Boost downloads with iOS App Preview Videos

A little publicised update in amongst the big hitting news is one important for app marketing – the iOS App Preview video. This is a short 15-30 second video introducing your app to users in the iTunes app store. This is a feature that has been available on Google Play for some time. Video is […]
Last updated: September 11, 2014

A little publicised update in amongst the big hitting news is one important for app marketing – the iOS App Preview video. This is a short 15-30 second video introducing your app to users in the iTunes app store. This is a feature that has been available on Google Play for some time.

Video is a great medium to give users a quick overview of your app, a sense of feeling if its worth downloading and testing further. Here is a Google Play app promo video for the popular note taking app Evernote, but take notice of the difference in the video style, the Apple Preview video must be about the app functionality, not the more emotional reasons to use it and the environment around it.

How is it done? You plugin your iPhone with a lightning cable to your Apple computer with OSX Yosemite installed, and it will become available as a video camera input. This will allow you to record whatever is on screen with Quicktime, then you import to your favourite video editor and tweak, add music etc.

We love the fact you plugin your device and record the screen, that is a great feature to make it easy. However, like the iTunes screenshots for devices each video is device specific, so ensure you get the video done right on the various iPad and iPhone devices. The other gotcha is that you cannot localise the videos for different languages, so keep the text in the video sparse, and do not use a voiceover unless you are only selling in countries that use that language.

This process requires iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite – Yosemite is due for general release in the last quarter of 2014, at the time of writing no release date has been scheduled.

Do:

  • Make it relevant
  • Plan it out like any good bit of marketing or video
  • Storyboard it, and map out the scenes you need
  • Tell a story of the journey your users will have
  • Do the demo on each device, because, like you app screenshots
  • Add highlights to simulate touch points where the user interacts with the app
  • Select a good starting frame, it will be the first image a user sees in iTunes

Don’t:

  • Do the demo with personal information, use a dummy / demo account if necessary
  • Use music to overlay that you do not have the rights to use
  • Stream content in the demo that you do not have the rights to use
  • Use over the shoulder video, or fake hands to indicate gestures
  • Use zooms as it may indicate functionality you don’t have in the app

And if you don’t want to do / can’t do it yourself? We recommend the good folks over at apptamin for your videos.

More info from Apple and the app submission guidelines. Screenshot from Evernote

Share your videos in the comments below!

Duncan Isaksen-Loxton

Educated as a web developer, with over 20 years of internet based work and experience, Duncan is a Google Workspace Certified Collaboration Engineer and a WordPress expert.

1 Comment

[…] big feature in iTunes is the arrival of App Previews, intro videos for your app that give potential users the ability to assess your app prior to […]

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