How Your Monetization Strategy Reflects Back on Your Brand

Businesses need to make money. That’s not a fact that’s likely to surprise anyone, but the way that a business goes about making that money will have an impact on audience perception.

‘Profits above all else’ seems like the natural approach – even just common sense – but it’s an attitude that can make audiences feel as though your brand is distant and uncaring. It can make you lose favor, which is something that can affect your profits over time. Therefore, you need to develop a mindset that benefits your money-making capabilities and your long-term success.

Alternative Options

While you still need to make a certain amount of money in order for you to profit, customers might respond well to your understanding of their variable financial situations. This might be something that you do through financing options, allowing customers to pay for your service in installments rather than all at once. Or it could be that you offer a low-cost version of your product that doesn’t offer the full extent of services but provides customer choice nonetheless.

Not only can this have the positive impact of having audiences perceive your brand more positively, but it can also help to introduce a wider audience to your brand. If people from various economic backgrounds are able to purchase your products and services, you only stand to gain from the resulting expansion in your brand awareness.

Monetization Strategies

Even when it comes to particular elements of your business that you might think to monetize, such as APIs, you have a lot of flexibility in how you go about that. However, it’s worth considering each approach’s message, especially depending on how prominent these API gateways are within your wider digital strategy.

If your API monetization strategy involves your customers paying per usage, for instance, that’s naturally going to discourage some people. It’s something that can offer a lot of success in the right contexts, but outside of those contexts, it might be worth looking elsewhere.

‘Elsewhere’ in this case might be something like the freemium model (something that you might be familiar with through its usage in areas like mobile gaming), removing the barrier for entry but requiring payment for access to the more in-depth features of the API.

An Opportunity for Goodwill

As mentioned previously, when pushing your new services or products, you’re always going to be conscious of the fact that you have to support your own business financially. Giving away goods for free or even for less than you need to make a profit doesn’t make any sense, but when it comes to older goods or areas where you can provide an additional service, there’s room to attract some goodwill. Showing customers that you’re capable of being open-handed in such a way sends a strong message, and it works as an incentive to bring people on board and try out the services that are low cost. This might even be something that you apply in a more direct marketing way – as seen through the promotional offer campaign.