In the past the small businesses have been known to be a little skeptical about building their own apps even if it is designed for the proliferation of their business. Add to this the high cost of building an app, and the technical skills that are required, and this skepticism is only deepened. This is not a mere conjecture though, as one of the surveys conducted in 2016 suggested that only about 20% of the small businesses have an app currently. However, things have changed as the cost of building an app has dropped drastically, making it a lot more easier to launch apps and this has led to the creation of a sizeable market of selling mobile apps especially for those who make them.
Majority of the adult population today owns a smartphone, which means that the business of making and selling mobile apps is a lucrative business and has quite a potential for making money. However, if you are planning to make it your business, then apart from programming skills, you also need some marketing strategies to be put in place so that you can find potential customers and then motivate them to buy the app you created. Also, at some point of the time, you would also have to sit down and figure out the best way to make money with the app you are making.
No matter how favorable the environment is for the business of app making, it is still not a fairy tale. There is a need for a well-formed plan that would get you to the ultimate goal of making money with your app. Penguin Apps Builder, with its experience in the business of making apps and selling them to other businesses, has put together a list of things that would help you put a crisp and productive plan of action for you as an app entrepreneur to make money from the apps that you build.
1) State clearly what sets you apart from the competition
If you thought you were going to be the only one doing what you are doing, you need a big reality check. No matter what you choose to do in today’s market scenario you are going to have stiff competition when you are trying to make some money. You might even have begun as someone with a great app idea, but it wouldn’t be long before you see strong competitors emerge all around you. However, just because you know that there is going to be stiff competition for the app that you are building, you shouldn’t let it be a deterrent in the path of your success.
On the contrary, this might, in fact, be your opportunity to find a way to set yourself apart and to let people know what it is that makes your business and you apart from the millions of others and then leverage this difference to promote yours. You can begin by identifying the competition or the big players in the field that you are entering and make a list of the services they have on offer for their customers. The next step is to consider the following:
- Are your competitors offering more than one types of packages, and if they are, what do they consist of?
- What kind of pricing structure are your competitors offering?
- What kind of features are your competitors offering in their products?
- Are your competitors offering after sales support of any kind?
Once you have answers to these questions and meaningful data in front of you, it is time now to compare it to the pricing you have set for your product, its features, and then try and figure out what the areas are where you differ from the others. Now that you know where you stand you can then rank these differences according to the extent of benefit they can bring to you. The one difference that stands to bring the maximum benefit to you becomes your edge. When you are trying to evaluate the one defining the competitive edge, the following are the three most important factors to consider:
Are you being honest?
It is important that you do not make up your competitive edge. Say what is true and do not malign the reputation of your competitors by lying about them.
Can you prove it?
This is an extension of the first point because if you are going to boast about something, you might as well be able to prove it!
Does it bring value to potential clients?
If the product you are planning to launch does not add any value to the customers’ lives, they are not going to pay for it.
The one thing to remember is that the price of your product does not count as a competitive edge, however, if you cannot find a way to differentiate yourself from your competitors on the basis of features or services, you must do so by diverting your attention to looking at the competition who are of a certain size, or narrow your search down and limit it to a certain industry. There would always be a way to make your business stand apart from the others by defining your own competitive edge.
Once you have determined your competitive edge, make sure that this edge is prominently showcased on all your promotional material, in all your sales pitches, or any other important avenue. It is this competitive edge that will help you stand apart from the rest of the crowd.
2) Build your own website
In this day and age, it is impossible for any business to run efficiently without building a website for themselves and if your line of business is about mobile apps, one of the most cutting edge digital product in the current scenario – a website is an absolute must! In the current world making a website is easy and affordable, and anyone can design a professional looking website and host it efficiently. However, if you are not confident about designing & hosting your own website, you can opt for any of the leading platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, Strikingly, Wix, among others.
Whether you decide to design and host your own website or you use one of the platforms we mentioned earlier, your main aim must be to make your website look professional, and be compatible with mobile devices. Some of the more salient components that you must include in your website are:
The Offerings
Whenever there is a visitor on your website, they would first look at the different services or products that you have on offer for them. Put out crisp and vital information in short paragraphs that can then be linked to other sections of the website, where you can have all the details and information in depth.
Tell Your Story
It is only natural that the people who decide to buy from you would want to know a little about you and the company or brand. It would do you well to have an About Us section that would introduce you, your brand, its values, and the key people in your organization, helping the prospective buyers connect a little more easily with you.
The Money Matters
No one like to dig through pages and pages of information to reach the pricing information, and they especially do not want to have to contact you through any medium every time they want to know the price of anything they are buying from you. If you have different pricing options, put out some bullet points and let everyone know what and how much are they going to pay for.
Testimonials & Reviews
Everyone looks for recommendations, and when your visitors see how happy your previous customers are, they are going to feel positive and be encouraged to buy from you. This might not be possible for you to accomplish when you are just starting out, but do keep space for this in your long-term plan.
Contact Details
This is another aspect that your customers wouldn’t want to spend hours looking for. Display your contact information including phone numbers, email addresses, and links to the professional profiles of your company’s social media profiles on your website. If you have an office that is open in the normal office hours, go ahead and put your office address too.
Lead Capture Form
Apart from all this, do add a lead capture form with a call to action (CTS) button set up on your website. Capture the email addresses using any of the leading online tools including SumoMe, GetSiteControl, or Hello Bar. After you have managed to attract a fair number of visitors to your website, begin testing out a variety of CTA buttons on your lead capture forms. Though “Sign Up” & “Subscribe Now” buttons work pretty well, but you may also try some variations like “Learn More” & “See How It Works” etc. to figure out what works the best for you.
3) Employ Effective Marketing
Effective marketing techniques deserve an article or maybe a book on its own, however, when we are covering a topic as broad as this, we would like to touch the basics so that you can then build upon them.
SEO
More than a mere buzzword SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the most important and coveted marketing tools for any business that needs to build its online presence. SEO, however, is a lot more complicated than just smattering a few keywords to fortify your content. It involves attracting links and becoming visible in response to relevant queries. Build your Google My Business Page, identify keywords that your target consumers may search for, and get deeper into the evolving world of SEO to help rank your business higher and make it more visible to the world.
Content Marketing
For SERP or Search Engine Result Pages, Google takes into consideration somewhere around 200 factors. How recently your content was published and how useful & what quality is your content – are only two of these factors. Content Marketing is a technique where you market or promote your business by periodically sharing useful and quality content with the targeted audience. It has the potential to enhance the visibility of your business and in establishing you as an authority of respect & credibility in your industry.
Leverage Social Media
This should, in fact, be on the top of the list! Who doesn’t have a social media account today? Like any other aspect of marketing, social media marketing too needs proper strategizing. Put out as much information about yourself as possible on all the popular social media channels and be active. When you are responsive to your social media channels, you are letting your customer know that you care about them and that you are going to deliver on your promises.
Pay For The Promotions
There are no free lunches in this world – might sound like a cliché to you, but that doesn’t stop it from being true! When you pay for the promotion of your company, brand, product, or services, you are making it all easily visible to the relevant audience by helping you stand apart from the rest, and by helping you stay on top of the mind of your prospective customers. Paid marketing includes SEM, banner ads, social media ads, and so much more! However, when you are paying for something, it is important that you keep an eye on the returns you are getting from it.
4) Sell It Well
So you have set up a fabulous website and it is helping you capture a good number of leads, but your job doesn’t end there. You would need to nurture these leads through a sale. The fact is that not every target customer is going to end up on your website, nor are they all going to be exposed to your efforts on digital marketing. To make sure that you cash in on these customers consider the following.
Nurture Leads Through Emails
Put a strategic email campaign in place. Once people leave behind their email addresses, you must set in motion an automated lead nurturing campaign consisting of:
- Around 3 to 4 emails shot out in a period of two to three weeks.
- One to two landing pages that are exclusively campaign specific
The first message should be a welcome message that introduces you and your services, the next message must have some value and information with a CTA linking them to a particular landing page and so on.
Use The Phone Well
It is surprising how very few people are actually good at making phone calls, particularly when the phone call is effectively a sales pitch! You need to be professional, but do not come off looking like a robot reading out a script either. Sometimes selling your product over a phone call is impossible, schedule a meeting then! Be courteous and thank them for the time they spent talking to you, regardless of how the conversation meant.
Meet in Person
This can be a little intimidating, even more so than a phone call, particularly if you are not used to it. Go prepared, with a decent amount of background research about the prospective client and address key points like how an app you made can help their business, which are the unique benefits that would prove instrumental to them, and how an app would do wonders for their bottom line. Be crisp, clear, and confident. Let them speak as well, and answer confidently.
5) Indulge in Self-Promotion Unabashedly
An oldie, but definitely a goodie! The art of selling yourself is getting more and more subtle and polished as the market is evolving. On the websites, it is quite common for the developers to leave a link to their portfolio or website. Quite in the same manner, mobile app resellers must treat each app that they build as a means to market themselves and bring in more clients. Leave a link on each of your templates so that new customers can reach out to you whenever you want!
6) After Sales Support
As a reseller, your job and the relationship you have with your client does not end at the sale. It is with great efforts that you would have completed the sale, but what good would it do you if the customers abandon you and the app in a couple of months? Offer your customers an exemplary after-sales support by assisting them with marketing their app, helping them increase the number of downloads, training them to use the platform and update content whenever they need to, advising them on when & what to send as push notifications, and keeping them updated with the latest know-how on the industry through informative newsletters.