作者：Edith Yeung

对手机游戏开发者而言，赢利不是一件容易的事。广告、付费下载、游戏内消费——这些都是手机应用开发者的收益来源，但并不是唯一的渠道。

业内同行和前辈已经向我们提供了许多提高手机应用的赢利能力的策略。以下是最合我意的7个方法。

1、向游戏扩张

在日本，《LINE》是最流行的一款手机短信应用，用户超过8000万。并且，它是完全免费的。

为了维持庞大的用户基础，《LINE》靠游戏从现有的用户基础中创收。它发行了一款名为《LINE Pop》的益智游戏，一天之内就创下了100万的安装量，两周内的安装量达到1000万，赢利高达100万美元。

expand to gaming(from venturebeat)

《LINE Pop》的成功绝对刺激了许多应用（特别是《Whatsapp》这类短信应用）思考如何利用现有的用户基础增加赢利。

2、走国际路线

并非所有用户生来平等；有些国家的人民更乐意购买应用，有些则不。智能手机加速了全球化进程，但不是所有开发者都意识到全球化的潜力，比如，在硅谷，大多数的应用开发者都把目光放在美国市场。但只要你有足够的销售额，这也说得过去。

但要注意，在2012年10月，日本已成为Google Play收益最高的市场，其应用商店在Google Play全球收益中占比29%。美国占比26%，韩国占比18%。

根据Distimo的报告，在App Store收益中，快速增长的国家/地区如日本、俄罗斯、中国、台湾、泰国、巴西、墨西哥和韩国等都出现了比美国更高的收益年增长率，而美国的增长率排行第13，即44%。如果你忽略了这些潜力股国家，那就意味着你将损失大量收益。

3、刺激安装其他手机应用

Dolphin浏览器产生收益的方法是，帮助其他开发者鼓励用户安装他们的手机应用。在浏览器的“快速访问”页面，罗列了推荐应用。我们不需要添加任何传统的横幅广告或弹出通告（个人也讨厌），用户似乎蛮喜欢我们的推荐。另外，我们因此收益颇丰。

另一个此类赢利模式的例子就是，Appsfire。它是一个流行的应用发现工具，可以追踪免费或限时折扣的应用。它的开发者借此积累了大量用户基础，并且靠其他想向Appfire用户营销的开发者获得收益。

4、采用免费模式

Noom-Weight-Loss(from duveraboutique.com)

Noom是一款指导减肥的应用，它为用户提供每日任务，使用户达到长期瘦身的目标。

这款应用并没有向用户收费或出售广告，而是向用户收取每月的额外指导服务费用，从而弥补免费模式的赢利缺口。

基本应用是免费的，但对于那些想更快减肥的用户来说，他们必须为额外指南花钱。这是所有人的共赢：普通用户得到的好处相对少，因为不需要付费；开发应用的公司靠自己提供的额外服务赚钱；付费的用户能得到更高质量的内容。

5、授权和商业化

并非所有手机应用开发者都能将授权和推销当作成功的赢利策略。只有那些影响力大、用户基础雄厚的大品牌才有做到。

licensing(from venturebeat)

在这方面，Rovio是一个榜样。这家公司成功地营销了“愤怒的小鸟”这个品牌，与超过200个合作商授权出售周边T恤、毛绒玩具、手机壳、水壶、笔、床单、零食、饮料，甚至经营起自己的主题公园。

2011年，Rovio的收益中有大约30%来自周边产品销售。另外，该公司估算实体产品在2012年公司业务中占比50%。

6、面向企业

云储存供应商Box是走向企业营销应用路线的成功案例。它没有向个体用户收费，也没有与Dropbox硬碰硬地竞争，而是转向为企业开发应用，然后收获丰厚的利润。

Evernote也走了类似的路线，最近发布了Evernote Business。

7、将广告作为游戏的一部分

这不同于普通的广告。游戏中没有横幅，没有插页，没有交叉推广，也没有推广墙。Outfit7（游戏邦注：《会说话的汤姆猫》开发商，该游戏的下载量达到6亿次）就深谙“将广告融入游戏”的艺术。

talking-tom-cat(from sftcdn.net)

去年，梦工厂拜访了Outfit7首席营收官Narry Singh，意图将其电影《马达加斯加》的元素放入《会说话的汤姆猫》中。Singh知道他的客户要的不是添加横幅广告，而是设计一种互动的、时长为9秒的小程序。玩家可以通过打汤姆猫五次来激活“马达加斯加”体验。一旦被激活，马达加斯加的梦幻云就会出现，游戏背景也随之改变。

Singh解释道：“我们想把《马达加斯加》作为游戏的一部分。玩家买的不是你的应用，而是你的剧情。”

这个策略使Outfit7的团队获得了高于9%的广告点击率。

如果你的应用现在还不够赚钱，不要慌张。先集中精力改良你的应用，活跃你的用户基础，然后再关注赢利。

只要你有用户基础，收益自然滚滚而来。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Apponomics: 7 ways to make money from apps without ads

by Edith Yeung

Monetization isn’t a simple process for us mobile developers. Advertisements, paid installs, in-app purchases — these all can generate revenue for mobile app developers, but they aren’t the only methods available.

Our friends in the industry have taught us a number of other innovative strategies to monetize mobile apps. Here are seven of our favorites.

1. Expand to Gaming

LINE is the most popular mobile messaging app in Japan with over 80 million users. It’s also completely free.

To maintain its massive user base, LINE turned to gaming to cash in on its existing user base. It launched a puzzle game called LINE Pop, which garnered more than one million installs in one day and 10 million installs and $1 million in revenue in less than two weeks.

The success of LINE Pop is definitely a wake up call for many productivity apps (especially messaging apps like Whatsapp) to think about new ways to capitalize on their user base.

2. Internationalization: Go Where the Money Is

Not all users are created equal; some citizens in some countries are more willing to pay for apps than others. Smartphones help to speed up globalization, but not all developers think globally, and most Silicon Valley app developers tend to focus mainly on the US market. This makes sense as long as you have enough run rate.

But it doesn’t make sense when considering this: In October 2012, Japan claimed the number one spot as the country with the highest revenue generated in Google Play, claiming 29 percent of the app store’s total global revenue. The U.S. followed close behind with 26 percent, and Korea stood at 18 percent.

According to Distimo’s report on the fastest-growing countries for App Store revenue, countries like Japan, Russia, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, and Korea all showed a higher year-over-year growth in revenue than the U.S., which ranked 13th with a growth rate of 44 percent. Forget about these countries, and you’re missing enormous revenue potential.

3. Drive Installs for Other Mobile Apps

Dolphin Browser generates revenue by driving installs for other mobile developers. On our browser’s “Speed Dial” page, we display a list of apps we recommend. We don’t do any traditional banner ads or push notifications advertising (we hate those as individuals), and our users really seem to like our recommendations. Plus, we make good money with it.

Another great example of this monetization model is Appsfire, a popular app discovery tool that tracks free or temporarily discounted apps.  Its developers were able to build a big following and drive revenue from other developers who want to market to Appfire’s users.

4. Employ the Freemium Model

Noom is a weight loss coaching app that gives users daily tasks and helps them with long-term weight loss.

Instead of charging for installs and selling advertising, Noom was successfully able to bridge the gap and charge for monthly subscription to its premium coaching services.

Its basic app is free, but for those users who want a bit more, they need to fork over a few bucks. It’s a win for everyone, the casual users who get smaller benefits free of charge, the company that makes money for its work, and the serious users who have the option to get high-quality content.

5. Licensing & Merch

Not something every mobile app developer has what it takes to be able to pull off licensing and merchandizing as a monetization strategy. Only those with significant traction, a substantial user base, and a marketable brand can do this.

The prime example of this is Rovio, makers of Angry Birds, which has very successfully marketed its brand with its more than 200 licensing partners selling T-shirts, plush toys, phone cases, water bottles, pens, bed sheets, snacks, drinks, and a theme park in the works.

Merchandise sales made up about 30 percent of Rovio’s sales in 2011, and the company estimates physical goods made up 50 percent of its business in 2012.

6. Go Enterprise

Box is the most successful and classic example of this method of app monetization. Instead of charging consumers and competing head-to-head against Dropbox, cloud storage provider Box jumped the consumer ship and changed its monetization course to focus on the enterprise, where it saw a lucrative and untapped market.

Evernote is also following a similar route with the recent launch of Evernote Business.

7. Turn Advertising Into Entertainment

This is not ordinary advertising. No banner, interstitial, cross-promotion, or offer walls in the game. Outfit7 (creator of Talking Tomcat, which has 600 million installs) has mastered the art of turning advertising into entertainment. Here’s how:

DreamWorks approached Outfit7’s chief revenue office, Narry Singh, last year wanting to integrate DreamWorks’ film Madagascar into the Talking Tomcat experience. Singh knew his clients would not settle for a simple banner ad, so instead, he designed interactive, nine-second applets. A user could activate the Madagascar experience by beating Talking Tomcat five times. Once activated, a Madagascar dream cloud would appear and the game background would change completely.

“We want to integrate Madagascar as part of the game.” Singh said. “Your customers don’t buy your app, they buy your story.”

This strategy of turning advertising into entertainment scored Singh and the Outfit7 team a click-through rate higher than 9 percent.

If your app is not making money right now, don’t panic. Focus on building up your install and active user base then focus on monetization.

If you have users, money will come.(source:venturebeat)