According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, the global Online Video Platform (OVP) market is set to double by the end of this year. On paper, an OVP is a fee-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) online content solution that enables content owners to ingest, transcode, store, manage, protect, publish, syndicate, track and monetize online video. In reality, it is much more. It had to be, right? The OVP market is set to reach $800 million very soon, so what’s the trick?
You’ve seen the advertisements, you’ve deleted the newsletters and you might have gotten the chance to look at the demos, but what does it all mean? Online Video Platforms exist in various different formats and with many different purposes, chances are none of them fit the criteria for the business you’re running. What if the problem isn’t the platform itself, but the way you are looking at your business? Are expectations and competitors clouding your judgment when, instead of looking at what your offering and the audience you’re offering to, you’re looking at businesses that have very little in common with your own?
The first step seems obvious, you need to look around and know the content your offering, once you’ve done that (hopefully) you’ll also know what’s your audience. Once you’ve pinpointed these two key factors, you can more or less try and sell it. Now, we’re not going to explain to you how to sell your service, what we are going to do is tell you how an OVP can help you shift your business towards the right path
In addition to good and exclusive content, the success or downfall of a video streaming business majorly relies on the best suitable revenue model it selects. Basically, there are three monetization options you can choose from: Advertisement, Pay-per-View, and Subscription.
Advertisement — It’s the monetization model traditional broadcast television uses. But digital marketers have seen on-demand viewing figures challenge broadcast TV, and pre-video advertisements are a staple of the digital video world, we are now even starting to witness more mid-video and post-video ads.
Pay-per-View — This is a much more traditional monetization option. Here, spectators buy the right to view specific shows, videos, or events. It’s more difficult to implement — most corporate video channels will find that their viewers aren’t willing to pay to see the video. Only channels that produce high-value, non-repeatable premium content can usually leverage this monetization method, and the major business demand for very in-depth content still comes in the form of text rather than video.
Subscription — Subscription monetization makes more sense for brands. If you have a large library of high-quality videos, it’s possible to make subscription work for you.
Now, one can ask, if giants like Netflix, Hulu, etc. are already ruling the video streaming market, would it be practical to start your own video streaming business and expect a survival? You bet it is! Never underestimate the power of niche content and good number crunching, you’d be amazed at the results.
Make sure whichever OVP you choose is packed with extensive analytic functionalities, the more the merrier. This is definitely the make or break feature you’ll need to be on the lookout for, as it can determine what you’re doing right and what you’re failing on. In a best-case scenario, it can actually say “you’re doing good, but you could be doing great!”.
Take a closer look at the content that’s being watched more often, it will tell you what you should acquire or produce more, and even if you notice content that is seemingly underperforming, it might not be. When you’re looking at the statistics, you can’t just look at the view counter, you also need to pay close attention to demographic data, such as age, country or even the devices that are being used.
Imagine that a certain type of content has a very limited audience, but 90% of that audience comes from Portugal and is being watched through a smartphone — what this actually does is saying a particular country has a demand for that type of content and that type of format. With this kind of data, you can now take an informed decision of catering to that loyal niche and generate bigger revenues directed at that particular audience. At the end of the day, an OVP just handed you a wider revenue reach instead of just managing assets and giving you view numbers.
Taking it to extremes, this simple example might even tell you that a 90% acceptance rate from one country can prove more profitable that thousands of views in another country, where it only represents 10% of its audience. Now you can go both ways, either shifting in content to earn subscriptions, or targeting ad campaigns towards that market. A good OVP can definitely help you with that too.
Let’s get to numbers for a few moments. Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Digital TV Research, said: “Despite losing market share to SVOD, there is still plenty of AVOD growth left. AVOD revenues will increase by $34 billion between 2018 and 2024 to take its total to $56 billion. Several high profile AVOD-funded platforms are due to start operations soon.”
When picking you’re OVP you cannot put aside a marketing module. It needs to have enough versatility so you can target ads towards the right audiences, choose the kind of ads you want to put in front of it, and if indeed you want ads or another kind of promotion.
When it comes to ads, you can choose between video ads or banner ads, these can be prerolls, midrolls or postrolls. Other promotions, that can help you secure more subscribers, might come in the form of codes or free trials. Whichever case you choose, it can be helpful in a trial and error methodology, as a good OVP can certainly help you pick any of these options at any given time and instantly, providing you enough information to know your audience’s flow and better approaches as your service grows.
Lastly, to make things short and straight to the point, do not forget the importance of a good recommendation system embedded in your OVP. Not every user is as invested into the research of content as you might think, in fact, most of them want everything on a platter, and if the platter does not fit the taste, well, you can forget next month’s subscription and you just won an advocate for the competition.
A recommendation system needs to learn from the user’s habits, but it can also have other tricks up its sleeve and learn from other parameters. These parameters might include client information, such as gender, age group and device, joining suggestions based on previous viewings to other content that might be susceptible to enjoyment by the user given his personal profile. This offers a mixed bag of content that is sure to keep your clients engaged throughout the experience, while at the same time giving you time to refresh and add more programming to your selection without the user even knowing about the process. Furthermore, a good recommendation engine will crunch the data in a way that even your advertisements, whichever they are, get funneled towards the audience that is more susceptible to take action on it.
As you can see, from these simple examples, a good Online Video Platform can have a great impact on your business, but only if you let it. It’s not just a content management tool, it’s a pillar of your video distribution business, helping you understand different scenarios and adjusting your focus according to the demand. It might be the most important decision for your business.
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