Ways the app technology can be used

Businesses need to consider the returns on their investment and value generation potential. It is essential to measure the direct or indirect cash flows related to mobile apps. For instance, displaying ads in a mobile app is a direct method used to generate returns.

At the same time, an increase in the number of customers generating higher sales is an indirect method of securing capital inflows. It is why companies looking to invest in a mobile app should investigate what monetization techniques the app uses, as well as other aspects.

When it comes to mobile branding, there are several approaches you can consider based on your specific needs. While the ultimate goal of your app is to engage with your customer base, the nature of this interaction can vary significantly from one company to another. In this article, we will explore some of the popular and successful approaches of returning mobile app development cost.

Task Resolution Apps

Seamlessly execute tasks and offer convenient services to your customers through dedicated mobile apps. Whether it’s providing remote access to customer databases for your workforce or allowing car owners to control their vehicles from their smartphones, task resolution apps enhance convenience and efficiency. For instance, BMW’s app enables car owners to remotely lock/unlock doors, control climate settings, and even locate their vehicle.

Loyalty Apps

Boost customer loyalty by implementing mobile apps that offer exclusive rewards and incentives. Brands like ASOS and Starbucks have successfully deployed loyalty programs within their apps, encouraging customers to return for the perks and benefits they receive. By creating a sense of exclusivity and appreciation, loyalty apps establish lasting relationships with customers and drive repeat business.

Entertaining Apps

Engage and captivate users by creating entertaining experiences through your brand’s app. While functionality is crucial, offering enjoyable content without immediate incentives can keep users hooked. Coca-Cola’s Freestyle app, which allows users to create custom beverage mixes, and Red Bull TV app, which offers exciting video content, are prime examples of entertaining apps that resonate with their target audience.

Customer Service Apps and Chatbots

Enhance your customer service capabilities with dedicated apps and chatbot integration. These apps act as communication bridges between users and brand representatives, enabling seamless troubleshooting and issue resolution. Customers can easily report problems and find solutions, while brands can proactively communicate updates and introduce new services. This approach ensures a seamless and efficient customer experience.

Content Apps

Share valuable content and expertise through mobile apps, allowing celebrities and experts to connect with their audience directly. Apps like Jamie’s Recipes provide users with a digital space to access photos, videos, and cooking guides from renowned chefs, creating an immersive and interactive experience. Content apps build brand authority and offer users a unique and curated space for valuable information.

How to boost the usage of mobile app for business 

Boosting the usage of a mobile app for your business requires a strategic approach that focuses on increasing user engagement and promoting app adoption. Here are some effective strategies to boost the usage of your mobile app:

– Promote App Awareness. Create awareness about your mobile app through various marketing channels. Leverage your website, social media platforms, email newsletters, and other digital channels to inform your existing customer base and target audience about the app’s benefits and features. Highlight how the app can enhance their experience with your business.

– Incentivize App Downloads. Encourage users to download and install your app by offering incentives. Provide exclusive discounts, rewards, or access to premium content for app users. Consider running limited-time promotions or referral programs where users can earn additional benefits by referring the app to their friends or family members.

– Streamline Onboarding Process. Ensure that your app’s onboarding process is user-friendly and intuitive. Make it easy for users to sign up, navigate through the app, and understand its core features. Provide clear instructions or interactive tutorials to help users get started quickly. A seamless onboarding experience increases the likelihood of users engaging with your app.

– Enhance User Experience. Continuously optimize and enhance the user experience within your app. Prioritize user-friendly design, intuitive navigation, and fast-loading times. Regularly update your app to fix bugs, introduce new features, and incorporate user feedback. A positive and enjoyable user experience encourages users to engage with the app regularly.

– Personalize and Segment Notifications. Utilize push notifications to re-engage users and keep them informed about relevant updates, offers, or personalized recommendations. Segment your user base based on their preferences, behaviors, or demographics to deliver targeted and personalized notifications. Avoid excessive or irrelevant notifications to prevent users from disabling them.

– Implement Gamification Elements. Incorporate gamification elements into your app to make the user experience more enjoyable and engaging. Introduce challenges, rewards, badges, or leaderboards to motivate users to complete certain actions within the app. Gamification can encourage healthy competition, drive user participation, and increase overall app usage.

– Gather and Act on User Feedback. Regularly collect user feedback through surveys, ratings, or reviews within the app. Actively listen to user suggestions, address their concerns, and implement improvements based on their feedback. Showing that you value user input and continuously work to enhance the app based on their needs will foster loyalty and encourage app usage.

– Cross-Promote within Your Business Ecosystem. Utilize your existing business ecosystem to cross-promote your app. Prominently display app download links or QR codes on your website, social media profiles, email signatures, and other marketing materials. Integrate the app seamlessly with other customer touchpoints, such as your website, physical stores, or customer service channels.

Real actions to get Benefit from mobile apps: what is ROI?

By measuring and maximizing app performance, you can understand user behavior and make informed decisions to improve the user experience, increase conversions, boost retention rates, and generate more revenue. Here are some key actions you can take to achieve this:

1.     Define your goals: Clearly identify the business objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your app. This will guide your measurement and optimization efforts, ensuring you focus on the metrics that matter most.

2.     Track app downloads and installs: Utilize app analytics tools like Google Analytics or Firebase to monitor the number of app downloads and installations. This provides insights into the size of your user base and initial app adoption.

3.     Track user engagement: Measure user engagement metrics such as session length, time spent in the app, and retention rate. This data helps you understand how users interact with your app and identify areas for improvement.

4.     Analyze user feedback: Pay attention to user feedback through app store reviews, ratings, surveys, and user testing. This valuable input highlights user preferences, pain points, and areas where enhancements can be made to optimize the user experience.

5.     Calculate app ROI: Calculate the ROI of your app by subtracting the development and promotion costs from the revenue generated by the app. This analysis provides a clear picture of the financial impact and profitability of your app.

6.     Maximize ROI: Focus on improving the KPIs that have the most significant impact on your business goals. For example, if revenue growth is a priority, concentrate on increasing in-app purchases or subscriptions. Optimize monetization strategies to maximize app revenue.

7.     Continuously optimize your app: Implement a process of continuous testing and optimization to enhance the user experience, engagement, and retention. Utilize A/B testing to experiment with different features, layouts, and messaging, and analyze the results to determine the most effective approach for your users.

Monetization strategies to maximize app revenue

There are various fundamental approaches to generate revenue through mobile apps, and you can either select a single mobile app monetization strategy or blend multiple ones. You have the option of creating a paid app from the outset or launching a free version with premium features. With numerous options to choose from, there is something for everyone.

Paid apps

The simple model, where the users have to pay for mobile apps.

Although the paid app model may be considered outdated, it is still a viable approach for certain categories of digital products. For instance, productivity apps, photo and video editing apps, navigation apps, and utility apps are some examples of areas where paid apps can still be profitable. These types of apps typically offer specific functions or features that users are willing to pay for. However, to make this model successful, it is essential to ensure that the app provides value to the users and that the price is competitive in the market. Additionally, offering a free trial or a limited version of the app can be an effective way to attract potential customers and encourage them to purchase the full version.

In-app purchases

One of the easiest ways for an application to bring you revenue is by charging users for extra features or purchases they can make once they start using it.

In-app purchases can unlock extra premium features to your users but leave the core product free of charge (this is related to the freemium model).This model is commonly used in the fields of gaming, social networks, dating apps, and entertainment.

The types of in-app purchases:

– Auto-renewable subscriptions. Users are automatically charged every pay period until they cancel the subscription.

– Non-renewing subscriptions. Services or content for only a limited period. Users will have to purchase a new subscription once the current subscription ends.

– Consumable. After using all of a consumable purchase, the user purchases another consumable IAP again to enjoy the same benefits.

– Non-consumable. Once a user buys a non-consumable purchase, it’s permanently available to them. It does not expire with time or use.

In-app advertising

This approach offers ad placements inside your digital product. There are different types of ads like Banner ads, Video ads, Rewarded video ads, Native ads, Playable ads, Offerwall ads. 

​​We can combine the in-app purchase (IAP) model with in-app advertising (IAA) to maximize revenue. This approach can include incorporating ads between game levels, using rewarded videos to offer consumable items to users who watch ads, and even combining IAA with features in dating apps where users can watch a few seconds of a video ad while browsing potential matches. It’s worth noting that this combination of IAA with IAP is currently proving to be highly effective in generating revenue for mobile apps.

In-app ads pricing models:

– Cost Per Mille (CPM)

The CPM is the price an advertiser pays a publisher for every 1,000 (mille) times the ad is displayed. 

– Cost Per Click (CPC)

With the CPC pricing model, the advertiser pays the publisher only when an ad is clicked.

– Cost Per Action (CPA)

Requires the advertiser to pay the publisher when a click leads to a specific, pre-defined action within an app (registration, purchase, etc.).

– Cost per Install (CPI) 

As the name suggests, this pricing model requires the advertiser to pay only when the action results in an install. 

Affiliate marketing

With affiliate marketing in mobile apps, app publishers can earn commission fees when their users download a promoted app or take a specific action, such as making a purchase or subscribing to a service, after clicking on a link placed inside their own app. The links are usually provided by the affiliate network or program, which serves as an intermediary between the app publisher and the advertiser.

To participate in an affiliate marketing program, the app publisher needs to sign up with an affiliate network or program that matches them with advertisers offering relevant products or services. Once approved, the app publisher can start promoting the advertiser’s products or services within their app by placing links or ads that lead to the advertiser’s landing page or app store page.

When a user clicks on one of these links and takes the desired action, such as downloading the promoted app, the app publisher earns a commission fee based on a pre-agreed upon rate set by the advertiser. The commission fee can vary depending on the advertiser, the type of product or service being promoted, and the action taken by the user.

Subscription fee

A subscription-based model for mobile apps is a popular revenue model used by many developers. In this model, users pay a regular monthly fee to access the app and its features. This model is widely used by apps that provide ongoing services, such as news or magazine apps, fitness apps, or productivity apps.

With a subscription-based model, mobile app developers can offer users a free trial period or a limited version of the app to encourage them to subscribe. Once a user subscribes, they can access all of the app’s features for as long as they continue to pay the subscription fee.

The subscription fee can be charged on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis, depending on the app’s pricing strategy. The pricing strategy can also be tiered, with different subscription levels offering different levels of access or features.

Product licenses

Subscription-based streaming services like Netflix or Spotify buy licensed content (such as film or music) from other companies. On the other hand, Shazam – the audio recognition technology – is often licensed to other companies to increase its revenue stream. Naturally, you can also license your proprietary technology to other monetization digital products that work with data, features, and APIs.

Sponsorships

Engaging in an advertising relationship with a single advertiser can be a way for mobile app developers to monetize their apps while maintaining a high-quality user experience. By working closely with a single advertiser, app developers can ensure that the ads displayed in their app are relevant, non-intrusive, and complementary to the app’s content. 

When selecting ads for their app, developers should consider the ad format, targeting, and relevance to their users. For instance, ads for health and wellness products may be fitting for a fitness app, while ads for toys or games may be appropriate for a children’s app.

Furthermore, developers should be mindful of ad placement and frequency within their app. Over-displaying ads or placing them in inconvenient locations can detract from the user experience and have a negative impact.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding platforms such as IndieGogo, Kickstarter, and GoFundMe can be a great option for app developers looking to generate side revenue. However, relying on them as a primary income source may not be the best strategy.

Types of crowdfunding:

– Peer-to-peer lending. The crowd lends money to a company with the understanding that the money will be repaid with interest. It is very similar to traditional borrowing from a bank, except that you borrow from lots of investors.

– Equity crowdfunding. Sale of a stake in a business to a number of investors in return for investment. The idea is similar to how common stock is bought or sold on a stock exchange, or to a venture capital.

– Rewards-based crowdfunding. Individuals donate to a project or business with expectations of receiving in return a non-financial reward, such as goods or services, at a later stage in exchange of their contribution.

– Donation-based crowdfunding. Individuals donate small amounts to meet the larger funding aim of a specific charitable project while receiving no financial or material return.

– Profit-sharing / revenue-sharing. Businesses can share future profits or revenues with the crowd in return for funding now.

– Debt-securities crowdfunding. Individuals invest in a debt security issued by the company, such as a bond.

– Hybrid models. Offer businesses the opportunity to combine elements of more than one crowdfunding type.

While crowdfunding can provide a boost in funding and help generate early adopters, it is important to remember that success on these platforms is not guaranteed. Campaigns require significant effort to promote and may still fail to reach their funding goal.

Instead, app developers should consider crowdfunding as part of a broader revenue strategy that includes other monetization channels such as in-app advertising or subscription-based models.