Most app developers and businesses simply create a mobile app for their service and put it on Apple AppStore, Google Play, and other app sites. After that, there is really nothing more for them to do except to pray that people stumble upon their app and spend money on it.
There are quite a few of these developers that can make their mobile apps stand out in the sea of similar mobile apps, and they can make people take enough notice to pay for the app or make in-app purchases.
According to Pyze President and Co-Founder Prabhjot Singh, we can expect a lot of growth for the mobile app world. The app market is seen to become a $100-billion industry by 2020. This growth is going to be fueled by both purchases and ads. Pyze gives app developers business intelligence that can help them monetize their apps.
Singh also says that, currently, there are only a few app developers that are making more than $1 million a day in sales, while less than half of the three million apps available today earn more than $500 a month.
That means that there are simply a lot of app developers who are not earning from their apps.
The good news is that app developers can now use big data solutions to help them gain insights into how to effectively monetize their products. Singh says that the primary reason why app developers fail at making money is because they do not have access to data that can help them find better prospects for their mobile apps.
To successfully monetize your mobile app, you would need to have big data and analytics to gain insights into how your apps were used as well as gain insights into your customers. This is the only way for you to find more users who will use your mobile app for a long time.
There are roadblocks to this, though. Singh shares that they got their research data from talking to hundreds of app developers and he reveals that most of these app developers are frustrated. This was because their users were on mobile, and mobile analytics were simply not up to par with analytics for other areas.
That was more than two years ago. According to Dickey Singh, who is the CEO and co-founder of Pyze, it is now possible to use data science and machine learning to create the right segmentation and then look deeper into the engagement between the users and the apps.
Big data solutions can cluster users into different segments, usually by taking how these users are using the mobile app. The analytics and machine learning work together to further look into these users and how they use the apps to come up with patterns and trends with regards to actual app use. Using the data gathered from these processes, the mobile app can generate personalized messages for its different users that are tailored to their habits.
Use case for big data solutions in monetizing mobile apps
Take for example a mobile game. Using big data solutions and technology, you can find out how many of the people who downloaded your game actually plays it. And then you can also see how many are paying for in-app purchases for a special skill or an advanced feature. This way, you have a more realistic expectation of how many of your users are paying to use certain features and whether you could improve on these features or add similarly useful one for more revenues.
You can also use this insight to connect and engage with these paying customers, and even initiate a relationship with them.
Furthermore, there are five things that a mobile app should have in order to succeed.
- Interactive content, for one, gives users reason to install your mobile app. If you are only using the same data and content from your website, people would not bother to install it.
- You should also give them a reason to come back and pay.
- There should be added value from using your mobile app, such as giving your users the convenience to order in advance and skip queues when they come to the store to pick it up.
- User interface and
- user experience are also a necessity.
All of these are going to be easy to figure out when you have big data services that can learn and monitor your user’s habits.
Mobile apps analytics
Aside from that, you can also take a look at the bigger picture. Alexander Zaidelson is the vice president for product management at Wefi, a company that delivers mobile app analytics for businesses. Their data is focused on three things:
- the networks that the mobile device was connecting to,
- the location of the mobile device, and
- the mobile apps installed on the device (and which ones are being used).
This could give you valuable insights into your competitors. For instance, going back to the mobile game example, you could see what other mobile games are being played along with your game, where they are playing these games and how much time are users spending on your game versus the amount of time they spend on other games. This will also help you learn more about customer behaviors for different cities, learn about the usage patterns at different times of the day, and even predict when a user would stop using your app. All of these would help you fine-tune your engagement message and help users continue using your product, and continue to pay for your mobile app and its features.
There is no other way to get this depth of information about your mobile app and your users than with big data solutions. If you want to monetize your mobile app and earn big from your efforts, call Four Cornerstone at (817) 377-1144 or fill out our contact form. Four Cornerstone can act as big data consultancy firm or data analytics consulting partner that can hook you up with the right big data solutions to help you engage with customers and finally monetize your mobile apps!
Photo courtesy of Cristiano Betta.
