7 apps that don't rely on advertising to make money

It is not easy for mobile application developers to find business models. Advertising, paid downloads, and app purchases--these are all ways to bring money to mobile developers. But the way is by no means just these three kinds. Foreign science and Technology web site VentureBeat summed up 7 kinds of mobile applications innovative way of money.

1, closer to the game
Line is Japan's most popular mobile communications software, in Japan has 80 million users, and completely free. To make ends meet, line begins to extend its tentacles to the game field and launch a guessing game called line Pop. The game was launched in just one day and 1 million downloads were available. Downloads reached 10 million in less than two weeks, and line also gained a handsome income of 1 million dollars. It should be said that the success of line POP provides another possibility for many other applications (especially the Whatsapp) to find ways to make money.

2, internationalization: Where's the money?
Not all users are born equal. Users in some places are more willing to pay for apps than other countries. The globalisation of smartphones is accelerating, but not all entrepreneurs can think globally. Most Silicon Valley entrepreneurs simply confine their applications to the North American market. The only place where you can make money is not necessarily America.

In October 2012, Japan said its apps made the most money in Google Play, accounting for 29% of the world's total revenue from the Google Play app store. The second is the United States, with a share of 26%, while South Korea ranked third with 18% per cent of the market.

According to Distimo, an application tracking service company, Japan, Russia, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea are ranked among the fastest-growing countries or regions in the App Store. The United States ranks only 13th in this ranking, with an annual growth rate of only 44%. Therefore, if the application developer only stares at the United States, you will lose a lot of possibilities.

3. Download for other applications

The way the Dolphin browser earns revenue is by bringing downloads to other applications. Instead of using traditional banner ads or messages to push the user out of their way, they create a page called "Speed Dial" for application recommendations. In this way, users who like dolphin-recommended apps will naturally go to this page for search. According to dolphin officials, this kind of way really makes them make a lot of money.

Another good example of making an application recommendation for money is appsfire. It is a very popular application discovery tool that is designed to provide users with limited or limited discount applications. And their money is taken from the application developers who want to do marketing on Appsfire.

4, the use of free value-added business model

Noom is a weight-loss fitness application that enables users to gradually lose weight in the long-term fitness process by making daily plans for their users.

According to the characteristics of the application itself, Noom abandoned the pay installation, advertising and other business models, but to take the free value-added model. The basic function of the application is completely free to all users. But for those who want to get a better quality fitness guide, Noom has introduced a monthly payment.

5, copyright output and related product development

Not all mobile developers can use copyright output and related commodity development as a way of giving birth to money. This requires that your application already has a brand value and a large user base. For example, "Angry Birds" developers Rovio is eligible.

It is said that Rovio has exported the copyright of Angry Birds to more than 200 partners, allowing them to make clothes, T-shirts, plush toys, bottles, pens, sheets, snacks, beverages, theme parks and other "Angry Birds" related products. Rovio said sales of related goods accounted for 30% of the company's sales in 2011, compared with 50% in 2012.

6, rush to the enterprise market
Box is the most successful example of an application that makes money from the enterprise market. By positioning the target customers directly in the enterprise, Box successfully avoids competing with similar cloud storage services Dropbox. This is the turn, Box only found that the market is completely or virgin land, lucrative. It's called Vista.

In addition, Evernote recently adopted a similar strategy to launch the Evernote Business.

7, turn advertising into an entertainment

This is not a general advertisement. There was no Banner, no commercials, no crossover, no sudden pop-up ad wall when the game was halfway through. Outfit7 (Talking Tomcat developer, which currently has 600 million downloads) has mastered the art of turning advertising into an entertainment. That's what they do:

The American film company Dream Factory approached Outfit7 's CRO (figuratively Revenue Office) Narry Singh last year, hoping he would be able to embed the dream Factory's "Madagascar" movie ad in talking Tomcat's gaming experience. At that time Singh knew that simple Banner ads could not send the client. So he designed a 9-second app Interactive applet: If a user hits talking Tomcat 5 times, he can activate a trip to Madagascar.

"We want to turn Madagascar into a part of the game," Singh said. Because your users prefer not your application itself, but rather the stories or experiences that you use to provide them. ”

This way of entertaining the ads eventually brought more than 9% hits to two teams.

PS: Don't worry if your application isn't starting to make money yet. Work installation and user size, then talk about money. With the download volume, with the user, the money will come naturally.