Today we’ll tell you about the ways that help to “launch” the right user reaction on your mobile application. They are called triggers. What are they meant for and how to use them in order to increase income?
Almost any person has the following qualities to some extent: laziness, vanity, greediness, and curiosity. Numerous triggers are meant especially for them. Their main goal is to increase income, extend the number of users, and get re-posts in social networks. I.e. triggers are peculiar psychological tricks for users.

Time trigger

The main goal of the trigger is to urge a user to make in-app purchases. It works due to the fear of being late. “Hurry up and buy 100 crystals at the price of 80 till the end of the day” or “Make an order till the end of the week and get 100 bonus points”. Such appeals force users to make purchases, sometimes even the ones they don’t really need. In order to enhance an action trigger, you can place a countdown there.
Users should be shown a very beneficial offer which is limited in time.

Up-sell

It means additional sales. Its goal is to convince non-paying users to make purchases and get additional income from paying ones. It’s a classic scheme “3 at the price of 2”. It works on the principle of benefit for a client or just greediness. For, example, offer users to buy a set of weapons and armor and give them some useful bonus as a gift. You’ll get an increase in sales and additional income as a result.
Such a trigger is used by the App Store since recently. Users are offered sets of apps with a discount. Besides increased income, this trigger allows to sell unpopular IAP if needed.

Discounts and beneficial offers

Their main goal is to attract clients who want benefits and discounts. The main power of the trigger is greediness. As a result, doubting users start to pay. You double your income and the clients are happy that they got discounts and saved some money. A crossed old price and a lower new one urge users to make purchases more actively, sometimes the ones they don’t need at all.
Such a trigger is good for almost any goals: inner game currency, real goods, and service in corresponding apps.
Discount tags draw shopaholics in offline shops: the same thing happens in apps.

Competition

The aim of the trigger is to increase user activity in an app or/and additional expenses on IAP. It’s based on users’ vanity. You can encounter such a mechanics in the majority of games — best gamer rating. Trying to get to the first part of the list, some users spend hours in apps and spend huge money on in-app purchases. For the sake of fame. This trigger will also do for some non-game products.

Informal address

The main goal is to make users more loyal. Appeal to emotions, for example, try to evoke affection. If possible, try not to use dry phrases, engage live language. Gain a user and you will get everything else: social activity, frequent visits, transactions. Everything depends on what trigger do you use. That’s how developers formed a login request in Candy Crash: “I don’t impose myself on you but if you tell me your name, we’ll be able to play.”
You can use the same principle in other addresses to users: “The purchase is canceled. We’re killed by grief. Maggy is crying. Congrats! You’ve made her cry!”

Triggers in design

There can be any aim you choose — from an invitation to a multiplayer to making in-app purchases. The mechanics are based on attraction of attention. Beautiful and unusual details always catch your eye. As a result, you’ll get more clicks on the necessary elements.
You can use various approaches in the interface: from bright buttons and arrows to complex animation. Such details focus attention on key elements: for example, transaction or social buttons.

Subscription instead of one-time purchases

How to make people spend large sums of money instead of one-time small purchases? Offer them a subscription. Many people are lazy. And this quality helps this trigger to work. As a result, you get big transactions at once instead of a pile of minor ones.
A vivid example is educational apps. Having completed 1,2 or 3 lessons, many users lose interest and quit it. Deep inside they may blame themselves for that. That’s why you should give them a possibility to motivate themselves, add a possibility to buy a subscription for half a year and a year. Even if users quit their courses, you’ll still get income. The model works successfully in the offline world as well, for example, with season tickets to fitness clubs.

Bargaining

If a user doesn’t want to pay categorically (statistically majority of them), just offer them to make some actions instead of a transaction. A craving for something free works here. You expand app functionality or give additional possibilities and users do anything you want: fill out the profile, start to communicate with others actively, give you access to their contact list, make re-posts in social networks, etc. Such mechanics is used in dating services.

Triggers can be used separately or together. For example, up-sell can be combined with time limitations. If you use them wisely, you can not only increase your income from the product and keep users in the app but also achieve many other goals.

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