Since 2007, Apple has been constantly re-inventing the iPhone, offering it in different variants, trying hard to ensure their product does not go obsolete. As we are in the smartphone age, no one wants their product to become outdated, so understand what stage your product stands at, to make prudent marketing and business decisions. Staying nimble is key. Let us dive into the various stages of a product life cycle to understand this better.

What Is A Product Life Cycle? 

A product life cycle can be defined as the amount of time a product takes, from the introduction into the market to being withdrawn from it. In simpler terms, a product goes through a succession of stages, through its existence. Business owners and marketing managers depend on the product life cycle. Key decisions and strategies encompassing advertising budgets, product packaging, and pricing are affected by the product life cycle. 

What Are The Stages of The Product Life Cycle?

Development or Research Phase 

During this stage, groundwork is done even before the product’s market launch. From luring investors to testing prototypes for effectiveness, companies are running around trying to flesh out the concept of what’s on the drawing board. Expect huge spending sans any revenue during this period, because the product is still in a nascent stage of development. The product’s complexity, nature, and market competition affect the length ĺllof this stage. During this stage, marketers start creating some suspense and buzz by using influencers or bringing celebrities or industry leaders on board for endorsements, advertisements, etc. The ultimate goal of this stage is to create brand awareness and give out the impression of being an innovator. 

Product Introduction or Launch 

The first brush of your consumers with your product is in this stage. Sales might be low because demand takes time to build. During this stage, marketing teams spread product awareness, investing in ad and marketing campaigns, through various channels. Companies spend money on educating the customer about the product. Inbound and content marketing strategies are used to educate the public, so they know what they’re buying. The movement of the product from introduction to growth happens subject to its initial success in the market.

Product Growth 

This is the time to cash in on the effort over the last two stages. If you’ve done your groundwork, consumers will accept your product and your profits will grow accordingly. Unfortunately, competition also starts rearing its head during this time. Other firms see your success, and suddenly everyone wants the lion’s share of the market. Aggressive marketing campaigns during this period work hard at helping firms establish a brand presence, wanting to position themselves as superior to their competitors. New distribution channels open up, while simultaneously product features and support services grow.

Product Maturity 

Now, your firm’s been in the market for a while, and you notice the demand for your product falling and sales decreasing as a result. Marketers at this time bring down prices in an effort to stay above the competition. This period sees marketing campaigns transition from product awareness to product differentiation, highlighting certain features, giving discounts or freebies to customers, and multiplying distribution channels. Profits are good during this period, with decreasing production and increasing sales costs. While this period may seem like smooth sailing, it’s easy to be fooled into a lull. Companies need to keep efforts focused on product improvement, conveying this to their consumers too. 

Product Saturation 

The beginning of the end. Too much of anything isn’t good, even your product in the market. At this stage, competitors begin to encroach slowly, and your products seem stagnant. It is imperative at this stage to put in work to ensure your product remains the primary choice for consumers, as there are many options to choose from, and if that does not happen, your product will go into decline. Further differentiation in terms of product features, increased brand awareness, lowering of prices, and better customer support could ensure you stay ahead of competitors. At this stage, you would have gathered some customer success stories. Use them to garner trust and build goodwill. 

Product Decline 

This is the stage no product manager wants to find themselves in unless they are introducing something purposely to kill their own product. By this time, if your once much-beloved product does not stay the preferred brand in the marketplace, there might be a decline in sales, increased competition might eat up whatever little share is left, and your company might be in trouble. As new trends emerge, if you cannot keep up, you’ll be forced to discontinue, sell your company or innovate your product and re-launch it completely. If you find yourself in this situation, bank on nostalgia to establish your superiority over the competition. New advertising strategies, attractive pricing, and a re-imagined product could increase its attractiveness in the eyes of the consumer. 

As a company in the 21st century, it is impossible to escape from change, especially when it is occurring at such a blistering pace. 

Keeping up, let alone staying ahead of the competition is becoming hard for firms. In such cases, the key differentiating factor becomes the product’s effectiveness in solving consumer problems, and its longevity as well as the company’s customer service to address consumer concerns. 

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, marketers would do well to keep an eye on their product life cycle. Whether you are developing something new or working with an established entity, each stage impacts your strategy, brand positioning, and future moves. Investing in smarter marketing campaigns to stay unique, can help you maintain a higher ROI. Read our blog about how to set and achieve marketing objectives to remain a market leader and industry benchmark. If you like this article, explore our article on Social Audio here!

The post 6 Stages of the Product Life Cycle first appeared on Publir.

Tips To Create An Awesome Email Newsletter

But how do you craft an interesting newsletter in an age when hundreds of emails find their way into consumer’s inboxes daily? Do you yourself religiously read every promotional email or newsletter that comes your way? Well, whether you do or don’t, here are some steps to creating an engaging newsletter that people actually read. 

Figure Out Whether You Actually Need One 

Do you really need an email newsletter? If it doesn’t fit into your marketing scheme of things, don’t force it. Do industry-wide research first, and see whether there are successful newsletter case studies. Comb them for resources. You need to then examine your business goals. Do you want more leads? More sales? Get more customers or retain existing ones? 

Now, if your industry isn’t heavy on newsletters, or if your organization’s objectives don’t line with the offerings of a newsletter, then your time might be wasted. It would be wise to collate data and create a POA before plunging into creating an email newsletter. You need to truly decide whether you really need one. 

What Kind Of Newsletter Would You Like To Send

If a newsletter isn’t structured well, or if it’s ambiguous, cluttered, or without focus, it isn’t really helping your cause. Since newsletters focus on every business aspect, they tend to become spread thin. Product news, customer success stories, blog posts, events, everything comes together in one large mess. Stick to specific topics in newsletters. One specific newsletter for people who are interested in a niche topic has the opportunity to get you more engagement than a more generic newsletter catering to a wider audience. 

Don’t Be Too Promotional 

Your newsletter content needs to be 90% educational and 10% promotional. Your subscribers will get fed up if you keep saturating them with information about your company, product, or service. There’s only so much company and product-centric content that you can keep pushing out. For example, if you are looking to buy a laptop, and have decided on one website that sells them, consequently subscribing to their email list, you will get fed up if they send you 2 or 3 emails daily, persuading you to buy their company products. Sure, some educational emails regarding the latest laptop processors or the best machines for gaming and coding might be useful, but nothing beyond. Don’t carry out excess self-promotion in your emails, and concentrate on sending out relevant, educational, and timely information. Unless you have some big news about your product or service, leave out unnecessary promotions. 

Be Clear With Expectations On Your Subscribe Page 

After narrowing down on your email newsletter’s focus areas, and content, make sure you communicate this point clearly on your subscriber landing page. Potential subscribers should know what to expect in the newsletter, and how often your company will mail them. Giving potential subscribers a preview link is a great way to present a teaser and get them hooked to your campaign. 

Have An Interesting Subject Line 

Just having your subscribers on a list, and your email in their inbox is not enough. Your subject line needs to capture their attention so they open your email in the first place. Many marketers keep the subject line the same, every day, week, or month, and this gets old for subscribers, fast.

Choose A CTA, And Stick With It

Nothing’s more confusing or irritating than multiple CTAs in the same email. You might have multiple pieces of content, but don’t have too many CTAs. Have one main CTA, that you’d have your subscribers click on. The rest of the options you present, if any, should be just links to blogs, or options to forward the email. A clear CTA is especially important if you’re running a discount campaign, and are looking to increase your subscribers by way of on-site registration. 

Content, Content Content 

Let’s get to the heart of the matter. The content in your newsletter is of primary importance. Nothing, not the subject line, or the imagery, serves any purpose if the content is poor. Ensure your content is concise, clear and the information is original and useful. 

Content needs to be thought-provoking and creative, so users actually have a reason to be interested in what you have to offer. Sparking an interest may seem tough, but sustaining it over a period of time is even tougher. Your newsletter content quality must be consistent to draw in readers interested in that particular topic over a span of months. 

Ensure it Looks Good 

An email newsletter’s design is a vital part to ensure readers click, read, and return to your newsletter. Your written content, as mentioned above, needs to follow a consistent style. Your layout and imagery too should be visually engaging, highlighting your creativity. Use high-resolution photos, appealing color palettes, and illustrations to grab your audience’s attention. With over half of all emails read on mobiles, ensure your newsletter reads properly on smartphones (Source). 

Market What You’ve Made 

Creating a newsletter, sending it out, and not marketing it effectively again cuts the newsletter’s benefits. People need to sign up for your newsletter. To ensure they do, market its existence. Invest in banner ads on social media channels for starters. 

Be In Touch Consistently 

It would be a great idea to stay in touch periodically with your subscriber base. Keep your readers satisfied over a long period of time by scheduling content way in advance. Sticking to a said schedule can help you build a large content pool, from which you can use ideas. Select and stick to a schedule, as this helps build reader trust. 

Draft, Review, and Test 

Create multiple drafts in the names of different people. This can be someone you know or a persona you’ve created. Write the email as if you’re writing to them. This exercise will make your newsletter campaign feel more personal. Consumers love being addressed individually via tailored email messages. 

Final Thoughts

The above tips might help in crafting an email newsletter your subscribers find interesting. Nurturing a loyal pool of readers is essential. Over time, they may translate into buyers, and in the future might become product authorities – giving great testimonials on your behalf through their social media pages and other channels, content which you can repost to boost your firm’s credibility. A customer always loves feeling special, and a well-crafted email newsletter that offers them something without sounding sales-ey and cliched does just that.

Read our blog on email marketing terms so you can reach your existing subscribers more effectively, and onboard new ones.

The post How to Create an Email Newsletter People Actually Read first appeared on Publir.

Here’s where Google Image Search could help. Useful when you want to narrow down to a picture of a particular place, or even a certain size, image search can help you analyze your competition’s marketing strategy. Improve your own and then outrank them on search. Features like filters on advanced image search can help you skip poring over scores of pictures to find exactly what you want. You can even check out what your competitors are doing. While copying your competitor’s marketing strategy isn’t the best thing, learning from it while coming up with your own may help. 

How To Use Google Advanced Image Search? 

Using this function is quite easy. Below, we’ve enumerated how you can use the dashboard and advanced filter options to narrow down your search results. But first, you get to the advanced dashboard. 

• Visit images.google.com or click on the ‘images’ tab, on a normal Google search page. 

• Look for the gear icon on the top right-hand corner of the screen. Click on it. 

• To narrow down your search further, use the filter options on the advanced image search dashboard. 

The filter options allow you to search for images in a number of ways. 

• The first way, called ‘this exact word or phrase’, is not unlike a normal text-based query, where users find images using full phrases like ‘brown bags’ either in their file name or alt text. 

• Users looking for a slightly broader search will appreciate the ‘any of these words’ option, that even has an ‘OR’ between all the words you wish to include. For example, ‘brown bags or rucksacks’

• Those who love to work backward would love the ‘none of these words’ option, which allows a search query to be used sans certain words or phrases. You use the ‘-’ sign to denote the same. 

• Further on, there are technical ways to filter out images. Pixel size is one criterion, where you can choose between small, medium, large icon sizes, or even choose images larger than a certain size. The size and quality of the image are proportional to the number. 

• You can use the ‘aspect ratio’, i.e the ratio of an image’s width to its height, as criteria too. Choose from options like tall, wide, square, or panoramic. 

• Those who want further options can narrow down search results according to color. You can find full black and white, transparent, or even color-specific images. 

• There are various file format options like JPEG, RAW, BMP, GIF, and PNG formats, you can refine your search results by. 

• Find images published from any part of the word using the drop-down list that displays countries. 

• The site or domain filter allows you to look for images that have come from a particular website. 

• You can also filter by image usage rights, finding royalty-free images and paid images. You can filter by commercial, creative commons, and other licenses. 

Now, there are certain tricks that you can employ to use Google Advanced Image Search, to gain a competitive advantage. Thanks to its different advanced filters, you can definitely gain an upper hand. 

Use Specific Phrases to Find Competitors

You need to know your competitors inside out, even before you enter the market. If you are familiar with who you’re up against, you can alter your digital marketing strategy to outsmart them accordingly. For example, if you are selling homemade soaps on an eCommerce site, you can use the filter options ‘this exact word or phrase’, ‘region’ and more, to find other sites that sell homemade soaps. Advanced search allows you to see your direct competition, analyzing their marketing material. You can see any created infographic, their image nomenclature, and other important information that can help you visually sell your goods in a better way. 

Find Guest Blogging Opportunities – Using Reverse Image Search 

Guest blogs are quite helpful in link-building. Backlinks can help give your brand a thoughtful authoritative identity and bring useful traffic to your site. Spend hours trying to find relevant guest posting opportunities. Or reverse image search, by which you can find guest-posting opportunities that have boosted your firm’s authority. By reverse image searching the headshot of their lead writer, you’ll find out where your competitor guest blogs and the posts that they write. 

Get In Touch With Websites 

Find websites that align with your brand’s voice and vision. Focus on those websites that have high website traffic and decent engagement rates, and appeal to your consumer band. After you get a list, prepare a pitch. With the amount of content on the internet today, everyone wants fresh ideas. Concentrate on articles that showcase your expertise and try to solve a consumer problem or tackle a previously untouched topic. 

Stay On Top Of Trends Courtesy the Time Feature 

For fashion brands, fast food brands, and other quick consumables, the ‘time’ feature on Google Advanced Search image poses a considerable advantage. Filter timelines by the past 24 hours, a week, a month, a year, or any time frame of your choosing. Keep an eye on what’s trending in your industry, and see how your competitors respond to them.

Write Better Product Descriptions 

A good product description goes a long way in inducing a sale. Search engines use these descriptions to rank products to display on their text, shopping tab, or image search results. Either appear as the top choice or be invisible. Because no one remembers who came second. The domain filter, when fed a keyword related to the product you sell, gives you keywords your competitors use for their product title. 

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, as Google strengthens its services and multiplies its technological capabilities, users have good news. While on one hand privacy is becoming a problem in one part of our online universe, on another hand topics such as SEO, organic rankings, have seen more focus as firms jostle for relevance in this content-saturated digital world. When there are so many voices, it pays to sound different. Using Google Advanced Image Search options can help you find out what your competition is doing so you can adopt a better approach. Copying their strategy might get you similar or worse results. However, if you want an impact that lasts, use the tool wisely and retain your brand’s originality, to see your consumer base grow. Read our blog on how to carry out effective market research in a digital age to stay on top of the market.

The post How to Use Google Advanced Image Search for Competitive Research first appeared on Publir.

What is Digital Transformation All About?

Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, radically transforming the way you operate and deliver value to customers. It is also a cultural change that ensures that organizations are always challenging the current conditions while simultaneously experimenting with new ideas and getting comfortable with breaking down and rebuilding business structures.

In essence, digital transformation requires becoming comfortable with change. Change is to be expected; being comfortable with change requires some effort.

Digital transformation is a process that applies digital technologies to change the business’s existing practices and services; creating new practices to meet the evolving market and customer expectations. It’s a complete overhauling of the way businesses are managed and operated, and how value is delivered to customers. 

Deloitte defines “digital transformation” as becoming a digital enterprise. Here organizations use technology to continuously evolve all aspects of their business models. It is an ever-moving process with no clear boundaries, where the enterprise analyzes the changing customer needs and applies technology to improve the end-user experiences, including customers and employees.  

Is Digital Transformation Imperative for Companies?

Digital transformation is imperative for companies to remain competitive in their respective fields. It allows the industries to evolve by improving the way they operate, helping them to meet the ever-changing market and user expectations. Digital transformation is not just making heavy investments in emerging technologies. According to a study by Bain & Company, only 8% of companies had achieved their business goals by sheer investments in digital technologies. What they’re missing is the change in the organizational thought process and how the companies apply them to meet their business outcome. It’s not just the digital footprint, but also the mindset that goes along with it.

Consider the reasons why companies like Amazon, Netflix, Uber Eats, and Uber are household names and their users are ready to discuss, recommend, and share information about them on social media. What prompted customers to act as their key partners in bringing in new business? These companies are successful in delivering personalized products and services to their customers efficiently and in a way that grabs their customers’ (and prospective customers’ attention). 

These organizations have learned how to adapt quickly to supply chain disruptions, time to market pressures, and rapidly changing customer expectations are critical factors.

Data is the modern-day ‘currency’ and data monetization should be the end goal for every business. Companies must be able to harness this data judiciously to leverage insights and continue to grow. 

Tech-savvy customers expect personalized services and look to companies to attain the agility to meet their needs, like customer engagement and experiences by reducing the friction between the business and the customer. Leaning in on digital assets and a digital approach to doing business is the way to make this happen. 

It is an essential part of the business in attaining ROI and profitability. 

Digital Transformation Framework

The digital transformation framework is the blueprint that guides an organization to travel through times of turbulence toward set business goals. Creating a framework to assist an organization succeeds in digital transformation keeps the organization on track and on deadline. Digital transformation may radically alter the status quo of a business and the framework helps organizations to look back to measure changes and mitigate challenges. There are established change management models for the business to gauge its impact.

An ideal digital transformation framework should include factors like:

• Customer experience
• Operational agility
• Culture and leadership
• Workforce enablement
• Digital technology integration

Digital transformation must balance key management forces like strategy, structure, systems, skills, shared values, style, and staff. Just two of the vital factors in a digital transformation include training people, and adopting new technology, with companies maintaining a balance between them. If you focus too intently on a new tool (system), you might overlook the need for additional employee training (skills, staff).

How Do Companies Transform Digitally?

Organizations need to consider a variety of drivers when involved in a digital transformation. These include developing a digital twin, addressing privacy and culture, establishing augmented intelligence, and managing digital products. 

Digital Twin

Virtual representation of a real-time project, systems, or entities is called a digital twin. It is an encapsulated software object or model that mirrors a unique physical object, process, or organization. Manufacturing (Ford Motors), Healthcare (GE- Health), Energy (GE Wind Farm), Smart Cities (Singapore & Shanghai), etc., have been using digital twin to change the way we create, use, and optimize physical spaces and processes. It aids organizations in the effective management of facilities and assets to improve customer experience. 

Privacy Concerns

Both customers and employees insist on privacy and data safety, without which, it is difficult to win their loyalty and trust. There is no guarantee for data breaches and leaking sensitive data related to people and their financial activities in this digital age but ensuring data privacy is the first major step in the digital transformation process. There is a lot that organizations can do to mitigate potential risks.

Adapting Culture

While organizations seek to redefine the way they work to create, deliver, and capture value by investing in digital technologies, they need to develop a value system around digitizing and communicate it effectively to employees. With company values in place, organizations can hire and train employees to align with these values and expected behaviors. 

Augmented Intelligence

Augmented Intelligence, a subsection of artificial intelligence, helps to enhance human intelligence digitally, collecting and presenting data in a way that allows people to augment their knowledge. Zara and Amazon are some of the examples that embraced this technology. Augmented reality can be used for showrooms and online purchases. It shows alternative outfits to the pieces delivered and entices customers to make repeat purchases. 

Digital Product Management

Digital product management is shifting companies’ focus from projects to products by designing products that enhance the customer experience which can be delivered through digital channels. Apple Watch, for example, monitors the health of the wearer.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed Digital Transformation?

4.7 million people were working remotely from home before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, as per the US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This was up by 1% or 0.8 million from 2015. In contrast, by the end of 2020, 88% of the organizations all over the world encouraged their employees to work from home as the virus started to spread at exponential rates. 

Companies that have invested in augmented intelligence, IoT, and cloud technologies made the best use of technology during this health emergency. Tools like Google Suite, Office 365, Box, and Slack played a critical role in enabling a swift move to work-from-home.

Digital transformation as a process has not only facilitated startups, enterprises, and multinational companies all over the world but also helped people to work, shop, play, entertain and be entertained online throughout the period worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. It reduced the persistent layers between the customers and companies to minimize the tension in this process. While the digitally matured companies like Amazon, Walmart, Netflix, and several others have quickly adapted to the emerging socio-economic and cultural shifts to meet their customer expectations, others made a beginning in this direction. The pandemic has taught the companies to balance between the employees’ health and customer expectations. 

What are the key trends in Digital Transformation in 2021?

Customer Data Platforms (CDP)

Companies are producing massive data. Their ability to harness this data to gain insights into customer behavior is crucial when they have a wide range of product lines, marketing channels, and customers. CDP acts as a single source of customer information to create more personal and relatable marketing campaigns. An Oracle-sponsored study observed companies that use CDPs enjoy 2.5% more in customer lifetime value than those that don’t.

Ensured Cybersecurity

Companies that focused heavily on digital infrastructure building without paying any attention to cybersecurity have faced severe blows. Research firm Gartner had predicted that by 2020 60% of digital businesses would suffer major service failures due to the inability of security teams to manage digital risk. The prediction came true as there were 445 million cyberattacks in 2020 and cybersecurity will be one of the key digital transformation trends for 2021.

 Multi-cloud architecture

Innovations in cloud technologies helped companies to adopt multi-cloud architecture to distribute applications and workloads within an organization. Companies are adopting a multi-cloud strategy for reasons like resilience, data residency requirement, and disaster recovery. Organizations must learn ways for cloud management and automation solutions to manage their multiple cloud environments.

Democratization of AI

The democratizing of AI is making AI accessible to every organization and employees within an organization. AI-based tools can be used to identify patterns, make decisions, predict, learn, and improve. The perfect example of AI integration can be seen in health care. Tech enthusiasts believe that the application of AI in health care has revolutionized the industry. It is one of the most important digital transformation trends for 2021.

QR Codes and Digital payments 

Scanning a QR code to order food and make digital payments without any human involvement in consumer transactions is an important trend for the year 2021. While the COVID-19 induced social distancing compelled online retailers, cafes, and restaurants to come up with solutions to promote digital transactions, 2021 will continue this process and expand it to people and businesses worldwide to access the digital economy.

Automation

Automation and digital transformation go hand-in-hand, and one doesn’t exist without the other. Automated alerts for companies on due dates for software license renewal and project cycle will increase efficiency and delivery of projects on time. Hyperautomation will be a key technology trend in 2021, which is an integrated use of technologies like machine learning, robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, low code, and more. Businesses might also move toward cloud-centric automation solutions for better scalability and reduced cost of ownership.

5G

The adoption of 5G services will accelerate digital transformation in many ways; it opens up various opportunities like enhanced capabilities to deliver content, services, and interactions in unimaginable ways, with great speed. It also facilitates speedy and faster telecom services with lower latency and higher density. It is capable of redefining business models and operations by drastically improving services. Automated vehicles, IoT in smart city infrastructure, and traffic management, IoT in industrial automation are some of the best examples that demonstrate the abilities of 5G services.  

Data Analytics

While data fuels modern-day business, it is important to apply analytics to extract useful information from the processed raw data to foster decision-making and organizational productivity. Data analytics find answers to complex problems by predicting consumer behavior, streamlining supply chain processes, optimizing sales pipelines, etc. By 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical enterprise asset and analytics as an essential competency.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is not without challenges with constraints on budget, access to technology, and cultural cues in its way. Organizations need to be very strategic in selecting the right technology that suits their business. Instead of building the entire infrastructure, enterprises and startups are hiring these services out and building them from the bottom up. But the fact remains very clear that digital transformation is imperative for companies to survive in this digital age. To read more informative articles, visit our blog here!

The post Digital Transformation – How Imperative for Companies first appeared on Publir.

Enter app monetization, the ability to generate revenue from an app that is still available for free to users.

What is App Monetization?

App monetization is the process of turning a consumer base into a revenue stream for advertisers and developers. Paid apps, in-app purchases, advertising, and other options are some of the tactics that can be used to do this.

With a large number of smartphone applications available for free download, content developers must find new ways to make money while keeping their customers happy. If two apps are similar to one another and one is free, which do you think users will gravitate toward?

The good news is that monetizing smartphone applications can be done in a variety of ways that do not detract from the user experience. App monetization firms specialize in these models, making them a good fit for app creators.

Advantages of App Monetization

Below are some of the advantages of using an app monetization company:

·       Varied Range: You’ll be able to utilize a wide range of monetization options–without having to do all the back-end research yourself.

·       Worldwide mobile traffic: You have the ability to monetize mobile traffic from all over the world.

·       Improving CLV: App monetization experts can help you improve a customer’s lifetime value (CLV).

·       Assist to make a profit: Platforms for monetization can assist an app in running and profiting from the most appropriate advertisements.

·       Direct access to well-known labels: Monetization experts have direct access to programmatic customers representing some of the world’s most well-known labels.

·       Few Rivals: Since many applications are free, you would have fewer rivals in your niche if your app is paid–if that’s the best option for you. 

What Are The Top Ad Monetization Trends in 2021?

 By 2026, the smartphone app industry is expected to be worth $407 billion, and the number of ways to monetize an app continues to grow. Despite considerably higher percentages of ad placements, the pandemic has resulted in lower advertiser investment overall, resulting in lower growth of in-app ad spending. Around the same time, it has shifted mobile time away from travel-related practices and toward social media, video streaming, gaming, health and wellness, and news applications.

In-app advertising

The positioning of advertisements within your app is known as in-app advertisement, and it’s an essential part of the app monetization ecosystem. According to Statista, smartphone ad spending reached $190 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach more than $280 billion by 2022. In-app advertising as a monetization model is applicable to all verticals and provides a variety of options to be compensated for showing advertisements to the customers. In-app purchases are made inside the app and provide consumers with extra content or additional functionality.

·       Interstitial Ads: This is the largest ad type in terms of size; an Interstitial ad is designed to take up the entire smartphone screen in order to attract all mobile device attention to a single ad post. These advertisements are a two-edged sword: on the one side, they guarantee that smartphone consumers see an ad; on the other hand, they irritate consumers and make them less open to the marketing advertisement that app advertisers want to offer.

·       Banner Ads: This smartphone ad format is similar to a web banner ad, but it has its own set of restrictions. Since it takes up only a tiny amount of space on a smartphone device, people don’t pay it much attention. On iOS, banner advertisements cost $0.20 to $2.00 an Ad, while Android applications cost $0.15 to $1.50.

·       Video Ads: Video advertisements are one of the most effective smartphone ad formats currently available with Google, Facebook, and Vungle as the market leaders. In a nutshell, a smartphone video ad is a brief video (up to 15 seconds) that presents an app and provides a direct connection to download it. Cost per impressions ratings for smartphone video advertisements vary from $0.50 to $5.00 on average.

·       Native Ads: Native Ads are the most effective of all forms of mobile ad formats, according to app advertisers, because mobile users don’t view native ads as standard digital ads and therefore aren’t as irritated by them. Essentially these are ads that very closely resemble the app’s own content but are paid for by an advertiser. Native advertising may be designed in a variety of sizes and introduced in a variety of ways across various platforms, but their average price varies greatly.

·       Text Ads: Finally, much as on a laptop, the most basic kind of smartphone ad is a text ad. Google AdWords, one of the two most popular online advertising sites, charges between $1 and $2 per click.

Freemium Model

Many applications have a freemium option, which allows people to use the software for free, with advertisements. Users are sometimes reluctant to pay for an app they haven’t downloaded, so a freemium service is a common option for allowing users to trial the app before agreeing to a subscription. 

When you have a freemium service, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your worth to the consumer and persuade them that your product is worthwhile. Since it is much easier to attract customers when the app is free, the freemium model is likely to stay popular. 

For example, Dropbox, a well-known cloud storage website, provides a free plan of up to 2GB of storage for backups and easy file sharing. The Pro package, which has more storage (1TB), is just $9.99 a month. Dropbox’s freemium model is designed to demonstrate how simple it is to backup and exchange data using the Dropbox framework. Its strategy works because you can back up from any location, even your mobile device. And anybody who has pictures or videos would tell you that 2GB is never enough. Once you see how easy it is to use, the $9.99 a month upgrade feels like a no-brainer. Enter the subscription model.

Subscription Model

A subscription monetization model is also available for upgrading the user experience and removing advertisements. According to a Sensor Tower survey, sales for the top 100 premium apps in the United States increased by 21% in 2019, from $3.8 billion to over $4.6 billion. A well-known example of this model is Spotify. Anyone can download Spotify and start listening to music with advertisements, but their unlimited ad-free option needs a monthly subscription. Many apps also allow a one-month free preview of the subscription package so users can see what they’re missing if they stick with the free version. 

Take Netflix, for example. It’s one of the most well-known businesses in the world, with earnings that have increased by 23% or more each year since 2018. It is currently the most profitable organization that operates solely on a subscription basis. Netflix prioritizes three areas of investment: (1) content; (2) technology; and (3) marketing. Netflix’s revenue is based on the subscription business model with users paying a flat monthly rate to stream television shows, movies, and specials right to their living rooms. There’s a host of other options for a subscription model. 

Paid Mobile Apps

When mobile app stores first opened, the bulk of users were paying, and it was the only way to monetize them. Later on, ads and in-app purchases kicked in, and the paid apps model shrank dramatically from about 90% in 2011 to hovering about 50% by 2017. There are already some product categories where the paid apps model is more profitable than those today. According to Statista, the average price for paid iOS applications was $4.37 in 2018 and $4.86 for paid Android apps. 

Think about the highest standard premium video player experience for your Android smartphone, the paid mobile app MX Player Pro. Since it is a paid service, you can watch music videos and other entertainment programs that you won’t find on other video applications. It has a large storage capacity for video songs and services and privacy and children’s lock available and consistently receives great reviews. 

In-app Purchases

Many mobile applications depend on in-app transactions to function, for instance, 95% of Google Play Store applications are free, with revenue generated by monetization mechanisms such as in-app purchases. In-app purchases are worth $380 billion globally, making them a lucrative way to increase the app’s revenue. Gaming apps may be one of the most popular examples of monetizing with in-app purchases.

In-app purchases for computer games are split into two categories: consumables and non-consumables. Consumables, such as in-game money, are only available for a limited time, while non-consumables must be bought only once. Unlocking a stage or character skin is an example of a non-consumable in-app purchase. 

There are a lot of advantages to in-app purchases. Games like Clash of Clans, Dead Trigger 2, BADLAND, CSR Racing, Madden NFL 25, FIFA 14, and a slew of other titles are all available for download. We have the power to determine how much money we spend. You can play these games or use these apps for free without having to buy anything, however the desire to “get to the next level” runs deep. Buying gems or coins for use in the game will help you to move to the next level much more quickly.

Conclusion

According to a survey by app research company Swrve, 2.2% of gamers spend money on an app, with the top 10% of the group accounting for 46% of all revenue. There is a flood of free apps available, and revenue is highly reliant on the scale. In-app transactions are becoming more common, and the industry is becoming more democratized. 

Paid apps, on the other hand, are not performing as well with consumers across platforms; however, they will continue to account for a significant portion of smartphone sales in the future. 

As a whole, app monetization strategy is a fantastic way for app developers to expand their user penetration and generate new revenue sources. The key is to work with a knowledgeable professional to help you decide which route is best for you. For more insightful content like this, visit our blog!

The post App Monetization Trends: What To Expect In 2021 first appeared on Publir.