How to Create an App and Instantly Make Money?
If you have an app idea, then here we are presenting the helpful information about how to create an app and instantly earn money from it. Creating an application can be tricky for you if your idea is not refined. Coming up with an idea might have been easy for you but figuring out what to do next is the real task.
1. Understand the risk: With big idea comes big risk. Development of an app is not a hobby but a business move which needs to be taken ahead with a careful thought. There are multiple types of risks you have to ponder on such as product risk, financial risk, team risk, market risk, execution risk etc. Explaining what your product does and how it solves the existing issues can be tricky for you. Before the launch, you have to see which market section you would like to target. Which age group would find it most apt?
Talking about financial risk, it is the most stress giving factor. Thanks to innovation, we have platforms like Indiegogo and Kickstarter enabling crowd funding. Make sure you know key business milestones and schedules. You will be able to decide the milestones correctly if you articulate your business plan and growth path. Frame a team through resources according to their specialisation and decide your own role as an entrepreneur. To understand the risks involved, you need to get the answers of below questions.
a. How much money will you invest in this project?
b. What time you can dedicatedly give?
c. Do you have a sound team?
d. What your target market looks like?
e. Would you be bankrupt if your business app fails in future?
f. Do you have any backup plan?
2. Draft a feature list: There can be n number of applications falling under one category. You might be a Fashion clothing seller while some one else from your industry line might be just telling people about latest trends to adopt through their application. So, the features of an application can go from one many. It is important to jot down the features you would like to have in your application. Through these features you will be able to decide the flow of your app. You will not miss on to anything if you have feature list in your hand because in the complex process of development, people often miss small details. You can start writing down your idea in the form of a high-level feature list and then convert it into low level one by including even the smallest details or sub parts. Feature list is important for the app owner as well as the company you are going to hire (if you hire) for the development process. The same would help them take out a timeline and cost for the project in advance. Also, they will be able to manage the project properly.
3. Use online app maker: Once you complete the feature list, proceed towards the designing and development process. If you do not know how to code, you can go for Online app makers though which you can build you app in few simple steps. These app makers come with a number of templates from which you choose the suitable design. These tools generally work on drag and drop method to create powerful, professional, native mobile apps. Moreover, you can customize the themes with just drag and drop. For example, if you want to add a discount banner over your store, you have got a lot of options from which you can choose and place the banner as per your choice at the most visible spot over the website. You can change colors, fonts, button types and a lot of other things to fully customize your application as per your requirements. Apart from having a number of general features, these tools also allow you to implement advanced features such as Augmented reality, Artificial intelligence, Virtual reality, IoT and more. You also get a wide range of video tutorials from which you can learn how to create an app.
4. Hire a professional: If you do not want to rely on some third-party tool, you have to go for a professional mobile app development company in order to get your app coded. This method is adopted by more than 70% of the businesses. Before approaching any firm, you need to decide which platform would you like to have your app on. Would that be Android, iOS or both? Get aware with their experience and if any similar work they have delivered to any of their clients. In the above-mentioned DIY methods, your app would be cost effectively developed but if we talk about the real development with coding and all then you have to invest a smart amount. Here, we are talking about the native apps which take due time and separate efforts for iOS and Android development. Though, we are also blessed with hybrid technologies through which only one resource has to be engaged and the same code base runs on Android as well as iOS platform.
While hiring a perfect company for your app, you need to also look for their UX/UI skills because that’s what interact with the end users for the first time. 60% of your application is about how a user interacts with it.
If not a company, you can also go for a single man army i.e. a freelancer who would certainly deliver you low cost services. Platforms such as Freelancer and Upwork lets you connect with a number of standalone developers who can do what a company does. But yes, there is a risk. If you do not connect with a high-profile genuine developer, then your hard-earned money might be at risk and your project might be on stake. So you have to cautious and once you get a good person to work with, you will have cost effective as well as satisfactory work done.
After successful development and deployment over applications store, you need to focus on bringing people on your platform.
How to bring users on your app?
A. Create a simple landing page: Your landing page would be the web version of your application containing just single page along with small description and one punch line for your app along with necessary CTAs. You can take inspiration from Tinder which has pretty simple but really alluring interface.
B. Use the power of social media: It has become one of the mostly used medium of marketing to capture most of the market. Be interesting through your posts so that people find your products and services engaging and worth spending on. You can even take benefits of social platforms while your app is still being developed. There is no need to wait until your app is finished to start promoting it. A promotional video is a good start which should be interesting enough so that people would love to watch it to end and share it.
If your business already has an online existence, lets say, you also run a website then chances are- all your social media pages must be already set up and you just have to pique interest in users about the app by posting banners or may be stories.
Choice of right platform is also important since Facebook cannot give you must of the professional crowd and LinkedIn cannot give you casual audience. If you understand your target market then think about which platform suits them the mot and invest in marketing over that only. Suppose you are coming up with a CRM solution then it is beneficial to post about it on LinkedIn. On the other hand, if you are launching a new photo editor then Instagram would be great medium as it is mostly about pictures only.
After the launch, Instagram contests is also a medium to get user engagement. It will make you collect user-generated content. Try to get your users to post their photographs promoting your brand on their personal profiles in order to enter the contest.
Paid advertisement over Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc. can be your companion in the initial days of struggle. At starting, you won’t have much of the organic traffic to tell your story to so boosting the posts would help you make reach the new people. These platforms are powered with high level targeting features through which you can target the exact section of the market.
C. Boost app installs through paid advertising: Google play search ads and ads over App store would serve as a way to get you quick traffic which is not possible if you keep on working on the organic strategies. Organic traffic takes time to come on your platform whereas spending on paid advertisements is a quick way to place you over your competitors. There has to be a smart amount of funds in your hand in order to spend over paid advertisements since your cash flows out with every click.
D. Put your efforts in ASO: ASO is App store optimization which as to be done along with the paid advertising since you cannot rely on paid methods for lifetime. It is done to make your app rank on top in the app store results. There are more than 2.6 million Android apps in the Google Play store & above 2 million apps in the App Store used by billions of smartphone users around the globe and these figures are growing every year. With such a rising competition, your app might bury down the results.
App store optimization is a set of processes performed to bring your app on top results. Some of the prominent factors include using a descriptive title, high quality screenshots, keywords, picking the right category, get reviews, using analytics etc.
E. Pitch tech blogs: If you are coming up with an amazing app, pitch some of the good performing tech blogs in advance. Prepare a list and email them about your USPs so that they will want to write about you. In return, they might or might not charge you an amount.
F. Apply for app awards: This is an after-launch strategy through which you can approach many tons of organizations which give rewards to the new and innovative applications. Once you get featured, you will get mentions in press releases done by them on popular platforms.
Talking about the statistics, according to statista, by the end of 2018, “the average cost to acquire an app user who registered with an app or created an account was 4.58 U.S. dollars. Mobile app user acquisition costs can vary widely between user action and operating system used. Compared to the relatively low acquisition costs of a user registration, the user action that had the highest average acquisition cost for both operating systems, Android and iOS, was subscribing. For Android this cost was 187.29 U.S. dollars, and for iOS it was 129.15 U.S. dollars.”
How to earn money through an app?
We have mentioned the ways to develop your own application and market it, now its time to monetize it to get good returns. Here are the ways through which you can earn smart through your newly developed application.
i. Advertising: First proven strategy to make money out of any good app is advertising. Allow advertisers to post Ads on your application and in return charge them a monthly or an yearly cost. Using ads to monetize app is very simple. All you have to do is to display commercial inside your apps and get paid from the ad networks. There can be many types of advertisements- Interstitial ads which are full screen pop ups, banner or display ads etc. Then, there are in-app video ads such as the user can get app currency, extra lives in games or additional features for watching video add. You can also rely on native ads in order to make a good amount.
ii. Sponsorship: If you are creating an app on the behalf of other companies means you are creating a marketplace of your niche and can target other companies which have the same target audience as yours then sponsorship is a great way to make money. You can charge those companies for the featured placement which means if you have to show them above their competitors for a specific category of services. A great example can be Clutch which has several categories of IT services on its website along with a separate sponsored section which shows those companies who want to advertise themselves on the platforms.
iii. In-app purchases: In-app purchases has potential to sell virtual items directly through app such as ability to watch premium content, unlock game levels, game currency, goods etc. In app purchases can have three sub-types such as Consumable, Non-consumable and Subscriptions. Consumable is the type of item that can be purchased and used only once inside the app. E.g. virtual currencies. Non-consumable would be a virtual item you have for the permanent usage where as Subscription-based would be those to unlock features and content for a limited period e.g. annual news subscription.
iv. Affiliate income and referral marketing: App owners can sell affiliates’ services on their app for revenue split based on clicks and installs. Amazon store serve as one of the best examples to show how large the affiliate marketing can be. You just have to pick up a product, advertise the same to your app users and ultimately get revenue from all purchases through advertising fees.
Final Words
Mobile app industry is clearly thriving with more than 2.7 billion users around the globe, so it is high time to re-think and give a boost to your mobile strategies. If you have got even a second to look at your phone in a day, you will see a lot of people online. Not even in phone, if you look around, you will see a lot of people have their eyes glued on mobile screens. Besides, mobile apps are expected to generate $189 billion in revenue by 2020 so what are you waiting for.
