The number of mobile apps in the industry is staggering and developers today face a herculean task of getting their apps noticed. It’s a competitive industry and one can’t help but wonder whether anyone would ever notice, let alone pay to use their app. But I am not loosing hope yet.
The first step in ensuring that you eventually get a return on all the time you spent developing the app is to make sure that your app is sizzling hot. So hot that no-one can put it down. It has to be of high quality, easy to understand and navigate but above all rarely crashes on a user.
So after you have made that hot app, like the event app EventBay that my company developed, the second step is to make as much noise about your app as possible. This includes enabling sharing on it; in this case EventBay already has that. A user can share the app or events they are attending with friends on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. Add on to that noise by alerting a few media contacts about your app so they can write about it. At this point in time even if the reviews are not positive, your app name is already out there. The bad reviews might help you polish up on the app before the money starts coming in.
So say you’ve made the noise and everyone now knows about EventBay. What then? The reality is that money will not just start trickling in. Users are least likely to pay for a mobile app the first time they use it; they want to try it for free. You have to let them. However if you do feel on the other hand that your app is exclusive and almost all your target market would be willing to pay for it, then you sell it through app stores, Apple, Google, etc they take their commission and you make your money.
Sadly, this reality is not true for every app; an app can sit in stores for months with no single purchase. However, the following could help change that;
- Subscriptions – If users are aware of EventBay and appreciate the content it churns out, they are likely to keep coming back. Give them more than the usual, all those events, get the exclusive scoop on say early bird ticket sales, and make it available only to subscribers. Pushing our free subscribers to be paying ones.
- Advertising– all the events covered by EventBay are part of a business, that’s looking for marketing platforms to increase revenue or brand awareness. EventBay would have been highlighting their events to many people so why not let them pay for advertising space on this app? They advertise on the app, money comes in but that also prompts other businesses to follow suite.
- Affiliate sales and lead generation – through partnerships with the businesses behind the events that would have been featured on EventBay, EventBay would get paid a portion of all sales made through the app. Lead generation is almost the same as affiliate sales but slightly different as EventBay would get paid a portion of sales emanating from our app.
- Analytics – Most companies would like to know how many people looked at their event, how long did they do it, did they eventually attend the event, etc. This is information that EventBay could sell to them. Again, bringing in revenue.
- White label – Another option is to sell the app as a white label to other event companies, and charge them a licensing fee.
At the end of the day, it still is crucial to have the app sitting in as many app stores as possible.
About the Author
Nagendra Bombhore is the founder of Roverside Apps Pvt Ltd, a mobile app development company. Check out their latest app EventBay at eventbay.co