What are some good ways for map or lbs apps to make money?

2 pointsrmin2 comments

I am working on a map app with large user base and trying to connecting people with local services on map. I was wondering if there are any good ways of making money other than straight banner ads.

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If they are local services that still sell online, you can charge mimal amounts for sending traffic to their website and even more if they end up purchasing something. If the business is not online selling, you can still charge them so the they entry is promoted on the map (perhaps visible in bold). You could add a premium tier for business accounts to give them insight as to what sort of traffic lead (potential) customers their way: what were they searching for, any extra info you have about the user, you can also traffic statistics data, and suggest way to improve results and visibility. You can bundle up your services with traditional marketing such as business cards and leaflets and sell the whole things as a package etc etc Many ways to do it, but you definitely need scale as ARPU will be minimal.

How about charging money for your product? You could either charge the providers of the services or the customers.

If you're looking for other models, I wrote descriptions of a baker's dozen of them here: http://taprun.com/revenue

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