Passionate in Marketing caught up with Mr. Vishal Singh to discuss about how App Retention strategies help brands to increase their user base in the competitive landscape of mobile marketing.
About Mr. Vishal Singh: Vishal is a Marketing Expert and Business Leader with 20+ years of experience in Brand Management, Business Strategy, Digital Marketing, Media Sales, Media Strategy Development, Business turn-around leadership with world-class businesses. Across various roles of Brand Head and Marketing head, he has been instrumental in launching Telecom and Media brand portfolios across different markets of India; 3G services in the country, an FM Radio brand, and Indian Railways Helpline Number to name a few. A few of the companies he has worked for are Idea Cellular, Big FM, Times Group, Spice Group, and GroupM.
1. How App Monetization has improved the user experience of smartphone users
The mobile app market is projected to be worth $407 billion by 2026, and there are now more ways to creatively monetize your app than ever before. Taking a ground-breaking idea and turning it into an app isn’t always easy, but the biggest struggle that app creators often come up against is determining how to monetize their efforts. Among all monetization strategies, Advertising is still the most popular app monetization strategy.
To make a positive ROI, app developers have to improve retention through better user experience and regular promotion events. Otherwise, the user will uninstall the app soon. To compete with other app developers, high quality and exclusive content, easy and short process, stable service, regular operation event, good credit system, data protection, localized support helps in providing a better user experience and building trust. App Developers must shift their revenue model to generate cash after download. It’s crucial to take the time and make an APP, that ensures the following two points :
- · Your app generates growing revenue.
- · You keep your users and the user experience relatively intact.
A lot of people forget about the second point. However, it’s just as important to look at how mobile monetization affects the app experience as it is to maximize revenue. The user experience is as critical to a successful app monetization strategy because revenue requires happy users.
Let’s understand that monetization mostly harms the app user experience while this can be mitigated or reduced, but can not be done away with completely. And this lowering of the user experience can cause few users to be turned off completely.
Generally assessed and based on the number of active users, the monetization revenue is directly affected by user experience. So it is crucial for developers to consider and answer a few questions before choosing a monetization strategy for their app:
· What do my app users want to see or not see inside my app?
· Are my users typically in a place where they can afford to pay a monthly subscription or one-time fee for my app?
· How much do users trust my brand or app? Am I trusted enough to recommend products or services to them?
· Am I comfortable recording data about my users and using it to make money?
If, for example, you suspect that your app’s users would not appreciate banner ads inside your app, you may want to consider a less intrusive app monetization model. On the other hand, if your users typically do not have a lot of disposable income, a subscription or upgrade model might not work.
Extremely popular with mobile users, applications like Uber, IFTTT, and 1Password have not only become popular but have changed the way our mobile devices impact our daily lives. Common choices for monetization are readily available. They’re mildly effective at best and often intrusive, annoying, and cause friction with the users.
What if there was a better option? One that’s engaging, and may even improve the user experience, while still being a more effective way to monetize. The solution lies in the sweet spot—monetization methods need to include both a good user experience so users actually engage, as well as the opportunity for advertisers to capitalize on their audience.
What’s more engaging than an ad? Valuable, relevant, timely content, including video, served directly at their ‘Moment of Next’—when they’ve completed a task and are ready to discover something new—all within your ecosystem which increases the chance of users getting more interested in the ads and not get irritated which creates a win-win situation for both the developers and the users.
A recent study by Cambridge University computer scientists found that 73 percent of apps in the Android marketplace were free and amongst that 73 percent, 80 percent relied on advertising as their main business model. Hence, the future of app monetization majorly lies in two models; in-app purchases and ad-supported models.
A well-crafted design, layout, and structure of an app can also help keep a user stay engaged. It’s extremely important to understand the beautification of the interface and design. As it helps in looking out for more information and diving deep before making decisions/choices. Interface management, layout management, smooth user experience, quality, and development decision-making are all areas of interest.
Mobile apps have been around for a while, and they have changed rapidly. But the world of app monetization is still coming into focus. There is no Old World of app monetization – publishers are still mapping the New World, and the opportunity is boundless.
In 2022, we are already seeing cutting-edge publishers take the shaky first steps toward new frontiers in in-app monetization.
2. How the right app marketing helps in building brand awareness, reputation, and authority?
The most crucial aspect of app marketing is Advertising On the Right Channels. High brand exposure to potential users is necessary for the initial stage. The first and foremost part of building brand awareness for your app is the ‘Creative Design’, as it helps in deciding if the trust is built in the first 3 seconds.
Secondly, promoting your brand on trusted media with trusted partners is critical for brand safety and reputation building. As big media can be a good endorsement for the new apps.
Lastly, what you promise in the marketing event must be committed and guaranteed in the actual service.
A successful, well-established brand is immediately recognizable, loved, and cherished by its customers, sometimes even the whole world. When you have brand recognition, it’s easier to grow brand awareness, which actually suggests how popular your product is and how familiar your target audience is with its characteristics and qualities.
Having a recognizable brand and the right audience aware of it is when you begin to reap the benefits, as your brand has now become a part of their daily life and habits. Your brand is making a promise that only it can fulfill.
Presenting your app through the right app marketing consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23% so consistency is a number 1 strategy for leveling up your brand awareness. People respond negatively to a change if it’s frequent and seemingly aimless. A purposeful rebranding is completely okay, but shouldn’t frequently change the complete brand image over and over again. The target audience must be able to recognize the brand in 10- or 50-years’ time.
This, in a nutshell, is how brand awareness strategies can help you accomplish your brand.
The crucial thing is to do research and find fitment with the target audience. This way, your products, and services will make the biggest impact, even within omnichannel marketing campaigns. Another brilliant way to stir more attention and increase brand awareness is to strike a partnership with other brands that share your values, views, or vision. Or, those can be local companies from your community that you want to engage with and support.
All this can build your brand awareness by exposing it to the audience that “belongs” to partnering brands. There are many examples of brands teaming up together in order to bring a very special marketing campaign or a one-off product.
As a marketer, you should also leverage remarketing campaigns. Apart from the obvious – having your ads virtually everywhere your potential customers go online – remarketing campaigns send out the impression that your brand is huge, capable of producing all these advertisements across the internet. And of course, you get to increase your conversion rates.
You can do these by hiring a branding agency like MOCA, which can help you as they have the necessary expertise and experience in determining this. Brand awareness forms a connection between your business and your audience’s feelings about your business. To form a meaningful connection that goes beyond just one single purchase, try socializing, networking, and, generally, behaving more like a person than like a company which will appeal to a wider audience.
77% of Twitter users appreciate a brand more when their tweet is responded to. acknowledge your customers! Each advertising channel has a unique audience. And you should choose the channels where your ideal customers spend most of their time. Some of the social platforms are prone to gathering younger demographics, some are more “hip” than others. There are platforms and channels that cater to the needs of a group of people that lean towards a certain political value.
3. How are the Ad Pop-ups monitored by the app developers for the slots?
App developers are only able to control the popup ad delivered on their own, they are not able to monitor those ads delivered by other developers.
The big app developers will tightly control the content and frequency of these pop-up ads. They don’t want to get negative feedback from users, as they care more about the long-term business. For new mobile phone users, pop-ups are one of the ways to get updates, notifications, and the latest information.
However, some developers may not control this well and gradually they will lose the user’s trust and the user may uninstall the app. While, your phone is the ideal tool for advertisers and data brokers, both as a means of collecting information and serving you ads based on it. This is usually done through software development kits, or SDKs, which these companies provide to app developers for free, in exchange for the information they can collect from them, or a cut of the ads they can sell through them. When you turn on location service for a weather app, so it can give you a localized forecast, you may be sending your location data back to someone else.
4. Are the Mobile Advertising Agencies using the help of software for Non-intrusive ads?
For the ad agencies, if they want to retain the client for the long term, they will recommend a clean solution, trusted media for brand favorability. In the meantime, non-intrusive ads may not have high CTR, CVR, but user quality shall be good, as those attracted users click an ad from their own demand, rather than misguidance or click by mistake. How the ad is displayed is controlled by app developers or SSPs, not by the agency. The agency is using multiple solutions and methods to monitor performance and fraud.
5. What kind of ads on apps produce more Interference while using smartphones and how can we synchronize it?
Different apps have different user flows.
For more interaction with users, the ad placement and format should follow the user flow, not break the flow. For e.g. for the video editor app, it takes 1-2 mins to generate the video. It is the performance placement to display ads when users are waiting. It will not disturb the users instead fill in the wait time well. However, if the app is content-oriented, then there are many ways to build interaction if your ad is the content. e.g. ads on short video platforms. Then users can like it, comment on it, or even click or share it.
6. Which kind of ads produce more user-friendly content and how can they be brought up upfront?
Any ad that has an option to close; has relevance to what the user is doing or the content he is reading and doesn’t interfere and disturb his flow, instead has useful/helpful content, it is considered user-friendly.
To build brand connection in a subtle way and generate more useful information is the way users are more accepted.
About MOCA Technology:
MOCA Technology is an innovative Ad platform and mobile advertising agency that provides one-stop mobile application solutions including app uploading, air preinstall, user acquisitions, and brand awareness on smartphone app stores. MOCA Technology was established in the year 2012. MOCA is one of the largest OEM Consolidator & AD innovators across the globe.