As the number of smart phone using population is growing at a rapid pace, mobile application development has taken a form of a new industry. Both at individual level and at organization level there is a rush to launch mobile application for the smart phone platforms available. The result is intensified competition. Once you have decided about the platform and technology to use to build your mobile app, the most difficult phase comes with marketing and monetizing the product.
The open source platforms available nowadays have allowed developers to build and promote their applications and games in easy steps. It has also significantly lowered the time required earlier for Developing Mobile Games. As a result, everyday hundreds of mobile games and applications are being developed and launched. In such scenario, it becomes difficult to reach out to and target your audience in effective manner. To resolve this issue you need a strategic approach towards marketing your app effectively and making it commercially viable. In this article we have discussed the effective ways to market and monetize your mobile app.
Timeliness: Being timely can instantly make your application a success. Judging market requirement and eventually designing an application to cater to user need will help you stay ahead of your competitors.
Deciding about audience: Identifying the right market is the most crucial aspect of turning your mobile application into a success. Your marketing strategy would depend upon the audience who will use the application. Offering greater user experience will keep your audience engaged to your product, such as – if you are developing a game, then offer unique and fun experience to user to make it acceptable to them.
Free vs Paid: This is one crucial dilemma that every Game Developer needs to deal with. Available free platforms have allowed developers to build app without investing fortune in it and therefore, there is also a large number of free applications available to users as well. While most users like the free versions of apps there are also a few who wouldn’t mind paying for upgraded version of the application. You can tackle this issue by offering ‘free’ or ‘lite’ version of your app with an option to upgrade to paid version with subsequent update.
In-app Purchases: You can offer a few freebies and then indulge your audience to pay for in-app novelties once they get the hang of it. If you can successfully engage your audience to use your app, they wouldn’t mind in-app purchases for better experience.
In-app Advertisement: There may be other developers who would be interested in promoting their application through your platform. You can earn through in-app advertisement by signing up for an affiliate program. However, you would wish not to bombard your audience with advertisements that will interfere with their experience with the app.
Cross-Marketing: Get in touch with other developers who can help in promoting your application through theirs. This can work both ways and eventually will help you in gaining more visitors. This is also known as ad exchange program and is subtler but effective way of marketing your app. You can also monetize through selling user data captured during registration to marketing agencies looking for such information.
Use Analytics: Mobile app analytics will help you measure progress of your application. It will help you better understand audience behavior and popularity of your product over a time period. Using analytics will help you gaining insight on user experience so that you can work towards improving it.
About Morpheous:
Morpheous is a Game Development Studio that specializes in design, development and creation of video games using the latest state of the art technologies for all platforms.
