Monday, December 17, 2012

The best ways to earn money with mobile apps

By Daniel Parks


Ways to generate income with mobile apps

What's the answer to success as a mobile developer?

Look at giving people a great value proposition. If you're making games, they have to take ultimate benefit of the mobile experience. Angry Birds is the most efficient example of this. The gameplay is easy and you only need a few minutes to play to the next level. It's ideal for mobile. Sustaining results in digital media is more difficult, we've seen big companies fluctuate in only a few short years. Being flexible enough to evolve is key, but you also should establish a strong sense of what works in digital and follow it.

Once you have an idea that works, then what? Just how do you convert that into income?

There are four ways to profit with apps. The most common is through paid downloads, in which you put a fixed price for your app, consumers purchase it, and the purchase usually ends there. You might even seek an exclusive backer for your application. It's not the best financially sustainable solution of monetizing, however it can help you create yourself sufficiently to make your next app a financial success. Then, there are the increasingly noticeable in-app purchases, by which your customer might not have to pay anything at the beginning (completely free), but will have the opportunity to make purchases within the app to boost the experience.

You can offer marketing space within your app. Provided you have a great match between app and marketer and an installed base large enough to uphold the volume of impressions needed for revenue, this can actually make you even more money than you can with a pay-per-download model. I often recommend developers mix and match models to their specific app business. The additional money making techniques you can employ, the more money you will make.

What about promotion and marketing?

With over one Million apps in the world, competition is intense. You can have the greatest app on the planet, however if you cannot get the word out about it, no person's going to purchase it.

Should I stress over piracy?

If you're developing apps for iOS only, you will not really need to worry about it. Apple is committed to copyright laws and has produced a great job at shielding the eco-system. Of course Apple isn't the only player in the game, and piracy is becoming an issue with Android apps. If you don't develop for Android you're losing out on a big part of the marketplace. In a current Mobile Insights Study, which covered August through October of 2011, we discovered that 31.1 % of mobile advertisings were displayed on an Android device. Piracy is also not a concern if you concentrate on ad supported apps. Plus, unlike iOS apps, Android apps are available through several stores globally, so your possibility for exposure can really be even higher.




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