作者：Robin Thurston

你的应用已经成功获得大众认可。但现在更困难的挑战逼近了：你得将应用所收获的成果用于打造一个可靠的企业。

除了纯应用开发及软件服务，一个基于应用的成功企业还是需要许多易于被忽视但却极为重要的常规企业机能，例如客服、PR、营销、财务、运营等。

现在让我们将这些暂时搁置一旁，先来关注下打造出一款成功应用的开发商将面临的最大挑战：创造可用于壮大公司的持续收益。

以下是最常见的三种途径：

apps-full(from maclife.com)

1.付费应用

付费应用是当前应用商店创造收益所必不可少的元素。任何创造免费应用的开发商都应该考虑推出一个付费版应用（反之亦然），原因如下：

*市场上仍有不少用户更喜欢付费应用。他们会直接通过应用商店的付费应用栏目检索内容，并且比起一款相同的免费应用，他们更可能下载付费版本。

*付费应用可以由开发商直接进行有效的推广。例如向免费应用的用户发送E-mail，在免费应用中植入插页广告，从而推高付费应用在应用商店中的排名。通过使用这些方法，开发商可以从排名上升这一现象中最大化自然下载收益。

*应用商店一般会对付费应用另眼相待。应用商店编辑团队所推荐的产品多为付费应用。

*付费应用更易于执行限时削价推广策略，并且效果显著。

但采用付费模式也需要考虑以下要点：

*用户对应用终身价值的期望：即便仅售0.99美元，用户也会希望从中获得开发者给予应用的终身价值和支持。要仔细考虑你要提供哪些升级内容，以及如何向用户传递这些信息。付费应用是一次性收费产品，用户一般不想过后再次花钱解琐额外内容或新功能集合。

*较低售价点更易于在应用商店立足。如果你的产品含有高成本内容或昂贵的内容，就要想法将其分解成更小的部分以降低价格，保持收益与成本之间的平衡。

*免费应用下载量一般是带动付费应用升级内容下载量的最佳来源。因此要确保你能够有效获得免费用户，并将其转化为付费用户。可以结合其他营销策略最大化这一效能。

2.应用内置付费（IAP）

IAP是通过免费和付费应用创收的绝佳方式。另外，它们还可以用来有效收集最热门售价和功能集合等相关信息，开发者可以据此调整售价和产品描述信息。

一次性付费和订阅模式都可以通过IAP来实现，尽管在特定平台上，自动更新的订阅模式仅适用于特定类型的应用。

对于一次性付费的IAP，可以采用许多与付费应用相同的规则，但一般而言付费应用所采用的推广策略运用到IAP时效果并不理想（游戏邦注：因为将用户引向IAP支付流程的方式较为有限）。

对开发者来说，通过IAP实现的订阅模式是一种可持续，可再生的收益来源。通过创建及时的或基于使用的产品期限，开发商可以通过用户创造一桩长期循环的生意。

3.广告和赞助

移动广告领域所面临的挑战无需赘述，广告存量已超过实际需求，广告单元已高度商业化，而间接广告销售（广告网站）为开发者带来的好处仍然不甚理想，移动平台的eCPM（每千人广告有效成本）仍然没有起色。

但仍有一些开发商通过移动广告获得了巨大成功，它们通常采用以下三个关键元素组合而成的策略：

*独特而令人满意的用户

如果你的用户与一般智能手机用户相比，更为与众不同，那么他们可能更合适直接的广告或赞助形式。

*差异化和定向的本地广告“体验”

由于条幅广告的扩散，富有特色的广告体验为品牌广告商提供了独一无二的机遇，以及消费者更高的回应率。这包括富媒体广告（例如，音频/视频），但是定向的“经验性”定制广告单元可以为你的用户体验提供价值更高的粘性。有一个例子就是在应用中植入具有强烈的音频定向体验的音频广告。除此之外，完整的应用接管赞助也会为品牌广告商提供较高曝光度，并提供比传统条幅广告更令人难忘的体验。

*直接销售

拥有高效的广告销售团队（他们知道如何展示移动广告独特价值）的确是一个显著优势。但开发商很难打造这种团队，并且在真正执行这种方式之前，开发商还得先具备一定的团队规模。

开发者要想从创造应用迈入打造基于应用开发的公司，就不得不面对创造持续收益来源这一最大挑战。但开发者可以通过综合考虑以上所有选项以及应用商店动态，最大化自己的成功机率。（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）

How to make the leap from building apps to building a business

Robin Thurston

You’ve already beaten the odds — your app is successfully gaining adoption. But now a more difficult challenge looms: You need to parlay that app success into a viable business.

A successful apps-based business will demand many of the easy-to-overlook (but crucial) conventional business functions that go beyond pure app development and software maintenance such as customer service, PR and marketing, finance, operations, etc.

But let’s put those things aside for a moment and focus in on the biggest single challenge facing the developer of a successful app: Generating a sustainable revenue base from which to grow a business.

Here are three ways to do that:

#1 – Paid apps

Paid apps are an indispensable component to any revenue-generating efforts in the current app store environments.  Any developer offering a free app should strongly consider offering a paid version as well (and vice versa), even if alternate revenue generation strategies are in play.

There are a few reasons for this:

■There is a large class of consumers who simply prefer paid apps. They directly seek paid apps via the app store categories and will download a paid app over an identical free one.

■Paid apps can easily and effectively be directly promoted by the developer.  E-mail blasts to the free app user base, and interstitial notices within free apps can be a highly effective way to
boost revenues and better, boost paid apps high in the rankings of the app stores. By utilizing these tools in bursts. developers can maximize organic revenue lift from the rankings jump as well.

■App stores treat paid apps differently.  There are times when the app store editorial teams are looking for a paid app to promote (over a free one).

■Temporary price drop promotions are easy to execute, and very effective.

Important points to consider with paid apps:

■Consumer expectation of lifetime support: Even at a $.99 price point, consumers have come to expect a lifetime of value and support from an app developer.  Carefully consider what upgrades you are offering and how these are messaged to the consumer.  Paid apps are a one-time charge only, and consumers rarely expect to have to pay more to unlock additional value from a paid app or have a feature set change down the road.

■App store dynamics favor lower price points.  If you have high-cost content or expensive features, figure out how to break them up into bite-sized chunks to keep prices low and revenues aligned with costs.

■Free app downloads tend to be the best source of leads for paid app upgrades.  Make sure you can reach your free app users effectively and convert them to the paid app.  Do so in strategic bursts with other marketing initiatives for maximum efficacy.

#2 – In-App purchase

In-app purchases can be a great way to generate revenues from both free and paid apps.  Moreover, they can be used to effectively gather information on price and feature combinations that will sell most effectively, since product pricing and descriptive information can be modified on the fly if implemented properly.

Both one-time and subscription models can be realized via in-app purchase — although on certain platforms, auto-renewing subscriptions are only approved for use by certain types of applications.

For one-time in-app purchases, many of the same guidelines apply as with paid apps, although typically the promotional tactics that are used for paid apps are less effective when applied to in-app purchase (due to the limited number of ways to drive users to in-app purchase checkout flows).

Subscription models via In-App purchase represent a sustainable, renewable revenue stream for developers.  By building in time or usage-based product expiration, developers can build repeat business from customers over a longer time period.

This model requires intensive focus on repeat usage and conversion — without auto-renewal, the customer has to re-purchase the service at regular intervals, and achieving solid renewal rates can be difficult for even the most popular apps.

#3 – Advertising and sponsorships

Much has been written about the challenging state of mobile advertising. Inventory is outpacing demand, ad units are highly commoditized, and the upside for developers via indirect ad sales (ad networks) remains bleak as mobile eCPMs (effective cost per thousand impressions) have remained flat.

There are, however, some developers experiencing great success with mobile advertising, who tend to employ a combination of three key ingredients:

■A unique and desirable audience

If your app users are distinctive in some way versus typical smartphone users, they become more desirable for direct advertising or sponsorships.

■Differentiated and targeted native ad “experiences”

Due to the proliferation of banner advertising, distinctive ad experiences offer unique opportunities for brands and agencies, coupled with much higher response rates from consumers.  These can include rich media ads (i.e. audio/video), however, targeted “experiential” customized ad units that are unique to your app’s user experience offer a high value engagement vehicle not available elsewhere.  One great example is audio ads for apps with a strong audio oriented experience.  Additionally, full app takeover sponsorships provide brands a high degree of exposure and offer a more memorable experience than traditional banner campaigns.

■Direct sales

A high performance direct ad sales team that knows how to demonstrate the unique value of mobile advertising can be a major benefit. This is difficult to build, however, and requires a certain
scale before it’s even feasible.

Generating a sustainable revenue stream is by far the biggest challenge when trying to make the leap from building apps to building a business based on them. Through a savvy and thorough consideration of all the options and app store dynamics, developers can maximize their chances for success.（source：venturebeat）