Having a smart approach, free apps can generate real money. According to google play, a big percentage of worldwide revenue comes from free apps. More concern has been put in order to improve app monetization. Various entrepreneurs have also helped in the conversion of ideas into the best money making apps. Most of the proved and popular mobile app monetization strategies include:
Advertising
It’s probably the most common and easiest method to implement it is usually done under a third party ad network. Some free apps providers have been using advertising as their main revenue model. An app owner just needs to display commercials inside their mobile app and get paid instantly by a third party ad network. The way is getting more popular since users hare more literate and intrusive.
Subscriptions
It is a quite useful monetization strategy. It is often used for cloud services, audio, and video streaming and online news services. As an app publisher, you can choose to offer free content in an app for a limited amount of time and then charge users. A subscription fee is generated thus allowing views to access full content without any restrictions. The most popular and common technique is offering a free trial period then charge a subscription fee to those wishing to continue accessing the app content. In order to ease the integration of this revenue model, apple is playing extra attention in making subscription more generative models.
Selling merchandise
Selling merchandise in your app is another innovative approach. It’s mostly used to sell physical goods like toys, shoes, clothes, etc. they are sold directly to the app or email marketing. Amazon too has created a network for people to use. One creates an artwork, upload to their platform and promote the products. It also takes care of the costs of payments and delivery.
Sponsorship
This is a bit less method but an interesting strategy. It’s a powerful app monetization strategy where an app publisher builds the right niche for a targeted audience or viewer. He launches it on behalf of another company and earns from there. However before relying on this app, one should create a list of organizations and brands possibly to benefit from this move. For example, home deposit sponsorship is common. It contains advertisements by the sponsor targeting homeowners interested in weatherproofing their houses.
Physical purchases
Many e-commerce businesses and startups are using free applications in selling their products. Goods like mobile cases, t-shirts, toys are sold through developed apps such as Jumia, OLX, etc. In fact, amazon on top is offering a way to generate revenue from merchandise. it will be through creating a Merch self-service program to sell custom branded t-shirts from their apps.
In addition, there are other ways and methods like crowdfunding, transaction fees, freemium upsell, collecting and selling data as well as referral marketing. The above-mentioned statistics and the growth of the app market cannot stop anytime soon. Despite the existing stiff competition in the industry, new monetization methods with useful free apps are emerging. None of them can be regarded as inefficient. However, current market trends show this approach will continue to generate more money in the foreseeable future.
