Madhuri Bajaj
Listen to this articleWant to make lots of money from your online videos, but unsure of where to start?
Well, it’s not just you. There are many others who have overcome a similar problem using a solution that doesn’t sound like “YouTube”.
So, what is the solution, really? It’s OTT.
The OTT business world over is flourishing to become the next big thing, while the television and cable industry is quickly losing market share.
Since the early 2000s, the OTT market has experienced a catapulting growth, where market watchers expect it to reach USD 156.9 billion by 2024.
Now, being an ambitious and driven OTT business yourself, how do you ensure that your video content generates revenues from day one?
By formulating an effective and successful video monetization strategy, of course. And this article is going to help you with just that.
Table of Contents:
1. What is Video Monetization?
2. Why do you need a Video Monetization Strategy?
3. Types of Video Monetization Models
4. How to Create a Video Monetization Strategy in 2021?
5. FAQ’s on Video Monetization Strategy
What Is Video Monetization?
Video monetization means earning revenues through the video content you share on any online platform.
You can monetize your videos in several ways:
1. Earning shared revenues through third-party platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
2. Earning 100% revenues through your own OTT platform.
While the first method of revenue generation is fairly straightforward, you must be wondering how you can earn revenues on your own OTT website and app.
The answer is right here!
The list of people who would pay to access your OTT platform include:
• Content consumers who pay to watch your video content.
• Advertisers who want to market to your audiences.
• Anyone else who would want to access and use your platform.
Why Do You Need A Video Monetization Strategy?
You have the best video content, an impeccable UI/ UX, and the most robust marketing plan for your OTT platform.
But what good would that do to the business if you cannot channelize them to your OTT streaming business’ benefit?
To become one of the best OTT platforms, you need to first become one of the top video monetization platforms.
Having a sound video monetization strategy is imperative for the success and growth of your OTT business. With the right mix of plans and strategies, you can achieve impressive results and generate higher revenues even with a smaller audience.
Content creators are in constant pursuit of delivering the most superlative quality experience to their users.
To keep your customer retention rates high, you need to continually invest in making high-quality content available on your platform. This involves serious costs like production, franchisees, streaming fees, rights, etc.
To keep your advertisers engaged you need to ensure that your platform traffic is always peaking and they are getting what they need by being associated with your platform.
For this, you need to keep customer retention rates up through extensive marketing, technological developments, and sophisticated analytics and data mining.
To sum it up, whether you offer on-demand or live stream content or both, you need to opt for the best video monetization strategies for the continued success of your OTT streaming service.
Successful OTT Business = Happy customers + Happy advertisers
Understand the different OTT monetization models
Types of Video Monetization Models
There are essentially three different video monetization options offered by most of the top OTT solution providers like Ventuno – SVOD, TVOD, & AVOD.
Each monetization model revolves around what is known as VOD or video on demand.
Video on demand means video content that can be accessed anytime and anywhere. Viewers do not have to wait for the broadcast timings or follow a TV guide.
You simply have to search, scroll, and push the button!
Based on your content and audience, choose the monetization option that yields the maximum returns for you.
• Subscription-Based Video on Demand (SVOD)
SVOD or subscription-based video on demand is one of the most profitable and best monetization strategies for OTT content creators and producers.
As the name suggests, SVOD is a video monetization strategy in which you offer users subscriptions to your platforms for a monthly or annual fee.
Paid subscriptions are widely popular among viewers as they can watch unlimited and uninterrupted, ad-free content on the OTT website and app.
Moreover, having a subscription to any OTT platform allows them to freely use the platform (as a website or app) on any device of their choice.
For example, having a Netflix monthly or annual subscription allows you to access their app on your smartphones or connected TVs, and their website through your smartphone, connected TV, PC, or laptop, as and when you prefer.
• Transaction-based Video on Demand (TVOD)
TVOD is another popular monetization strategy opted by several OTT service providers.
In TVOD or transaction-based video-on-demand strategy, you can offer content to users on a pay-per-view basis.
Rather than paying for a monthly or annual subscription, users only pay for what they want to watch.
TVOD works to drive traffic and improve viewership on your platform, as users are not forced to immediately get bound with a subscription. At a nominal one-time fee, they get to experience your content and service quality.
Top OTT video monetization platforms like Amazon Prime Video use TVOD effectively for high-demand video content, including movies like Ford v Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit, etc.
Users can either rent the movie at a fraction of the cost or buy and stream it on their Amazon Prime Video website and app at a predetermined price.
You can leverage the transactional video monetization model to generate lucrative revenues for your OTT business by keeping your audience highly motivated to watch your content and providing them a safe and secure payment system.
Ventuno offers a sophisticated payment system that allows users to pay for every transaction with utmost security.
• Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD)
AVOD is short for advertising video on demand. Under this video monetization strategy, you show ads to viewers along with subscription-free content.
While users access and watch video content on your platform for free, you earn revenues through advertisers.
The boom of the OTT TV industry has catapulted the growth and scope of advertising.
Where advertisers could earlier reach a certain segment, region, or type of audience through cable and satellite television, the introduction of the internet and OTT streaming has made the reach limitless.
In order to earn good revenues through advertising, you need to first ensure a large viewership on your platform.
Even if you are catering to a niche audience, relevant advertisers and sponsors can prove to be a good source of income for your OTT business.
Let’s understand this with a simple example of YouTube.
Unless a user has subscribed to the YouTube Premium account, they are constantly targeted with ads before, during, and sometimes, even after the video content.
How to Create a Video Monetization Strategy in 2021
Content creators and producers today are making the most of their on-demand and live streaming content by formulating effective and strong video monetization strategies.
Netflix is a classic example of optimal use of video monetization for publishers. Time and again, Netflix has proven to be the most flourishing video monetization sites.
You too can bring out the best of your OTT business by having one of the best video monetization strategies in place.
And here’s our advice on how you should get started.
• Conduct Market Research
Before putting your own video monetization strategy in place, understand the market and your competitors or contemporaries. Research on what they are doing and what has proven to be a success or failure in their case.
A wise man once said,
“Learn from the mistakes of others, for you cannot live long enough to make them all yourself”.
The formula to launching the best video monetization platform in 2021 is to adopt the best practices and avoid the failed activities of those before you in the market.
How to acquire users for your OTT service?
• Understand Audience’s Needs And Likes
Setting up a video monetization website can be tricky, and we understand that.
It involves finding the right mix of monetization channels as well as pricing to rope in the maximum revenues.
Therefore, in order to arrive at the mix that would work for your OTT business, it is imperative to understand your audience first.
Understanding the needs and likes of your audience can steer you towards becoming one of the best video monetization sites.
Basic questions you can ask yourself and your team regarding your audience could be:
• How often do you anticipate the viewer to come on the platform?
• What value would they derive out of subscribing monthly or annually on your platform?
• What percentage of viewers would prefer free, unsubscribed content access?
• How will you market your platform to your audiences?
• What is the pricing your audience would be comfortable paying on a continued basis for SVOD and TVOD?
• Pick The Right Monetization Model Based On Research
After doing extensive research on your audience behavior and the OTT market you are venturing into, it’s time to finally get to actual work.
Based on all this research, you need to pick the right monetization models that would work for your platform and audiences.
If you aim to drive more traffic and focus on subscriptions later, you can start with the TVOD model, where viewers can pay for the content they want to watch and leave.
If you are ready with some high-quality and high-demand content, subscriptions or SVOD could be the most profitable option.
Alternatively, if you believe that providing ad-based content for free would drive more eyeballs to the platform, and you can benefit greatly from the advertisers, then AVOD would be the perfect pick for you.
But, hold on a minute. Who said that you need to pick one of the three only?
Advanced OTT platform providers like Ventuno make it possible for you to include all three monetization models on your OTT platform.
• Set Goals
Defining a clear path and destination for your OTT business can help you tackle any decisions, monetary or not, more easily.
Setting real growth goals and having a financial plan for you is the best way to get started with video monetization planning.
Let’s take an example.
A user, Henry, comes to your platform and finds several of his favorite shows on your platform.
Whereas your competitor has only one of his favorite shows on their platform.
So what is Henry more likely to do?
He would prefer buying a monthly or annual subscription on your platform, while only renting or buying the particular show on your competitors platform.
In this manner, you will have to set goals for the content you want to broadcast on your platform.
Once your content planning is in place, setting growth goals for monetization becomes clearer and easier.
And you can have better control over the financial growth of your OTT business.
• Choose A Video Monetization Platform
All your planning and research aside, a crucial part of nailing your video monetization strategy is to choose a platform that offers you the right set of tools and features you need.
Top OTT platform providers like Ventuno offer a variety of tools and options of video monetization for publishers.
To incorporate the best video monetization strategies for your OTT business, you need white-labeled platforms like Ventuno, that give you the flexibility to have your preferred monetization models on your OTT platform.
• Craft Your Offer
Now the time for launch is coming close and you want to drive maximum traffic to your platform as early as possible.
What should you do?
Well, one option is launching free trials and promotional offers.
Another is freemiums — where you give users free access to a certain part of the platform or content, and they need to pay for more advanced access.
Furthermore, formulate an effective strategy to retain your users while also consistently roping in more subscribers.
Here’s an example of a globally established OTT platform that has achieved this successfully.
The IPL matches have a huge fan following, where viewers prioritize watching the tournament over anything else at that time of the year.
Disney Hotstar jumped at the opportunity and bought exclusive rights to air this tournament every year.
You can predict where we are going with this.
The platform became an obvious choice for IPL fans to subscribe to.
Once Disney had the subscribers on their platform, it became easy for OTT streaming service to attract the necessary mileage for its other VOD content as well.
Another important decision to make at this point is deciding the price point on your platform. You can arrive at this by evaluating the following:
• What do your direct and indirect competitors charge on average?
• What are your financial targets?
• Are you marketing to a broad audience or a smaller niche?
• How much would a similar service cost to the subscriber on another platform?
• Launch your Video Content
Once you’re all set with the above…
Launch your OTT service with a bang!
Publish your website and app.
Promote them on all your online and social media channels.
Encourage users to use the promotional offers and free trials.
Sign up with influencers and journalists to promote your platform.
In short, do everything you need to get the word out there… Especially among your target audience.
• Analyze Video Monetization Data and Improve
Data analytics are a way of taking feedback from your viewers without even asking them for it.
Ventuno’s advanced analytics dashboard gives you all the relevant information you need about users and their activities on your OTT platform.
You can track key user metrics like user watch time, subscriptions, revenues, type of user engagement, etc.
This helps you understand what kind of content users consume and what type of monetization model works with the audience for each different type of content.
Based on this information, you can upload and organize your content and manage the video monetization strategy associated with it.
After a tremendously successful run on OTT TV, Tata Sky has recently launched a mobile app called “Tata Sky Binge”. It offers users subscriptions to the app starting as low as ₹149 for OTT content.
Having this app on your smartphone gives you access to content from 10 OTT apps such as Disney+ Hotstar, Voot, etc.
This helped the brand delve into the smartphone market through their easy UI, affordable subscriptions, and the extensive library of content offered.
FAQs on Video Monetization Strategy
Create a Powerful Video Monetization Strategy For Your Business
The success of any OTT streaming service relies on three things essentially:
• Content that your audience needs
• Powerful Marketing
• Effective Monetization
While the first two points are under your control, you need the right kind of support for the third one. Here’s when top video monetization platforms like Ventuno play a significant role.
Milk your video content most effectively with the best video monetization strategies and the services of the best video monetization platform.
If you’re wondering where you can seek such a crucial service for your OTT business… Well, we’re standing at the door waiting to welcome you!
Ventuno’s white-labeled OTT platform can help you with not only platform creation and launch, but with effective video monetization as well. Look no further and contact us now!
What are your thoughts on this article? reach out to us at info@ventunotech.com if you would like to discuss!
Looking to launch your own streaming service?
Anjana Devi
