Source: Business Recorder
Facebook has reached 2 billion users. Instagram is around 700 million. Whatsapp and FB messenger is around 1.2 billion users. Meaning people are hooked to their phones. Their attention is not on the billboards or the TV commercials. They are solely focused on finding content that matches their interests and is relevant to them. They now like the idea of blocking intrusive content and un-following posts that don’t suit their purpose. In this era, reaching out to relevant customers and meeting their demands and requirements are of paramount importance. This situation might sound a bit scary for the advertisers and especially for the bigger ones. But for small business operators or entrepreneurs, this presents a massive opportunity.
The Internet is truly democratizing the process of advertisement where end users now have the right to like, share or dislike, block the irrelevant content. People based upon their location, occasions or any event are searching for relevant content. So anyone who ends up finding their attention stands to make the most of the money. Which means, if your app is addressing an issue to a pain point OR is providing the most relevant info for that particular moment, then you are bound to make money.
For any app maker, who is able to get traction from the end users, stands to monetize their attention. Moneymaking can come in many forms. It could be a better version OR exclusive content through a freemium model. OR it could be through Advertisement. You need to make sure that loyal customer base trusts your injection of content and are ok with the ad intrusion – ads matching their interests.
You need to make sure that the content is relevant and is of quality. This process of building the community around your product and keeping them engaged is an art and its something all the successful entrepreneur has mastered. Once this engagement process is cracked, scaling revenues become super easy.
Let me give you few examples and ideas where you can monetize.
In your community, there are people with certain pain point and there are suppliers who can resolve that. Why not become a marketplace and facilitate both parties. Find suppliers, the work, and find the user, the well-qualified vendors. Monetization is easy, once you have app downloads and your app is being actively used by both of the segments, you can charge suppliers, you can put ads, you can take a commission of the transactions. The options are many. But all is contingent upon getting your work up and running.
Take the case of games. If you come up with a game idea and get the basic one made (MVP). If it’s good and gets some downloads and people like it. Then based on the daily active users you can monetize your entire customer base. The essential for this is a good idea, downloads, and an active playing community. Getting the game out might sound a bit daunting task. But it doesn’t have to be. Read about the MVP process and you can also talk to us about getting the basic version of the game or app out to the market.
How about content? Consider a situation where a community around has a pain point and it needs addressing or attention. You need certain customers to be engaged and talking about that issue. This situation and the voices of other people might be of interest for all of them. What’s the best way to engage and capture such view, feedbacks? So, if come up with a solution that resolves the issue then you have a fairly engaged customer base. If you want to make money through that mechanism just enable the advertisement that matches the content of the chat. There are tools that can do this for you. So, keep your users engaged and provide them with real value. If done right, your platform will soon be making money for you. A decade or two back, it was almost impossible to monetize such interactions.
Or maybe you are interested in getting your e-commerce store up and running. Now, first the first time in history, you can get your store up in few minutes and with basic skills of using a computer and playing with free tools, you can have your first order in a matter of hours. Gone are the days, where you have to find the retail and wholesale players to get your product out. Now, it’s a matter of few clicks and you are up and running with a new e-store.
So, focus on capturing the attention. People are shifting to consuming media on the go and also in smaller chunks. They are looking for solutions that are a click away. Possibilities are limitless, people would want to stay updated and connected. All that is happening through their small screens in their hands.