You or your company just developed and deployed an application. You ensured testing was a success, kept development and deployment security via container images a priority. Your DevOps team may have even utilized container registry via JFrog. Now what?
It is time to monetize your mobile app in order to start making money for your company and/or client. Monetizing your app is actually a lot simpler than one would think. There are a number of services you can employ and implement into your app to increase revenue. Ads, in-app purchases, subscriptions, and freemiums are a few.
Let's take a closer look at how you can monetize your mobile app after deployment is complete.
1. Advertise On Your App
Employing advertising services to help monetize your mobile app is the most common and in some ways, the most profitable. This is a great strategy for those of you who offer free mobile apps. Think of it as AdSense for your app.
The key is to build a robust user base that will then engage with the ads served up while users are in-app. If you have built a good-sized user base, you can even segment your ads to net even more profits.
There are a few different in-app ads that are available for most apps:
Interstitial Ads
Banner Ads
Video Ads
Native Ads
Text Ads
2. Charge for App Installs
This strategy is not the most optimal on the surface, but has benefits for a few apps in niches like health and wellness, fitness, and productivity. One of your most valuable assets for driving paid app installs is your website.
Let's face it, app stores don't give you a whole lot of room to create enough value for customers to pay for an install. Your website, however, can be as robust as you want it to be. Creating a good value proposition for people to download your app on site will drive them to the app store to make a purchase.
That doesn't mean that you can ignore app search optimization (ASO) best practices. You should still showcase your best selling points in app stores using keyword rich titles, eye-catching app icons, videos, actionable screenshots, and in-depth authoritative descriptions.
3. Monetize In-App Purchases
While users are moving through your app, you should be offering in-app purchases to monetize your mobile app. This is usually optimal for free apps, drawing more users to make in-app purchases. There are two types of in-app purchases:
Consumable. These are those purchases that are one-time use only. For instance, game credit. Users who play app games often buy lots of game credit to keep growing in the game.
Non-Consumable. These in-app purchases are forever lasting. This could be a service add on in your app, or for games, it could be a level unlock purchase.
To make the most of in-app purchases, bundling packages are often preferred among users.
4. Build Up Your Email List
This method is tried and true for websites, but it also can be quite lucrative for mobile apps as well. Like SMS monetization, you will compile emails upon install. This is generally great for free apps.
Once you have a nice list of emails from your users, send them informative newsletters to highlight upcoming updates, new levels, highest scoring users, etc. You can even promote exclusive offers in your newsletters to drive more in-app purchases too.
5. In-App Currency
Another clever way to monetize your app is to offer in-app currency. This monetization strategy works well for gaming and casino apps.
For instance, if you set one single game package of 100 coins at say $50 you could be losing money. If you have a few different packages, you are giving users options, which they will appreciate, and they may end up spending more over the customer lifetime cycle.
6. Employ SMS Marketing
By asking for your users' mobile numbers upon install you can make the customer lifetime cycle longer. Asking for a mobile number is also not as intrusive as it once was. WhatsApp is a good example.
According to a survey, 82 percent of people open every SMS text message they receive. This makes getting your message in front of a large number of people possible.
SMS marketing is a great way to promote new products and services that you may have integrated into your app. It could just be the little nudge a dormant user of your app may need to reinstall, or begin using your mobile app again.
In Conclusion . . .
There are definitely more than just 6 ways to monetize your mobile app. The above will get you moving in the right direction, but to really get the maximum value from your monetary efforts, you should combine as many money making mobile app strategies as possible. Happy monetizing.
