Co-marketing as a way to monetize mobile applications

Of all the business models that are used for promotion and monetization, co-marketing, or a mutually beneficial partnership is the youngest. The lack of attention to the form of marketing activity, which involves combining efforts and obtaining mutual benefits, is due to several factors. And this is not only a lack of motivation and understanding of why this is needed, but also a long coordination of the details of working with partners, the reluctance to share a client base, upholding only their own interests and many, many others.

At the same time, co-marketing is much more promising and has a greater number of benefits and advantages as compared with other forms of promotion. Partnership with a company that has a similar target audience, as well as the ability to integrate their products into a partner application or create more valuable products by joint efforts, open up new, and most importantly - effective, ways to increase profits. The ability to benefit their customers also plays a key role, which increases loyalty, the number of recommendations and positive feedback. If you work with suitable partners and continuously feed cooperation with another brand, monetization can be accelerated several times.

Example # 1. Create a new product

As an example, when a more effective and valuable product was born in the alliance of two developers, a joint project of Localytics and Optimizely can be given.
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The Localytics platform allows you to use analytics for mobile applications in the mode, divide users into segments, analyze activity, find out where it came from and what it does. The American company Optimizely has a similar direction, but it specializes more in optimizing software for other companies, taking as a basis all the same user preferences.

As part of the joint work, the companies launched a product that, according to their statement, gave mobile marketers everything they need to successfully launch applications to the market. Integration of Localytics and Optimizely helps test customers and optimize their applications using a combination of powerful testing, analytics and other marketing opportunities.

According to Travis Bryant, vice president of sales and partnering for Optimizely, the company aims to provide its customers with the ability to integrate with best-in-class platforms. "We are delighted that Localytics join the Optimizely partner ecosystem to help our customers achieve better results on the Internet and on mobile devices."

Together, Localytics and Optimizely can provide customers with advanced testing capabilities, mobile analytics, targeting, and multi-channel marketing tools that help them make decisions based on available data. Customers can also use this integration to perform a complete funnel analysis based on Optimizely test results, and then use Localytics' marketing functions for target users. According to Brian Satoff, a strategic director of Localytics, Optimizely integration helps customers better understand what works and what does not, and select the best ways to involve users.

When one company is more specialized in obtaining and processing data, and the second is in creating tools, pooling existing resources opens the way to creating a more valuable and efficient product.

This form of cooperation can be used if:
· Your application has a decent functionality in order to become interesting to other developers;
· You are open to working with colleagues, ready to show flexibility and make concessions;
· Soberly assess your own resources and expected benefits

Example # 2. Promotion

As a variant of co-marketing interaction, such a partnership model can be used, in which users get rewards from the developer’s partners for performing certain actions. Such a format may imply a fee to the developer for the opportunity to become part of the application and enter the motivation system. The application can also earn by taking a share of the remuneration income that has been activated by the user.

For example, for the active use of the application in sports, the user may be awarded a discount at a sportswear store or free access to the fitness room. For timely entry of data into the pregnancy calendar, future mothers may receive a discount in the appropriate stores, etc. Thus, the functionality of the application increases, user loyalty increases, and with mutual advertising, you can count on attracting new users.

This advertising strategy is better perceived by users than traditional advertising, as it relates to the application selected by the user and meets the objectives of this application. In this case, all participants in the interaction receive their benefits. Developers increase revenue, advertisers get more ad space, and users get free promo.

The integration of the logo of the partner brand or the creation of an interactive element referring to a companion is a ready way to switch traffic to the partner application. When the necessary conditions are met, users can be given the opportunity to unlock exclusive rewards and incentives provided by partners. Using this strategy, the monetization of the application is painless for users, without annoying them with intrusive advertising banners.

This model can be useful if:
· You have an application that allows you to serve awards for activity in the application;
· You are against the use of intrusive advertising banners;
· Open to new and unusual;
· Not afraid to stimulate the downloading of third-party applications and not afraid to exchange user groups.

Example # 3. Expansion of functionality

Another option to gain additional profit is to expand the functionality of the mobile application. For example, in the weekly application, you can include the function of paying bills, calling a taxi, booking a restaurant table, movie tickets, etc. Having a popular diary, the developer can make a paid "input" for advertisers or take a percentage of the incoming client.

Who prevents fitness applications from adding to their functionality the ability to order products in health food stores? And to the application associated with cars, take the auto parts store partners, etc.?

DKKI, Japan’s largest telecommunications operator, is introducing something like this. He actively cooperates with many companies. Not so long ago, the insurance company LIFENET Insuarane became a partner. Integration implies a full integration of the platforms, which will allow users to choose life or property insurance services from the mobile operator’s application.

Joint marketing in the mobile has the broadest prospects in terms of combining the capabilities of producers and mobile developers. The inclusion of new features in the functionality is beneficial to both parties. But then another question arises - where to look for partners open to cooperation? English-speaking developers use the Hubspot platform.

For Russian marketers and developers, this functionality is provided by the AKO-M platform, which brings together more than 500 participants, including retailers, manufacturers, developers, large and small entrepreneurs. For participants such interaction is promising in terms of expanding the audience. First of all, it is interesting to companies producing goods and services. Interacting with a stronger brand will help pave the way further along the sales funnel.

Co-marketing as a business line is just starting to develop. But since millions of people use smartphones and tablets a hundred times a day, competent application marketing is a key task for any developer. Combining efforts allows you to achieve a number of advantages, among which the leading ones are the ability to reduce promotion costs and gain access to a new audience.