Making Money from Mobile Apps
Every now and then we heard stories about app developers making fortune from the app they developed. Though the news are hard to believe, they are in fact true, as mobile app market has untapped potential to make money. The other side of the story also laments that not every app developers make money with their apps, which is also true to the T. Considering the fact that there are millions of apps in Apple App Store as well as Android Market, everyone into the app development cannot make money. Having a careful look at the top selling apps, we can see that all popular apps have few things in common which makes them popular and people do not think twice to pay money to have those apps in their smartphone. If you understand these distinguishing factors and incorporate those into your next mobile app, you can still win against the competition and your app will get visibility, more importantly it will serve as a money making machine. Before we proceed further on “how to make money through mobile apps”, lets us have a look at the recipes for a successful mobile app. If our app is successful then it will make us money. If you are serious about making money from your app, you need to clearly understand the elements of successful mobile apps. Researching the App Store With infinite competing apps in the market, you need to do proper research to find out the niche that has very few apps or no apps at all. This will lead you to face less competition. Researching on the app stores will also give you insight on the current trend of the app usage. You will get to know about what is making people dissatisfied about an app and what are they looking for in an app. Creating an Innovative App It takes lot of efforts, time and money to create an app that looks good and performs. So do not waste your effort in replicating an existing concept, rather utilize that to come up with something new. The app market is flooded with all sorts of app, so if the app you develop is another archetypical app available in the market with a little twist, it will disperse in the vast sea of app store and you will hardly find any takers. On the other hand after a thorough research if you come up with something unique that solves certain problem the smart phone users are facing, you will have lot of takers for that app. Performance and Loading Time The success of an app depends upon how consistently it performs. The app has to be tested properly in all conditions before it is released in the app market. The app should consume less memory and CPU power so it can run on all kind of smartphones including the starter range. The main reason people prefer mobile app is because they want to access information faster. Mobile apps which take long time to load are removed as soon as they are installed. Loading time of 5-7 seconds is fine but above that creates dissatisfaction. Enticing User Interface The main reason of success of a smartphone app is the user interface. If the user interface is appealing and has simple and easy navigation, it will be user friendly and hence will be popular among all kind of smart phone users. If the UI of an app is cluttered, it will fail to gain user acceptance. Apps like Feathers, Gowalla, Instagram are considered having the best User Interface. Value Proposition The mobile app has to be usable, that means it has to offer some sort of a solutions to something needed by the users and make life easier. Such an app will gain popularity quite rapidly. Such apps offer something extra then other app and engage the users. If you look at apps like Flixter, Gowalla, Echofon, Tripit etc. they all have what it takes to be a top selling app. Now that we are done with identifying the recipes of a successful app, it is time to know how to make money from our app. Once our app is ready to launch, there are 2 important steps that need to be successfully completed. Getting Approved in the App store After your app is developed the only hindrance before it is available to public is getting approved in the app store for the respective platform. While it is easier to be approved in Android marketplace, getting approved in Apple App store is quite difficult. But if the submitted app complies with all the policies and guidelines, it will definitely get thumbs up. If Apple feels that the App is just a copycat and does not add any value addition to iPhone, contains pornographic and racial content then the app is likely to be disapproved. Promoting the App Once the app is approved and listed in the App market place your next goal is to let customers know about it so that they will download the app. The best promotion technique is to get features as a new app in the category or top selling app. But to be featured in the app market place you need numbers. So there are external ways to promote the app and get the desired numbers and then automatically get featured in the app marketplace and you will see a sudden increase in downloads as soon as your app get featured in the marketplace. You can create a dedicated website for your app, utilize blogs in the same niche to write about your apps, Take help of influential people in social media to talk about your app in Twitter and Facebook. These methods will create a buzz about your app and information about it will reach to more and more people. With good promotion and marketing, your app will gradually gain visibility and it is time to see the result in terms of monetary benefit you