Does your app need a Press Kit?

I have been talking to a lot of (mostly) iOS devs recently about things related to press and marketing. One of the takeaways is that devs sometimes aren’t sure whether it makes sense to spend time preparing Press Kit.

Before tackling the main question, let’s first look at when is having a press kit desirable:

• Introducing your app to journalists
• Journalists stumbling upon your app and wanting to write about it (less frequent)
• Asking Apple for App Store feature

While having a press kit to get articles written about your apps isn't strictly required, it significantly boosts the chances. Mainly because having a press kit ready makes it much easier for the journalist to write about your app.

The main question

After reading the previous part, you may already know the answer.

If you plan to do any sort of press outreach (like sending short pitch emails or press releases to journalists) then you should have at least a minimal press kit ready.

It shows to the press that you are taking this seriously and if they decide to write about your app, it will be easy because you have already provided the materials and information.

Suppose you aren’t active in this area but perhaps have a popular landing page, and you talk about your app on Twitter and similar. In that case, having at least the basic press kit ready might help in a situation when a journalist sees your app and decides to write an article about it.

And the last point. You can also ask Apple to consider featuring your app in the App Store. This form ask about a bunch of stuff, and you can also provide marketing materials for them to check out. If you already have a press kit, that is a great opportunity to share it with Apple.

You can provide more in-depth stuff like Apple technologies your app uses and similar that would look weird on a public-facing landing page.

Building your first Press Kit

If you decide to build a press kit, you need one readily available online. Do not create ZIP archive for press to download.

If you don’t want to spend time creating a web page you can take a look at ImpressKit. It is my project that makes creating press kits super easy. However, it is paid, so I recommend it only to folks with significant app earnings.

I also have free guides about various aspects of press kits, press releases, and similar.