Tuesday 11 July 2017

5 Startups Revolutionising the Tech Industry in 2017

Monetisation Models: Gain Big Bucks for Your Mobile App


You put your heart and soul into creating an app, to be part of the app store among the million others present. But, how do you make sure it reaches the target audience? What comes to the mind first is better user interface, simplicity et al but we all miss could be equally important – is your app cost-friendly?
Every business requires patience and above all strategies to drive your sales. At the end of the day that is the ultimate goal right? To get a good return on your investment.
2% of app developers claim about 54% of all app revenues. Now, if you aren’t part of this 2%, you need to seriously start considering where you’re going wrong and what needs to be the step ahead. If not, we can help you come up with one.
The first step in creating a profitable business out of your mobile app would be to determine which model suits you the best. Some app business models earn more money right off the bat at the expense of quickly acquiring tons of users, while others result in high downloads first and profits later. So what you pick depends on the requirements of your app.
  • In-app Advertising (Free with ads)
Apps annoy all of us but these apps are different. This model allows the user to download the app freely but gathers information about the people using the app along with a good user base so that this data can be sold to app publishers who then place specific ads in your app. So you see where these ads differ - it helps the developers make money apart from annoying you ofcourse ;)
Facebook leverages a vast amount of their data to sell highly targeted ads. And this monetization strategy has proven quite effective for Facebook.
  • Freemium
You start playing a game – your interest builds but at your highest peak you’re thrown in for a quick surprise. You’re asked to subscribe for all services rendered henceforth. This really pushes you off the edge, but that’s where this model really works. The premise of this model is that you attract people to your app and give them a rich preview of what your app can do (without giving them everything). The goal is to accumulate and engage app users until they are willing to pay for additional in-app tools.
Angry Birds could be the most apt example. Being one of the most addictive apps, some of its features are only available if you upgrade by paying a small fee.
  • Paid Apps
Apps make life simpler – agreed! But how do you know whether it will or it won’t unless you see for yourself. That’s the major disadvantage of this model – that the user cannot use your services until he pays for it. Therefore, it comes down to whether you are able to showcase your app to be something new and unique, one which is different from similar free apps available. The vital role here is played by the mobile marketing team which should be able to convince users to purchase the app instead of going for the free ones. Camscanner is one of the many paid apps out there.
  • In-App Purchases
Selling extra lives, money, tokens are all ways for apps to earn revenue. In a nutshell, this app monetization strategy involves selling physical or virtual goods within your app, and then retaining the profits. In-app purchases can include a wide variety of consumer goods such as clothes and accessories.
One of the best examples could be of MeetMe - People can download MeetMe for free and use it to browse profiles, chat with people, and connect with locals. However, you can also purchase credits to enhance your visibility and gain new ways to interact with people.
  • Paywalls (Subscriptions)
Similar to freemium, except the content here is gated. Service app focused model, Paywalls allow an app user to view a predetermined amount of content for free and then prompts them to sign up for a paid subscription to get more. This model allows brands to earn revenue on a recurring basis.
Lumosity could be another popular app with certain content free but rest available at a nominal cost. It consists of games claiming to improve memory, attention, flexibility, speed of processing, and problem solving.
  • Sponsorship
In this new-age, as we enter partnerships entail the most important part of a business model, and this is exactly what this model does. Sponsorship entails partnering with advertisers, who provide your users with rewards for completing certain in-app actions. In this model, brands and agencies pay to be part of an incentive system. Your app earns money by taking a share of the revenue from redeemed rewards.
One of the newest models to be in use, RunKeeper is already keeping up with the trend and uses incentivized advertising to motivate its users to track their running activity with their app to unlock exclusive rewards and promotions.
Conclusion

Its very important that your app reaches out to the targeted audience but whats equally important is that you earn revenue out of it. Money, afterall, can be a good incentive to work harder and for the better in the future. So, before you dive into this world think of how you can achieve the targets you set out with. What incentives, strategies and model would be right for you – because at the end it is your app which goes out onto the platform and its your decision whether it should be under the limelight or not.


Friday 7 July 2017

Importance of Marketing your Developed Mobile App and Few Steps to Follow



You are totally aware of the importance of owning a mobile application if you wish your organization to withstand the competition in the business world. But are you aware of the need to market your developed mobile application???

Yes!! you have to promote the application so that it will boost up your business operation.

Why do you need to market your mobile application??

Do you know how many applications get uploaded on the play store every day?
How will your prospective customers seek you out from the sea of applications?

There are over thousands of applications, covering all most every sector or product. So creating a unique idea for business and develop an innovative app is just not the end of your work. Rather your journey begins from there. If you wish your application to boost up your business firm, then you need to push up the app in the ladder and place it in front of your key viewers. In short, extensive marketing and sales promotion is highly crucial for your application.

Two key reasons to advertise the mobile app:

  • To reach out to a large number of viewers
  • Make your app easily visible

The reason is very simple and obvious. However, to achieve this objective can be a bit tricky. So you need to develop proper strategies and find out ways to market your business application. However, the tools are not much different from the ones we harness to promote any product.

Let us get a brief understanding of the different options that we can explore.

What are the different ways to promote your mobile app???

There are multiple options available for you. It is up to you to choose the best ones among them.

  • Good and landing page- Make a simple and clear one liner intro for your app
  • Start your app blog- Post regular updated topics with focus on your core objective
  • Social media marketing- Harness the social media platform like creating facebook page.
  • Mobile advertising- Google offer mobile ads to target users searching from Google web page. PPC can work for you.
  • Guest blogging- Target different tech and other blogs to post your niche content of your company as a guest to draw key viewers.
  • Video intro for the app- Instead of words, you can put a video intro on your landing page. Visualization exert greater impact on the viewers.
  • Ask for app reviews- Besides tech blog sites, there are other app review sites where you can post an article about your application and request for useful feed backs and reviews.
  • Create and share interesting info graphics- Info graphics Tool such as Visualize.me can create one for you that you can post on any social media platform
  • Start a community- Social media platform such as Facebook allow you to form communities with like-minded people, sharing similar interests.
  • Work on App store optimization strategy- Optimize your app icon, title, description and screenshots in ways  to make your app visible easily to the end user.
  • Create a video channel on YouTube- You need to regular feed in interesting video content, user surveys, news flashes, user content etc.
  • Communicate within your personal circle- Requests your friends and families to promote your app through ‘word-of-mouth’ or through social media sharing.
  • Grow your subscriber list- Grow your subscriber list and collect email addresses who will, in turn, push your updates to thousand others.
  • Offer discounts- If your application has in-app purchase option, offer them occasional discounts and inform them via push notifications or email newsletter.
  • Cross-promote with another application- Team up with another application to cross-promote both the partners’ business apps.
  • Encourage customer ratings- Request your happy app users to leave a fair rating on your app that will pull in more users.
  • Place your app in the right spot- Choosing the appropriate app keywords and categories will decide your ranking.
  • Regular monitor your performance- Keep a close track on your app performance analytic to study the customer behavior towards your mobile application. Based on such analysis prepare your future course of action.
  • Re-engage your current users- It is important to keep your existing users to remain hooked up on your app for a long time. Google has launched a new initiative to allow you to run ads and compel your users to again return to your app and pull in new ones.

You can also view the video link below to get a clear idea


Summing Up

Customer feedback can be an important tool to upgrade your application. Apart from that, the above mentioned points are just a few common steps you can undertake to market your business mobile application. If you have higher budget, then appoint Mobile marketing agencies who will promote your work on your behalf. Appspire.me, Appency are few such agencies.

So begin your application journey by first establishing it properly in the play store and increase your daily users.


Tuesday 4 July 2017

Android’s Instant Apps and Progressive Web Apps: An Overview


The world of technology is progressing by leaps and bounds everyday with new innovations being added every second to make the experience better. The latest to be introduced are Google’s Instant apps and PWA’s (Progressive Web Apps). Originally announced at last year's Google I/O, instant Apps and PWA’s are a step towards revolutionising user experience.
Instant Apps?
Tired of always having to install an application to see if its of your use or not? Well then Android’s Instant Apps are for you, my friend! , Instant Apps are a way for developers to offer a lightweight version of their Android app without requiring a visit to the Play Store. Basically, instant apps give instant usability as well as functionality to the user by avoiding the need for downloading the app. Due to shortage of device storage, people abandon their apps to make way for new for a particular purpose. In such case, instant app can help you in satisfying that particular purpose without downloading the whole app.
To make an app Instant, developers need to make it modular and compatible with deep links, so users can click on a URL and end up in exactly the part of the app they're looking to use. Instant Apps were originally supposed to run on versions of Android as far back as 4.3, but right now they only support 6.0 or newer — though 5.0 support is supposed to be coming soon.
How to enable Android Instant Apps
  1. Navigate to your phone’s ‘Settings menu.
  2. Scroll down and tap ‘Google’ under the ‘Personal category’.
  3. Under the ‘Services category, select ‘Instant Apps’.
  4. Tap the toggle on the top-right of the screen.
  5. Read through the instructions card (and Play Terms of Service, if you really want to), then tap ‘Yes, I’m in.

Progressive Web Apps?
According to Wikipedia, Progressive Web App (PWA) is a term used to denote web apps that uses the latest web technologies. Progressive web apps are technically regular web pages (or websites) but can appear to the user like traditional applications or (native) mobile applications. This new application type attempts to combine features offered by most modern browsers with the benefits of mobile experience.
PWAs claim to develop a single app that works perfectly across all devices as well as platforms. The major impact of PWAs is to create a lot more favorable mobile web than mobile app marketplace.
Some PWA’s –
  • Voice Memos
  • Meatscope
  • Telegram
  • Emojoy
  • CloudFour
  • AliExpress
Conclusion

Mobile apps play an extremely vital role in our everyday lives so do web browsers; combining them to provide app-like features in a delightful native web experience is a genius idea and so PWA’s are the way forward from here on. Having said that, in the coming days, instant apps will play a vital role in marketing apps. Hence, just create an instant layer over the apps and tap on the potential of easy discoverability.