Hey there, it’s Jacob at Retention.Blog 👋
I got tired of reading high-level strategy articles, so I started writing actionable advice I would want to read.
Every week I share practical learnings you can apply to your business.
Want to spice up your life app?
Try adding videos to your new user experience
Video and animation used to be so expensive and time-consuming to create that it was often limited to large brands.
If your app UI changed, now all of a sudden, you need to spend another $25k on a new video.
This isn’t really true anymore.
You can create stellar video assets with AI.
People actually resonate with lower-quality UGC because it feels “authentic”
Animated videos are quite easy to generate.
Let’s check out some apps that use video very well
1. Lingokids - Play and Learn
Lingokids is one of the most successful kids education apps. They have a stellar UI and UX in general, but one element I quite like is their use of animated video on their paywall.
It does a great job of showing the actual UI of the activities in the app
It mentions real benefits and differentiators from other apps
It gives you outcomes that you’ll reach
It’s very engaging so gives you confidence the app will be engaging for your kid
AND, it’s right alongside the actual subscribe buttons, so you only have to watch if you’re not ready to start your trial yet
2. BoldVoice: Accent Training
BoldVoice helps you become a more natural English speaker for confidence, jobs, etc.
Instead of having an onboarding flow that uses text to guide you through, they have an English instructor ask you questions.
This makes sense because maybe you can understand spoken English, but maybe reading is harder for you.
And it gives new users a preview of what the app experience will feel like.
One thing to note - the video and audio are not perfectly synced which makes everything seem a little weird.
I’d love to see more apps have guidance for early users with video.
It’s a much different experience than most apps, so that alone should set you apart a little.
3. LADDER Strength Training Plans
Ladder has been absolutely killing it. Appfigures said they made $4M+ from in-app purchases alone in the last 30 days!!
They’ve used extremely high-quality fitness instructor videos for quite a while now.
It instantly gives the perception of a premium product (and it’s priced like one too).
My brain: “If they put this much time into these videos, I bet the workout guides are pretty great also!”
Ladder also pairs you with a specific workout instructor, so the video gives you a chance to get to know them.
If you do use long videos like this, make sure you give users an option to “Skip” like Ladder does.
4. Dr. Kegel: For Men’s Health
This is an interesting one.
Almost the entire onboarding is one long video testimonial.
It’s low-quality video content, but that’s the goal, because it feels more real.
A quick caution, this is for men’s sexual “wellness” - when I first saw this app, I didn’t realize initially what it was for.
The new user experience is 90% video testimonials. There are a few screens before this, but what I have below is the majority of the experience before the paywall.
It’s just loading screens and a few guys talking into an iPhone camera!
Anyone can produce this level of video.
Then once you get to the paywall, the video just keeps going!
If you scroll down, it finally stops, but I’m sure it’ll play for a few more minutes if you don’t do anything.
It’s an interesting idea - if people need more information, they’ll keep watching the video. As long as you provide an “out” for people who are ready to continue or purchase, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have longer video content. As long as it’s decently engaging.
5. 222 - find your people.
This is a free app, but the intro video is pretty cool. I don’t have tons of takeaways here other than maybe… be cool?
I think there was also some haptic feedback that went along with the “camera clicks” - so that’s an interesting idea. Can you pair iOS haptic feedback with your video?
Want to see some other apps with video content I didn’t have room to include?
Check out:
Want to talk to Arnold? Check out Pump Club
ReciMe
Olive
Fivepointfive has some video examples to show off breath work content
ShutEye has some video animations on their paywall to show off features/benefits
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