How to optimize your app for monetization by the next month
TLDR:
- To monetize your app quickly, it's all about distribution.
- Maximize the concept of App Store Optimization (ASO) for better visibility.
- Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for faster user feedback.
- Emphasize user retention through push notifications, personalized recommendations, and good customer support
- Analyze data and make data-driven decisions taking into account user insights
- Look to strategically monetize your app with methods like the Freemium Model, Subscription Model, and Affiliate Marketing.
Your app can have all the bells and whistles it needs for the relevant target demographic of the niche you’re trying to target, but often times when looking to monetize, you stumble across a boulder that just won’t budge no matter what you do.
There’ll also be apps within the niche you’re targeting that you cannot believe are even monetizable, and nine times out of ten, the biggest reason is they have better distribution. Distribution matters just as much if not more than the quality of the product, but in cases like these, how well you’re distributing your app is the key differential between you and that crappy app that is somehow topping the charts on both the App Store and Play Store.
To help you begin bridging the gap, we’ll go over the 5 best distribution methods to scale your app to single-digit revenue in under a month.
1. Maximizing App Store Optimization (ASO)
Like search engine optimization (SEO), the app stores also have their own version.
Optimize your app’s name, description, keywords, and visuals based on your niche and the target demographic to ensure it is easier for them to be directed to your app and rank on top in search results more frequently.
2. Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
If you’re looking to expedite the monetization process, you can build a minimum-viable product. It should be an app with core features that address your target demographic’s most pressing problems.
If you don’t know what their most pressing problems are, you can look to collect data by analyzing user reviews of apps similar to yours and ones within your niche, conduct online surveys by sending them to forum communities and subreddits and even asking people you know who may be a part of the niche you’re building an app for.
This approach allows you to get your app on the store for people to download quicker, gather feedback, and make the necessary improvements in a timely manner.
3. Focus on User Retention
It’s not that difficult to get people to download your app. The bigger challenge lies in retaining users and getting them to use your app often. 3 quick ways you can utilize are sending push notifications to remind users of your app’s value and encouraging them to return, in-app personalization to create a user experience tailor-fit for each individual based on personalized recommendations and content, and an excellent customer support personnel to address user issues and concerns in a prompt fashion.
4. Analyze and Iterate
When it comes to monetization, data is your gold mine; it's worth its weight in gold.
Analyze user data, app metrics you’ve defined, and feedback received to make data-driven decisions on areas for improvement like enhancing the user experience. It is imperative to iterate your app based on user insights and changed tastes and preferences of the niche of your target demographic.
5. Strategic Monetization
As obvious as it is, the best way to monetize is to be strategic about it, with 3 common methods being the Freemium Model, Subscription Model, and Affiliate Marketing.
With the Freemium model, you’d be leveraging the foot-in-the-door psychological phenomenon with a free app that gives users a small taste of your app’s capabilities, and depending on the quality of your app, it’d make it easier to convince users to pay for the full version of your app.
The principles of the Subscription model are akin to the Freemium model, where you could have a free app but to unlock exclusive content and features, users would have to purchase a subscription plan. This is most effective when the user experience isn’t entirely dependent on them paying for smoothness, but to further enhance it.
With affiliate marketing, look to partner up with relevant individuals or companies within your niche to promote their products or services within your app to earn commissions.
These are just a few of the basic building blocks for effective distribution of your app to scale your app to single-digit revenue in under a month. Remember that if you’ve already nailed down the product piece, monetization is within touching distance, it's merely about how well you can distribute your app.