Health is a primary concern for every person, and they want a quick response in a health emergency. However, the growing population, rise of chronic diseases, and shortage of medical staff make it difficult for people to get necessary treatments. But this vacancy in healthcare creates a vast opportunity for the telehealth market.
According to a recent report, the telemedicine market is expected to grow to $396.76 billion by 2027 globally with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 25.8%.
This massive growth results from increasing health awareness, advancement of communication, and government support.
If you are considering taking this opportunity to boom your business, you need to develop your telemedicine app. But for that, you must hire experienced mobile app development service providers like Esolz to create a seamless and user-friendly application.
If you are wondering how to monetize your telemedicine or telehealth app, keep reading this blog.
Effective Monetization Strategies For Telemedicine App
Before integrating any telemedicine monetization strategy, you must learn about the existing ones. This will help you to choose the best according to your capability and requirements. Some effective telemedicine monetization strategies are written below.
Premium Applications
This business strategy involves charging users to download apps and is the best choice for specialized apps with a specific target market. Set the download price after opening a merchant account in the Google Play or App Store. However, this type of strategy can constrain your software’s monetization possibilities.
Promotion of Certified Content
This method of revenue generation can be used for apps that offer peer-to-peer services and that, instead of selling features, sell certified material essential to healthcare professionals’ practices. A predetermined amount of free content is presented to doctors in telehealth apps. However, practitioners must register and pay a recurring sum as a subscription to access an extensive, regularly updated range.
Freemium Applications
This category combines free and paid apps, providing two different versions of the same program. The free version often gives users access to the fundamental functionality, whereas the premium or paid version offers extras like advanced features.
The major objective of this strategy is to get users to download the app for free to assess its usability. After the app successfully captures users’ attention and meets their demands, the free users will probably convert to paying subscribers to access more advanced features. This allows users to learn more about the services they are paying for. Also, user-friendly feedback makes your software more valuable.
In-app Purchase Options
This is one of the best strategies for generating income from free apps. Refilling medications, purchasing supplements, scheduling pre-paid medical appointments, and other services are available through in-app purchases in telehealth apps.
As a result, this strategy is advantageous for app owners and users. However, remember that your software must work even if consumers decide against making extra transactions.
Gamification
The inclusion of games improves the user-friendliness of a telemedicine app. This is the case because the games are amusingly constructed in accordance with the core concept of the app, and users who play them have to complete levels based on the narrative written by the creators of the telemedicine app.
The services provided by gaming range from providing fitness status after weeks of taking medication or exercising to providing reminders about daily workouts, drugs, and medical visits. In addition, several creative tactics can be used, such as discounts, free gifts, or professional counsel. Users can establish objectives for their health or fitness and measure their progress by using gamification in a telemedicine app development solution, which raises user engagement.
Sponsorship
Including sponsorship in your application is the focus of this tactic. The sponsors’ logo may be incorporated into the application as a pop-up, an icon on the splash screen, or a footer. It can even entail boosting the sponsors’ articles or extending special discounts.
Owners of telemedicine apps can enlist powerful sponsors from the healthcare industry to set up a barter system in which they provide goods, services, discounts, etc., depending on the business domain. This strategy is quite successful in the medical industry since it sparks users’ interest in the healthcare app and allows app owners to gather essential and priceless data.
Fees for Subscription and Registration
Healthcare apps that effectively link patients and doctors may charge a registration fee from healthcare professionals who use the app to fill their open schedules. Also, you can create a subscription monetization strategy that allows users to choose the subscription plan that best suits their needs and pay a set fee each month, year, or quarter in exchange for using the service.
Localized Advertisements
Telemedicine apps’ user experience (UX) may be seriously affected if the adverts are not pertinent to user interests. Some mobile advertising partners use beacons, GPS, and Wi-Fi to localize advertising and enable real-time customer targeting.
The apps can instantly connect with users thanks to these advertisements. Users close to a pharmacy store equipped with a beacon, for instance, might receive a notification on their smartphone device alerting them to the availability of a drug coupon or other similar healthcare-related information.
Users should be free to select the brands they want to receive notifications. In addition to increasing user interaction with advertisements, this will raise the value of the advertising spaces and draw in additional brand partners.
Data Accumulation
These days, big data and AI are hot topics. All patient health-related data is considered big data in the healthcare sector. It is an excellent resource for many pharmaceutical companies, medical businesses, fitness clubs, insurance companies, etc., to run their operations successfully. Also, the proprietors of healthcare apps make money by offering this data to interested parties.
For instance, an app monitoring the lifestyle of patients who underwent gastric bypass surgery after being obese earlier may sell the gathered information to pharmaceutical/insurance firms or fitness professionals. Additionally, this information provides crucial statistics for use in medical journals, papers, and publications, as well as for gauging the development of the medical sector.
Free Gifts
Users seldom miss the phrase “Free services/products”; however, most are likely to ignore sophisticated or expensive items. Free services are a clever strategy to attract new users and encourage current users to use the app more frequently. They consist of the following:
- Providing daily visitors with free weight/calorie calculators
- Gratis consultation, counsel, and pointers for reducing the possibility of contracting certain ailments
- Offering daily customers who faithfully follow their fitness/healthcare regimen a free package of customized medications for a week.
Exclusive Monetization Models For telemedicine Application
The best monetization strategy for a mobile healthcare app must be chosen after carefully examining your company’s goals and the demands of your users. Before beginning development, you must also decide on your app’s monetisation strategy because it will significantly influence the app’s architecture.
In-app Advertising
This approach offers a quick and straightforward way to monetize your healthcare software, making it reasonably simple to adopt. Nonetheless, the advertisements must be pertinent and not detract from the user experience. Using Beacon, RFID, or NFC, you might collaborate with local mobile advertising service providers to produce ads that market to customers in their neighbourhood.
It is possible to purchase in-app advertising on a pay-per-click or pay-per-view basis. Some ad networks employ video adverts and compensate app owners based on how many videos are viewed by app users.
Freemium Model
One of the most popular models across all application categories is this one. Fundamental aspects of the program are accessible but more sophisticated, and premium features must be purchased. Normally, fees are calculated on a monthly or annual basis.
Another typical approach is offering users a range of “feature packages” to select from, from the least expensive to the most expensive. All users are given a free trial to give users a taste of what they will be paying for.
Content Monetization
Access to pre-screened and certified content is very important in the healthcare industry. Despite the abundance of information on the Internet, it must be current and supported by science.
One of the effective monetization strategies for healthcare apps is charging a fee to access such content. Access to reliable information on various healthcare topics may interest patients and professionals.
Data Monetization
With this business model, app developers can market their collected data. But, US and EU law strictly forbids selling or otherwise disclosing users’ private information. You are still allowed to sell data that does not in any way identify your users but yet enables you to forecast trends and derive crucial insights.
For instance, you can follow a patient’s use of a specific prescription to learn how effective it is and sell this information to interested parties.
In-app Purchases
Although this model is one of the most profitable in the healthcare industry, it is also challenging to adopt. Your app should provide clients with relevant goods and services and include marketplace elements for optimum results.
For instance, in an app environment, users can schedule and pay for doctor visits, purchase medications or nutritional supplements, or sign up for exercise regimens. Fees for each purchase are how you make money.
Partnerships and Promotions
To implement this approach, you must cooperate with other companies eager to market their products through your app.
For instance, you might work with a local pharmacy or medical facility, independent health and wellness professionals, exercise or medical equipment makers, etc., to your mutual advantage. Customers will benefit from your partnership since they can access more health and wellness goods and services.
Subscription Model
Customers can use your app on a paid subscription basis using this tried-and-true monetization strategy. A telemedicine app, for instance, may collect a monthly fee from medical professionals who wish to be featured in the app. The costs may only apply to a particular user group.
You might also choose a subscription model if your app delivers services in great demand or has original content. For instance, you could use a subscription model if your software caters to users with uncommon and special medical issues.
Sponsorship
Because sponsorship is essentially an exclusive partnership, this model is similar to the previous one. Your app will exclusively feature your sponsor’s banners and adverts, provide them with discounts, and promote their services.
For instance, your app might only advertise one specific hospital and display its name on every screen. Sponsor advertising typically includes more static content than conventional ads.
Summing Up
The demand for telemedicine is increasing daily. If you want to use this opportunity to your benefit, you must strategize your monetization accordingly. However, The first thing you need to do is develop a user-friendly application for better service. You need to hire the best mobile app development service provider like Esolz Technologies for that. When ready with your telemedicine application, you can choose any monetization model and create a strategy.