2 for you: Labyrinth 2 (a game by IllusionLabs) and Night Stand (a utility app by Sourcebits).
Labyrinth 2 for iPhone:
- Company logo
- 3D animation that depicts the game concept
- Graphics that guide the viewer through the App highglights
- New game elements (tagline) with real-life video of the game being played on the iPhone
- Multiplayer (tagline) with real-life video of the game being played on the iPhone
- Level editor: “create and share” tagline with real-life video of the game being played on the iPhone
- End screen: game logo, game highlights, game’s feature website, company logo
Night Stand Pro for iPad and iPhone:
- App Logo
- Real-life scenes with picture-in-picture that shows a lady using the app and the app screen (likely captured through the simulator); the app screen shows a few of the most eye-catching styles available in the iPad app
- Real-life scene showing the iPhone and the color picker for the digital clock
- Real-life scene showing the App in use while the iPhone is unattended alternating
- Real-life sceen showing portrait and landscape modes
- Real-life scenes with picture-in-picture that shows a lady using the app and the app screen (likely captured through the simulator); the app screen shows a few of the most eye-catching styles available in the iPad app
- Slideshow of simulator screenshots showing off several clock styles
- Lite app logo
- App logo
- Available on the App Store logo and company logo/website
- Developer logo
Generalizing, your promo video should include:
- Your company logo
- Your app logo
- Real-life video of your app running on a real device
- Scenes depicting the app in it’s every-day use: if it’s a game, you’ll want to emphasize the interaction between the hands and the device; if it’s a board game, you’ll want to depict several people (or a family) playing together on the device, it it’s a productivity app, you’ll want to show it in its environment (an office desk, a shopping mall, a restaurant, the street, or whatever the “natural usage place” of your app is).
- Scenes depicting your app unique value: the handful of features that differentiate your app from your competitors, which make your app stand out from the crowd.
- If the features you are depicting are not obvious like in Night Stand, be sure to include tag lines of a few words describing what the viewer is seeing.
- Available on the App Store logo
- App website URL
Some additional tips:
- Be sure to select a great music track, either directly from your game or a nice song.
- Keep the video SHORT and TO-THE-POINT. The two videos we selected have a duration between 50 seconds and 1 minute. If at all possible, cut the footage in 2 versions of the video, a 30 seconds commercial and a minute long one.
- Use 16:9 and HD equipment. Nowadays, even a low-cost HD camcorder will do a pretty decent job delivering what looks like broadcast quality footage (especially when it’s viewed through YouTube).
- Don’t forget to reference your video from your blog, the app’s website, the App Store description, your Facebook fan page, your Twitter account, etc…
We’ll be producing our first promo videos to promote our Letter Blocks game series and our Divine Office app. If we’ll catch some time, we might very well produce a backstage/making of as well… Stay tuned ;)