You might have invested a lot of money in launching your mobile applications in the market, or you might be thinking of investing some to develop an app.
But do you know you can add a bunch of cash to your own wallet?
Surprised? It might be surprising for some, but for some, it is odd news. But who is saying they know you can earn money with an app? Let me ask you one question: Do you know the different ways of having this, or are you aware of various mobile app monetization options?
If you are saying NO, then you should stick to this blog. Today, I will deal with how you can earn money with the right app monetization strategy.
But before proceeding to the best mobile app monetization guide, let’s have a brief knowledge of:
Highlights of Contents
What is Mobile App Monetization?
Mobile app monetization is a practice of generating cash or revenue from your application.
Let’s say you’ve launched an app; it’s been out there for a while. What next? You want to earn money, right? So, whatever you do to generate revenue is called app monetization.
If you follow the right mobile app monetization strategy, you will start making some money off your apps.
However, there are various ways you can perform monetization. So, today I am here to tell you everything you need to know about app monetization. Let’s start this with app monetization statistics.
The number of applications downloaded around the globe is about 204 billion (from 2016-2019).
Image Source: Statista
Now Let’s Cover the Top Mobile App Monetization Strategy
Making an application opens a different channel by which it becomes exciting to interact with potential audiences and existing customers. An open door wherein your enthusiastic crowd has access to you in one simple click. Your application is a space entirely adaptable to their necessities. So, utilize its benefits and start earning. Here are a few steps you can follow.
1. Advertise through your mobile apps
Advertising is the most effective way to put cash in your wallet. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it or not, but it often happens a pop-up message gets to appear on the screen while working on a phone. Think of a while; you were playing on mobile apps. You have these random pop-up ads which show up during your playtime.
That’s an advertisement!. So once you have your user base, you can begin to your own ad once you start building some users. For that, you need to reach digital marketing companies or request companies to advertise for your mobile apps. That’s a way to monetize. That’s how you can make some money.
2. Charge for app install
By this method, I mean you had your app out there. For a while now, your app is famous. It’s going well, so what should you do next? Now, start charging for the installation. You can ask for a specific amount.
Probably a small amount; new users should purchase your app. So that’s another way to start making some new money from the new users.
3. Freemium players
A lot of people do download apps that are free for use. I’m sure you have as well, as they download apps with some free features and make them use the app. However, the owner set some basic fixed features only. This type of app asks customers to pay some amount to access the full application.
That’s what we mean by freemium. So there’s a lot of people who download these types of apps for the test and trial approach.
Let say, for example; suppose you are using a scanning application. With the use of that, you scan documents and send them to your clients.
Most of the time, what happens is some app allows you to scan documents up to 10 or more than 10. They ask you to pay some amount to have limitless usage. Most of the time, people do pay because your app is reliable.
And they find that they are very comfortable. So they pay a little extra amount to get full access to the app. This way, they are again going to make a little bit of money with the freemium customers.
4. In-app purchase
It is a very common way of monetizing your application. The most reasonable example would be games. I am sure you have tried a lot of games which you downloaded for free. You can access them for free and play them.
However, to progress through the game or to get to gain a little bit of an advantage. You probably have to get some to buy some things off the game. So that’s another way of making money with an application. There are two ways of in-app purchase when it comes to this method.
- Consumable
- Non-consumable
Consumable is something that the user can use once. So once they buy it for a specific amount, then they can use it. Another way: once they already have an app and after a few days, they have to repurchase it, i.e., non-consumable.
Let me explain this with an example, suppose the user buys an app once for a specific amount, let’s say five dollars. Suppose they are using it as long as they keep the application without adding extra money to 5$. In that case, it is consumable if they are paying an additional amount of money with the time to available some new feature or something else, i.e., non-consumable.
5. Subscription
You can find this approach as well to monetize your app. It’s very self-explanatory; here, you get people to subscribe either for extra features or some extra piece of content. This may be sent to them via email.
So it’s an excellent way to monetize and to make some money off your application.
6. SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is not directly related to the app itself. But when users sign up to their app, you get the opportunity of having their personal details like their mobile number. You can use this phone number to send a message to your customers.
For example, most of the people who do it sign up through Facebook. You gather a lot of the data and a lot of their information, and you can use SMS marketing by using their mobile number.
So you can push a lot of SMS to them, and you can promote your services with either new features on the app. You can even push new apps you may have developed, and then they have to pay for it.
So it’s a good way to reach out to your current users and maybe push them to pay that extra amount for it for your application.
7. Sponsorship
This step might be right for some and some useless. Sponsorship requires a lot of leverage in your usage amount. So there is a maximum possibility that you will not get a sponsorship agreement if you have fewer users.
Otherwise, it might be good for you to go out there and start looking for people who want a sponsor on your app if you have many users.
Say it in public; we want to sponsor you through the app. It sounds funny, but that is a good way to make some money. Because since you have a big base, you have a lot of data.
These people might want to sponsor you because they can use your data as well for marketing purposes.
8. Email marketing
Email marketing is somewhere, similar to SMS marketing. So as I said, in a similar way when people sign up through Facebook. Let’s say, for example, you gather the email as well as the mobile number. So, what you can do is just push email to them.
Maybe you have some content or some new updates on your application, which may be payable. It is a good way to get people to learn about your application and learn about these extra features that they may eventually pay for.
9. In-app currency
You can again relate this category with the games apps. There are a lot of mobile application games out there that are using an in-app currency strategy for monetizing money from apps. At the moment, you can use this in-app currency, which you need to buy with real money. For example, you have five dollars; you can buy this in-app currency, allowing you to purchase certain things throughout the game.
So if you offer this to a user who really likes your application, who really appreciates your game, you will probably be forced to do it as they want to progress through the day to the game very quickly. They will buy this in-app currency to go through a lot faster.
Takeaway!
Your customers always desire that you do something better for them. As a business person, it’s your responsibility to fulfill those desires. You can’t just make apps and stop caring about them. If you are throwing away your app and not taking care of it, you are losing various benefits.
This will let the users feel you are betraying them by not doing anything for them and closing the scope of earning money. For that my advice is:
- Continue adding and updating features to make the experience better for users.
- Always address their issue. Provide them with full support.
- Impose fresh and unique content to give a positive vibe that you are planning new.
- Follow their feedback.
- From your perspective, you can try mobile app monetization strategies for earning money with an app.
In the above, I have discussed nine ways to monetize and make some money off your fantastic application. I hope that I’ve been helpful to you. And I also pray for you to get great success with your app.
Good luck!!
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: What is the best way to monetize my mobile app?
A1: There are some amazing and worth making strategies to monetize an app. You can these different ways:
- In-App Purchases
- Email Marketing
- Freemium
- Affiliate Programs
- Subscription
- Sponsorships
Q2: What is the best way to monetize an app without ads?
A2: The best mobile app monetization models that you employ to earn money excluding ads is the Freemium model.
Q3: What amount of money I can make with an app from advertising?
A3: The number of cash applications made per promotion relies upon both the category of the application and also different types of ad units. In terms of video promotions, the normal income per impression in the US is $0.02. The normal income per completion is $0.16 for interstitials and $2.50 for the offer wall. (Source: Ironsrc)