Top Tips to Create Mobile Apps that Will Bring You Money
Analysis of different sites and online services from year to year shows the growth of mobile devices (like smartphones or tablets), that visitors use to access them. Today it’s the most convenient and popular way to become acquainted with the company and its products. For example, on the largest app markets, Google Play and Apple Store, about 5 million applications are available for download. The reason for this trend is very simple: people have always strived for mobility, and in today’s dynamic world most people prefer, in the literal sense of the word, to be on the go.
We can follow up on this growth of the Mobile Application Market using the statistical data on income from mobile apps. According to Statista, total worldwide mobile apps revenue in 2014 was $97.7 billion, in 2019 – already $461.7 billion, and by 2023, this amount is planned at $935.2 billion.
Unfortunately, only a few applications in the Market are able to make a good profit for their authors. To help you create an app that will become successful and be able to bring tangible profit over a long period of time, we launch a series of articles with useful tips and tricks on how to make money off an app, based on the experience of mobile app developers who have already succeeded in the Market.
Where to Start from?
First, to create a large project with a well-designed monetization system, you need to study the market and get acquainted with the basic knowledge on the topic. This will help you to understand the developers’ work properly and define the right tasks for the Team you hire for this project.
Second, after studying the market, you need to determine for which platform you will create your application. If you decide to start by developing an app for only one platform, this research can be very useful. From 2012 to 2017, there is a tendency that the total number of app downloads on Google Play is higher than in the App Store, but the amount of money spent by App Store users is significantly higher than the average app income from Google Play users.
Take a closer look at the analysis of the popularity of certain app categories in the App Store due to November 2019:
According to this research, games are much more popular than all other app categories in the App Store (22.37% of the total number).
Now let’s see the dynamics of in-app purchases. According to this Statista report, global in-app payments in 2015 were up to $29.2 billion, while in 2016 it was already $36.2 billion. Keeping such dynamics, by 2020 this index is planned at $71.7 billion.
After analyzing information from several sources, we defined a few more types of commercially successful applications, besides games:
- Apps for personalization and customization of users’ devices (background images, screensavers, themes, icons, etc.)
- Multimedia applications (music, video, etc.)
- Applications for shopping and e-commerce
- Mobile versions of magazines and newspapers
- IoT-applications
- Apps for sports and fitness
- Traveling applications
- Social networking apps
If you have already chosen the platform and the type of your future application, apart from the tips from this article you’ll also need an experienced development team. That’ll help you to keep in mind the nuances of the development and avoid a large number of pitfalls. On our website, you can get qualified consultations from iOS and Android Mbicycle specialists about the required number of specialists, rational estimates, and prices. For each project, we have an NDA protection policy and we always offer fair pricing together with an agile development workflow.
Ways to Make Profit of Your Application
At the early stage of development, it’s important to understand that even a large number of downloads of your app doesn’t guarantee you a high financial profit. First of all, you need to decide which monetization scheme to implement. To help you figure it out, we’ll examine a few existing models and define the particular features of every model.
Direct sales
This model intends that users can download and run your app only after paying for it. Before buying the app, users can browse only descriptions, screenshots, videos, and reviews for the app. That’s why you should submit all this data properly and make them as informative as possible since their main task is to convince users to make a purchase. It’s also important to monitor all the positive and negative reviews because it often influences users’ decisions to buy an app.
Indirect sales
According to this distribution model, users can install an app for free. However, there are various possibilities to make purchases and pay for additional content inside the app. Here we provide some examples of how you can make a profit from applications, distributed by indirect sale model:
- Advertising
- Sponsored content
- Push-notifications
- Upgrade to the full paid version
- Buying an in-game virtual currency for real money
- SMS-marketing
- Affiliate links
- In-app purchases
- Cross-partnership with another successful application
- Promotional newsletters by email
Let us analyze the efficiency of several types of monetization methods inside games and other types of applications, separately. In this report, such methods as video ads, display ads, native ads, IAP (in-app purchases) & m-commerce, installs & subscriptions, affiliate deals for gaming and non-gaming applications in 2017 were distributed as follows:
For further details about each of these types, learn the next articles in this series, which we’ll publish in our blog soon. So, if you are interested in this topic, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog to be the first who get updates on this and many other topics from the world of software and IT.
Examples of Commercially Successful Apps
It’s not a secret that truly popular applications bring huge profits to their authors. However, only a few of many achieve true success. According to the Think Gaming data, the most popular game at the moment — Fortnite — brings its creators $2,401,934 of daily income.
In addition to games, social apps can also bring a great profit. For example, Match Group, developers of the Tinder dating app, in the report for 3 quarters of 2018 showed revenue of $1,272,506, which is 33.7% more than the same period of the previous year. This result, of course, is tangibly less than the revenue of Fortnite and other popular games, but it’s also impressive.
Choosing the type of your future app, don’t forget to take into account the stats about popularity in the Stores, number of installations, and daily and annual profit of different kinds of apps. We also advise you to look through the examples of successful projects, implemented by the Mbicycle mobile app development team.
Proficient Tips from the Mbicycle Developers
Mbicycle company specializes in the development of services for iOS and Android applications. Our professionals have 5+ years of experience in creating ready-made advanced solutions. To help you at the early stages of making your own app and make it successful and profitable, we asked our iOS and Android developers to share their experiences and give some useful tips to our readers.
Provide your users with a choice
Try to provide your users with both a free and paid version of the app. The free version should include only a limited set of basic features and tools. This version is intended to get users acquainted with the standard functionality of your app and help to make a decision to buy it later. The updated paid version should contain all the available tools and features originally developed in your app. The free version will also attract the interest to your app from a group of users, who are satisfied enough with the basic tools.
If you want to provide your users with all the tools and features at once, or if you simply don't have an opportunity to limit the functionality, you can offer a free version containing ads and in-app payments. Then, after purchasing an application, the user will get a premium version in which all the ads and additional payments can be disabled. This approach is quite common in the Mobile Application Market.Stanislav, Android-developer
Timely update your app
Don't forget to support your application by publishing periodic updates. Every new version release will show users that your team is working on the app permanently and adding new features to it.
Today's users have about 50 apps installed on their smartphones. So, it's not surprising, that they may simply forget about launching some of them. In this case, a pop-up notification about the new version will remind users to enter into your app again and check out what's new.Maxim, iOS-developer
By the way, if you’ve already decided on the type of your future application and now you’re ready for the next step – hire a development team – our experienced iOS and Android specialists are ready to discuss your project and offer you an efficient solution.
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