Monday, May 6th, 2013
Starting out in a new industry you are full of hope and ambition, fantastic, the idea of creating a free Android app using AppsGeyser’s free Android app tools and placing it in as many Android markets as you can sounds ideal. What is even more exciting you are considering charging a nominal $0.99 fee per download for your app and there you go, you will make $$$$. What’s the worst that can happen? Only 100 people will download your app, well, that’s $100 made from 5 minutes app creation work.
STOP
Charging for your app is not the best way to start out in the app industry. There are many reasons why in your first year of app building you should not charge for your Android app.
1: Build Loyalty – The first and most important reason why you should not set out to charge for your Android apps is because it is vital to succeed in the app world that you firstly build up a loyal audience. You need to allow your audience to get to know you and your app quality well enough that they will come back to your app and will download your new apps as and when you release them because they are sure of your app quality. Building loyalty in your audience can take around one year and a minimum of 7 app releases.
2: Competition – It is very difficult to charge for your app with the amount of competition there is in the Android market. You need to be asking yourself, why would someone take the risk, and yes, I know it’s only $0.99, but in app terms this is considered a risk, if they can download similar apps that do the same as yours or something similar to your app?
3: Value for money – We know that most people wouldn’t batter an eyelid at spending $4.99 on a coffee, but believe it or not, more than 75% of people would rather download a free app than pay for an app that they haven’t tried. Apps are not like products in stores that you can see if you like or not before you purchase, purchasing an app is a blind purchase which psychologically people are not willing to do.
4: Quantity – The amount of downloads you have is very important in building your reputation as a good app maker, therefore it make more sense to keep your app free and have more downloads and earn your revenue through other monetary methods. The high quantity of app downloads will build your reputation as a good app maker.
5: Reviews – This leads on from quantity, the more people that are downloading your app, the more likely it is that you will get reviews, the quality of these reviews will again increase your status as a good app makers and will build loyalty.
Whatever you decide to do, it is totally up to you, there are no rights and wrongs, we can only advise you on what we have seen happening in the app world. Take Angry birds for example, it’s a free programme, but they have built their reputation and charge money from other aspects of their business without discouraging the growth of their audience. Good Luck and let us know what you decided to do.
We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter,
If you’re interested in making your own Android apps, start creating apps here.
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Posted in Marketing, Monetize Your App | No Comments »
Friday, April 12th, 2013
This week I got an email from an app maker that had just built a free Android app using the AppsGeyser app making tool templates. He was so excited that within one day of publishing his app he had already ranked over 1000 downloads which is an amazing feat but he didn’t know how he could make any money from the app.
Unfortunately for us, I asked him for his app download link so we could personalise a monetizing scheme based around his app, but he has yet to reply, so I thought I would write a post that gives you the basic information on monetizing your free Android app.
Earn money
1: Sales/upselling – Many people use their apps as a platform from which to sell products. These products may be closely related to your business from which you receive a percentage of the sale as agreed with the merchandiser, or they may be your own personal products. The sales can generate very good income and usually are most successful if the app is part of an app empire and the audience will come to you via one of your other apps through trust of your product.
2: AppsGeyser rewards program – As you are aware AppsGeyser apps are built with a banner space that runs ads on behalf of AppsGeyser, once your app reaches our minimum usage ratio the ad space will be shared with you. You will need to sign up to an Ad Network, such as Admob, or you can place your own banners to promote your other apps from your app empire. At present in order to qualify for this program, you will be required to have a minimum of 100 downloads per day, over a period of one week and an average usage ratio of 3 usages per download.
For Apps with less than 100 installs there is no banner space available and no ads displayed.
3: Alternate Banners – You can also build banners into your app to show private banner ads, not connected with the AppsGeyser rewards program. This is a good way to sell space on your app to private companies that will benefit from your audience. This form of income, because it is private tends to be financially most rewarding.
4: Networking – You do not need to just use banners to advertise on your app, you can also sell space on your app to local companies looking to advertise their businesses. If the companies believe that your app is relevant to their businesses they will be willing to pay good money to have their name and phone number of the app. These private advertisers will pay you monthly or yearly for ad space and if successful will keep coming back.
These are simple ways to make money from you app, if you have made money other ways, please let us know.
We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook or Twitter,
If you’re interested in making your own Android apps, start creating apps here.
Tags: create an android app, create an android app from scratch, create an app, create an app from scratch, create android app, create free Android app, free android app, Free App Making Tools, make an app, monetize, Your Android App
Posted in Monetize Your App | No Comments »
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