Let us get to know a little more about mobile applications. These are mediums through which people can perform various functions. They can satisfy their needs for entertainment or socializing or business or more. As a mobile app developer, this can be a great opportunity for you to connect with your customers and engage them over the long term. While all of this seems to be clear and evident, what is challenging is to monetize your mobile app. Some businesses are developing mobile applications in order to service their customers better; however, that is not the objective for all applications in the market. Many of those have been developed as a business, and earning money via the same is pertinent. Here are some ways in which you can monetize your mobile app.
PAY PER DOWNLOAD: This is one of the simplest ways to monetize your mobile app. You can put up a price tag on the application, and that ensures that you get paid every time your application is downloaded. This comes across as a pretty good one-time monetization strategy. It would, however, work best for those applications that have become extremely popular or boast of something that might catch the attention of the audience.
Here are some positives and negatives of this strategy:
Positives
- This exercise is very straightforward, and you do not need to get into any complex mechanisms to earn money.
- If your content is much sought after, people will be willing to pay in order to download the application.
Negatives
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New applications will find it extremely difficult to compete with all those free applications in the market.
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When users have paid for the download, their expectations have certainly risen. Therefore, your application needs to be impeccable, or people might badmouth the same.
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It leaves you little avenue of earning more money, as people wouldn’t be willing to spend any more money on the application after having paid for its download.
ADVERTISING: When you surf through some applications, you would have seen advertisements up there. Those advertisers pay the application developer for a slot some on the app’s screen. The payment might be for a fixed term or on any other basis. While this might need you to put some efforts, it does happen to be a good way of monetize your mobile app.
Here are some positives and negatives of this strategy:
Positives
- This works perfectly for applications that have a large number of frequent visitors.
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If your content is unique and engages the users, advertisers will be more than willing to mark their presence there.
Negatives
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There are times when advertisements impact the user experience. You will have to make it a point that such advertisements must integrate with the experience of the application rather than distorting it.
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You are accountable to the advertisers, and thus it is imperative to keep the viewers coming to your application all the time. Stagnation in users or app viewership can reduce advertisers’ interests.
IN-APP PURCHASES: Finally, allowing people to purchase something from within your application is also a very good idea of monetizing your application. This method is proven, and has been known to work with different types of applications. Hence, if you are playing a game and wish to upgrade it, you can do that from within the application itself.
Here are some positives and negatives of this strategy:
Positives
- It is connected directly to what the user is doing right now.
- If your content is engaging then selling can become simpler.
Negatives
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There are times when developers focus too much on the sales, and the quality of the application suffers. It is imperative to focus on the application’s attractiveness.
- It is necessary to ensure that the purchase options and purchase timings are appropriate.
COMBINATION: Finally, if you aren’t completely convinced with all of these, you can try blending them all into one cohesive unit. Therefore, some apps offer two options to the users. The first is a ‘free’ app which comes with advertisers. If the users wish to enhance their user experience, they can get rid of the advertisements by buying a ‘paid version’ of the app.