Promotion of applications. Application monetization. Application target audience. Methodology. Empirical part. Collection of secondary data

2.2.3. Promotion of applications

 

In order for the interactions of the C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer) and B2C (Business-to-Consumer) formats to be effective, in addition to developing the software product itself, it is important to correctly plan and implement the launch and promotion of the product on the market. To do this, it is important to have an understanding of the functioning of the mobile application market.

Analysis of the subject area showed that the market is fragmented and divided among many participants. The general scheme of the relationship between them is as follows: the "Developer" creates and releases a mobile application, and the "User" acquires it using the "Distribution platform". "State", "IT-markets" and "Competitors" establish certain frameworks and conditions for the functioning of the relationships described above [Malachovskaya and Shishanina, 2015].

Particular importance in these relationships in practice is given to the "Distribution platform", within which the needs of the user and the developer are directly satisfied, i.e. distribution (sale) and acquisition (purchase) of the product.

First of all, a “Platform” means a set of on-line stores of mobile applications that allow them to be placed, sold, organized search, categorization, storage of reviews and ratings. The main players in this market (among hundreds of others) are two large stores: AppStore and Google Play, distributing applications for devices running on iOS and Android operating systems, respectively. The operation of such stores is based on a single business model.

This model assumes a user (acquiring an application based on the conditions put forward, including price), a developer (who gets 70% of the amount paid by the user) and an intermediary company providing its platform for distribution (for example, Google Play), whose income is 30% from the purchase amount. Important for the study is the provision that the distribution of mobile applications in online stores most often involves the use of one of four basic business models [Habr, 2015]:

· free;

· commercial;

· freemium;

· free-to-play.

These and some other models will be described in more detail below. Each mobile application distribution model has its own advantages and disadvantages, preference should be based on an analysis (the capabilities of mobile applications and the characteristics of its target audience). However, in order for the user to purchase the developed product, especially when it comes to B2C or C2C interactions, the developer needs to take measures to promote the mobile application. It is noted that it is impossible, by applying the whole range of existing promotion methods in a row, to achieve high efficiency and effectiveness in this activity. This is due to a number of reasons [Malachovskaya, 2013]:

· different goals for creating mobile applications;

· different models of application commercialization;

· different promotion goals;

· different resources for promotion;

· different target audience of applications, etc.

It is extremely important in the first time after the launch of the application on the market to provide it with a high place in the ranking. In this case, the developer immediately receives a huge number of downloads and, accordingly, a large profit.

Mobile app promotion should be based on the following algorithm [Shvyndikova and Yasheva, 2013].

Preparatory stage:

1) Analysis of competitors. Even at the stage of application development, it is necessary to fully study possible competitors. It is necessary to find out the advantages, disadvantages, presence and absence of any functions. At the same time, competing applications are compared with the developed application. In the event that a critical flaw is found, it can still be corrected.

2) Choice of promotion channels. For the iOS and Android markets, there are certain markets where you should place your apps. In addition to official platforms (AppStore and Google Play), there are also third-party ones. It is necessary to choose through which stores the products will be promoted.

3) Selection of keywords, logo, creation of screenshots. An extremely important moment in the promotion of mobile applications. When making a purchase decision, the consumer, first of all, looks at the appearance of the product. Keywords, on the other hand, help to find the application among the whole variety of products, so their choice must be made especially carefully.

4) Drawing banners, writing ads for contextual advertising. In the event that the developer is ready to spend enough money to promote his application, you should pay attention to online advertising: banner and contextual. To do this, you need to draw a stylish, attention-grabbing banner, and also correctly compose ads, not forgetting about targeting and keywords.

5) Writing releases and blog articles. All this will help inform consumers about the release of a new application.

6) Creation of accounts in social networks (SMM). Twitter, Facebook, vk.com - all these and other sites will help to promote mobile product.

When carrying out the preparatory phase, which should begin already at the product development stage, the following must be taken into account:

· it is necessary to choose the right target audience;

· it is necessary to take into account the behavior of the target audience;

· we must not forget about the positioning of the product on the market.

Bringing the product to market:

When bringing a product to the market, it is necessary to create a “data-boom”. To do this, it is necessary to launch all communication channels as soon as possible, the material for which was prepared at the preparatory stage: social networks, blogs, releases on portals, advertising, etc. In this case, the consumer will be as aware as possible, the application will immediately receive a large number of downloads and quickly reach the goal: get into the top ranking. The “data-boom” lasts within 2 - 3 weeks, but no more, otherwise the time will be lost.

After the product is launched on the market, it is necessary to work with feedback and do analytics. Working with feedback means reading reviews on markets and social networks, responding to these reviews, improving the product. It is necessary to analyze jumps, transitions to the site, etc.

An important point is working with virality. Virality is a concept that means consumer involvement. A potential client needs to be "carried along." Subscribers to social networks and blogs should be willing to share the information posted there. In this case, even more customers will be obtained, as well as the life cycle of the product will be extended. It is advisable to use the technologies of "viral marketing" - an extremely important tool for a marketer. In order to stimulate sales and encourage consumers, subscribers of pages on social networks, it is advisable to use various bonuses.

 

2.2.4. Application monetization

 

Successful promotion allows you to attract a part of the active user audience, directing its interest to this application. However, the question of monetization of the mobile application (making a profit) inevitably arises. In fact, monetization is the “converter” that allows you to convert the interest of users into real money income for the developer (publisher).

In addition, mobile app monetization can mean indirectly generating value by improving your own digital products based on data (so-called “implicit monetization”) [Wao, 2020].

There are two main types of mobile applications depending on the source of income: in the first type, most of the income comes from advertising; and in the second, from the paid version of the application [Appel et al, 2020].

Within the two types of mobile applications, there are three main forms of application monetization: using in-app purchases (IAP); advertising within the application (In-app ads - IAA); paid apps or subscriptions [Klotzbach, 2016].

Within these forms, the following types of monetization or business models exist [Panov, 2014]:

1) Premium. Traditional monetization model - the user buys the application before downloading, gaining access to all functions. Typically, the cost of a mobile application varies from $0.5 to $10 (or the equivalent in another currency). This model is most suitable for fairly large projects from well-known developers (for which users are immediately ready to pay money without prior testing). It should be noted that at present the number of applications sold under this scheme is steadily declining.

2) Freemium. The essence of the model is that the user can download and install a demo (free) version of the application for free. For such a free version, a number of restrictions are set, for example, by the number of game levels, functionality, usage time, etc. If the user is interested in the application, then he can buy a fully functional version (premium), paying a certain amount and removing all restrictions. An increasing number of mobile applications are moving to this monetization model.

3) Free-to-play. Model of monetization of gaming mobile applications. Does not require mandatory monetary contributions for the use of the game. However, there are numerous in-game purchases that allow you to get certain benefits in the game (for example, the purchase of additional weapons, experience points, the introduction of a virtual in-game currency, etc.). Thus, this model is a way to attract players who do not want to spend their time playing the game, and who want to get game advantages in a faster way. Often used by Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) publishers.

4) Internal advertising. The model provides free download and installation of the application. But during the operation of such an application, mandatory advertising banners are displayed to the user. In this case, the developers receive income from the mobile advertising network (for clicks, i.e. users who are interested and click on the banner to go to the advertiser's page). Often, for a fee, it is possible to disable annoying ads (purchase a premium version). The monetization model that is gaining popularity is well suited for projects with a fairly large user audience.

In addition, a number of developers and publishers use combined monetization models for their mobile applications (sometimes combining all four models).

In general, a clear trend towards a reduction in the use of the traditional premium app monetization model should be noted (especially in the most profitable segment of mobile games). In the face of fierce competition from mobile application providers, users are in no hurry to immediately pay a certain amount of money for the opportunity to launch an application they do not know (with the exception of well-known projects from well-known manufacturers). Many prefer to try out the app (by downloading and installing the free version) and then make a purchase decision.

In this regard, most mobile applications become free or shareware (nothing needs to be paid for their installation and launch, subject to certain restrictions). An increasing number of developers and publishers are betting on monetization through internal advertising (as an additional or even main source of income). In the mobile gaming segment, an increasing portion of revenue comes from in-game sales.

The use of various monetization methods in mobile applications for learning languages ​​will also be discussed in the Empirical part.

 

2.2.5. Application target audience

 

Regarding the theory, it remains to analyze one more important aspect that characterizes mobile applications - this is their target audience. If the target audience is not correctly defined at an early stage of application development, then the whole process is likely to go down a curve in the wrong direction.

The target audience of mobile applications is potentially the entire audience that has mobile phones (smartphones). Mobile applications steadily occupy their market share and are used not only in the entertainment industry, but also to promote business interests, conduct advertising campaigns and promotions, or, in our case, for educational purposes.

This is because users can find an application in the AppStore or Play Market, and become directly the audience of this application. After all, each person finds a demand for diverse mobile applications and services related to ease of use, and if they do not suit, then he or she starts looking for something that will meet needs [Antonova, 2016].

For the most accurate definition of the target audience, it is necessary to identify the target core - the most interested users. At the same time, it is worth considering such external factors as [Gileva, 2018]:

· age and positioning of the publishing company itself;

· place of the publishing company in the market;

· physical support (result of use) of the mobile application;

· the main goals of the publishing company, implemented using the supplied mobile application, and so on.

Thus, it is necessary to answer the question “Who will be most affected by the mobile application?”, also focusing on information about the mobile market, its users and competitors. In order for an app’s marketing strategy to be clearly targeted to the most relevant users, it is necessary to study their mobile behavior in detail [Rulkov, 2018].

The size of the target group is determined by such a characteristic as the generality of the application [Zamfiroiu and Shipilov, 2011]. Thus, based on the categories to which the application belongs, the size of the target group can be set. The more universal the application, the greater the possible number of users, and hence the larger the target group.

However, it is obvious that there is no such application that will suit everyone at once or some indefinite circle of people. One way that takes into account the needs of customers when developing an application is the “person method” [Cooper, 1998].

The creator of this method, software design pioneer and programmer Alan Cooper, has always strived to ensure that the output is easy to use product.

At that time, when creating software, first of all, they thought about technical efficiency. Alan realized that in order to get quality soft you need to break this pattern and start taking into account the needs of users.

It so happened that at first he asked potential users what they want, and then he started designing. As a result, after endless interviews and tons of collected information, he divided users into groups with similar values, that is, he created generalized "personas".

It became clear what functions users need, why they want them, in what form they should be presented, and the difficulties they may encounter. It is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of decisions in relation to each "person" and then it will be clear which of them is closest to the target audience of this application.

Creating "personas" is a very time-consuming process. It is necessary to collect data from real people, and not invent it yourself. Here, both interviewing potential users and analyzing existing data are possible.

Playtest - testing a product by real users similar to the intended target audience with feedback. It allows to adequately look at the product from the consumer's point of view and correct the shortcomings at the initial stage of development. Another advantage of "persons" is the understanding of who needs to be involved for playtesting.

To create a "persona", you can consider the following parameters:

· demographic data;

· lifestyle;

· interests;

· experienced influence;

· personal goals;

· emotions;

· behavior;

· what he or she wants to get from the application.

As with other mobile applications, this method can also be used for language applications. With its help, you can make effective decisions aimed at expanding and retaining the target audience.

This completes the Theoretical part, then we will consider the Methodology for conducting and directly conducting an analysis on the issue of the advantages and disadvantages of mobile applications for learning languages ​​in the Empirical part.

 

 

3. Methodology

 

As it was discussed in the Theoretical part, in order to analyze the opinions of consumers, I firstly need to collect secondary data, and then conduct a descriptive study, that is, a survey. Internet access is enough to search for secondary data, and its sources are presented below. In this part of my paper, I will describe the survey I compiled, the full text of which can be found in Appendix 1.

The survey was conducted in order to find confirmation of the secondary data already collected or to refute it at some points. More precisely, it was necessary to reveal the secret of the success of applications for learning a foreign language - to learn about the attractive and repulsive characteristics of applications, including understanding the mechanism for promoting such applications.

The target audience of the survey was not limited, because, firstly, I was interested in the percentage of the population who use such applications or did it before, and secondly, specific statistics among different sex, age and other user groups.

To complete the survey, the respondent had to use a Google form, the link to which he or she received in one way or another through various social networks.

This platform (Google forms) allows to collect both quantitative data (statistics) and the qualitative opinion of individual users in open questions. In almost every question, I provided the opportunity for a free answer.

The survey was limited to a small number of questions in order to involve as many respondents as possible in its passage: everyone values ​​their time and is not ready to spend a few extra minutes on the survey. Some points had to be thought out on the basis of the data received, so as not to overload the survey with unnecessary information.

The structure and consistency of the questions was observed. Those who did not use language-learning apps (which was the first to find out) went straight to questions about sample information, which were recommended to be placed at the end of the survey.

This information separates the sample by sex, age and type of employment: student or employed. The representativeness of the sample was assessed and expectations were formulated based on the information already collected.

Those who identified themselves as users of such applications had to answer additional questions regarding the pros and cons of using such a service, the language being studied, and the way in which they learned about such an application. These questions form the core with which the model of the “ideal application” will be formed: it will be based, among other things, on the answers of users in the survey I conducted.

In addition, all respondents were asked which of the listed applications they had heard of.

All results will be discussed in detail in the Empirical part, and inconsistencies with secondary information will be further discussed in the Discussion part.

I note that the survey was voluntary, anonymous and confidential, in accordance with the requirements for conducting such research.

 

4. Empirical part

 

 

Following the guidelines outlined above, I begin my analysis of mobile language learning apps by collecting secondary information. The sources of this information will be statistical portals, expert opinions, company reports and information from their official websites, as well as scientific articles.