Create a Mobile App Trailer to Drive App Awareness and Downloads
by GameHouse
One of the best ways to promote and drive downloads of your mobile app is with an app trailer. By creating your own unique mobile app trailer, you can show your users and prospective users a compelling preview of what your mobile app is about, and help drive app downloads.
But not all mobile app trailer videos are equally effective. Too many mobile app trailers are overly technical, too long, and not engaging enough. To grab your audience’s attention, you need to create a video that will spark interest and pique the curiosity of people so they are ready to learn more and try your mobile app for themselves.
Here are a few tips on how to create a great mobile app trailer video:
- Create an emotional “hook” at the beginning: Give your audience a clear, compelling reason to watch the video – and to eventually download your mobile app. For example, a good way to present an emotional hook for an app is to clearly state the problem that your customers are facing. What problem does your app help people solve? Show upfront that you empathize with your customers and can help them solve their problem. For a game, the emotional hook can be something that elicits an emotion – fear, curiosity, laughter, or poignant moments. For example, the start of this promo video for Angry Birds Star Wars shows a cute, humorous interaction between the Angry Bird doppelgangers of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia – Luke twirls his light saber around in a display of skill, but Leia is obviously not impressed. In this teaser trailer video for Tiny Wings, the emotional appeal is more subtle, but still effective – it shows the character of the game flying along on a colorful background, accompanied by a simple tune from a wind up music box. If you can engage your audience’s emotions from the first few seconds of your mobile app trailer video, you’ll be more likely to get them to download your app.
- Use a storyboard and script: Every Hollywood movie starts with storyboards and a script to show the order of action and organize the movie from start to finish. Just because you’re doing a short simple video doesn’t mean it should be haphazardly done – in fact, with a shorter timeframe, it’s even more important to make every second count. Before you start recording, take the time to plan out your video from beginning to end. You don’t need to use fancy software for this – simple sticky notes will do just fine. Just make sure you have a clear understanding of what is going to happen in each 5 to 10 second “scene” or increment of the video. And don’t be afraid to cut – shorter is better, as long as you can get your message across. Time is of the essence and your audience’s attention span is short!
- Make it personal: Downloading an app is a personal, active choice – when someone downloads your app, they are choosing to make your creation a part of their life. So when you are designing mobile app trailer video, remember to make it personal. You want to talk to the viewer as if they were the only person watching your video. Frame the problem in terms that they can understand personally and use words like “you” rather than abstract statistics. If you’re going to use statistics, that’s OK, but use them as social proof to show that “other people are doing it too” – and always lead with a personal message.
- Create a customer journey: Every little mobile app trailer video is a chance to take your customer on a short but compelling “journey” that leaves them ready to download your app. For an app, the journey includes the stages of defining the problem, identifying the solution, adding proof points, and then closing with a call to action. For a game, create an emotional connection, tell the story, and have a strong call to action.
- Cut it down: Online videos need to be short and sweet. If you don’t grab people’s attention in the first few seconds, they won’t keep watching. If a video is too long, people won’t click “Play” in the first place. After you have a good cut of your video, think hard about every section and whether something can be removed. If you’re not sure if something should be left in, it shouldn’t Avoid repetition and needless detail. Keep the message crisp, clear and focused. For most non-game apps, you can get your message across in less than 3 minutes. For a game, you can probably accomplish what you need to in a minute to a minute and a half.
- Then, cut it more: Mobile video advertising is one of the best tools for app developers to drive installs through services like the GameHouse Promotion Network. Your 60-120 second video is a great place to start for your mobile video advertising, but it will need to be cut down to 15-30 seconds in order to drive downloads effectively. Go through the same process for your mobile advertising video as you did for your full app trailer. Getting your core more message down to 15-30 seconds is a challenge, but it will force you to focus on only the most important messages and can help you shape all of your marketing efforts.
Creating a good mobile app teaser trailer will energize your users to go out and download your app – and will help potentially build buzz to introduce your app to new audiences. Just remember to plan ahead, create a unique journey for your viewers, keep it short, and connect to your viewer’s emotional needs (instead of just reciting the stats and specs about your app).
What’s your take on this? What are some of the most effective mobile app product videos that you have seen?