You finally accomplished the unthinkable. You created a mobile app solving the problem you knew, in your heart, needed to be solved. Your customers can interact with your brand like never before and you have so much data you never even realized you’d have at your fingertips.
Now what?
Here’s the top 6 ways to easily monetize the work you’ve invested to build your application.
- White Label – This is growing more and more common with the increase in mobile app development. A business develops an app and sells it to another company to be resold. This can be a one-time sale or it can include on–going licensing or royalties and is common in various different industries.
- In-App Purchases – The user pays additional costs for extra features enhancing their experience. This could include more tools in a toolkit, more lives in game or more abilities than initially granted at the beginning of the application. There are two different types of in-app purchases – consumable and non-consumable.
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- Consumable purchases have to be bought over and over, like game hints.
- Non-consumable purchases are bought once, like removing ads. Be aware – in-app purchases can be subject to a 30% cut from Apple and Android.
- Selling Data – From connections to interest to usage, the amount of data many apps generate is truly incredible and can generate one incredible revenue stream for any given company. To truly make an effect monetization strategy, you must be clear with your uses what their privacy policy is from the beginning.
- SMS Marketing- By sending in-app messages similar to the ones used for collecting email addresses, you can send notices for app updates, reminders, and promotions straight to your users’ text message inboxes. This is extremely effective because SMS marketing sends the user directly back into your application.
- Advertising – This is probably the most well-known app monetization strategy and the most common. So common that users are often waiting to see, at what point they’re going to be bombarded with advertisements. That’s why it’s important to skillfully and carefully interject advertisements to not dilute or takeaway from the users experience. The better the experience, the higher the engagement. Your ads need to entice the user, not frustrate them. Here’s a few categories of in-app advertisements:
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- Banner Ads – These are usually found at the top or bottom of the screen and can be somewhat ineffective because they are more distracting than other forms.
- Capture Form – Relying on user opt-ins, these offer incentives (like points or tokens) for users who enter their email addresses. You’ll most often find capture forms in mobile games.
- Full screen ads – These ads are usually placed at natural pause points, like when moving between menus.
- Pop-up aka Notification Ads – These pop up in the mobile device’s status bar and make users more aware of the ad’s presence.
- Advanced Overlay – These use clear transition points, but are interactive instead of being simple clickable images.
- Subscriptions – Users pay a subscription to receive the on-going service. Some subscriptions give access to digital content, like newspapers, while some allow for more functionality or access to tools within the app. Keep in mind, similar to in-app purchases, Apple and Android often take 30% of the profit from SAAS app models. One option, have a separate web app that handles all payment processing for subscriptions to avoid the fee.
Ready to build that app or monetize an app you’ve already created? We’re experts in the space and are always here to help.