The greatest secret of a successful video streaming business lies in its business model. A company’s revenue model is the way it makes money. When choosing a revenue model, most businesses wait until the very end of development and simply look at what industry leaders are doing, altering it slightly. But when considered carefully the revenue model can be a very powerful tool and it is highly important to shape it according to your business needs. If you want to create your own Netflix, you must choose the revenue strategy that compliments your streaming business.
Netflix’s annual revenue in 2018 has hit $15.8 billion continuing to secure the impressive figures Netflix enjoyed over the last decade. By the last quarter of 2019, Netflix generated total revenue of $5.2 billion which is over $1 billion up from what it earned in the corresponding quarter of 2018.
If you are looking to find out how to start a video on demand website, we will be briefing it in this blog. The business model of Netflix, popular revenue models to follow, costs involved in creating your own Netflix also comes under the scope of this blog. Let’s get started.
Netflix Business Model
What Netflix succeeds at is known as video on demand, by allowing users to access content like TV shows, movies, and other series instantly through Internet-connected devices like PC, laptop, tablets, smartphones, over the top box connected TV, Internet-connected TV, etc.
This video streaming on demand giant operates on a subscription-based revenue model where users pay for a monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription plan and gain access to streaming movies, shows, originals and other content available on Netflix in the Standard Definition (SD), High Definition (HD) and Ultra HD quality based on what they pay for.
The primary revenue source for Netflix is subscriptions. That is, users pay to access content on Netflix and that is how the company makes money. Learning more about the Netflix business model will significantly help you in choosing the best revenue model for your VOD business. Netflix offers 3 different plans for users based on the streaming quality of the content provided.
Basic– This plan offers access to content in SD quality.
Standard– This plan offers HD content access to subscribers.
Premium– This plan allows users to access videos in ultra HD quality.
Popular Video-on-Demand Revenue Models
The very first step of learning how to start a streaming service like Netflix is to choose the right monetization model for your VOD platform. What is the best way to charge users to access your content? In this blog, we are going to break down common VOD revenue models so that it becomes easy for you to choose the best one that suits you. Let’s get started.
Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD)
The subscription video on demand business model is the one that allows users to access an entire library of videos for a recurring fee. This fee may be charged weekly, monthly or even annually. Once a user subscribes to the service, they can watch as many videos as they want until the subscription period ends. Netflix follows this model to monetize its services. Subscriptions are auto-renewable and users have the flexibility to cancel them anytime. This model suits platforms that have a huge variety of entertainment content like movies, TV shows, drama series, TV programs, etc. to engage their audience on a long term basis.
Pros
One of the biggest advantages of SVOD is the recurring revenue stream that ensures a steady income every month. It also gives you the chance to upsell your users to bigger packages getting more money for your business.
Cons
While SVOD offers great chances to upsell, it becomes hard to upsell from a cancellation. That means once a subscriber cancels the plan, it can be difficult to bring them back to your platform.
Advertisement Video On Demand (AVOD)
Advertisement VOD is the business model where viewers are allowed to watch videos for free but they must watch advertisements at different points throughout the length of the video. Ads are powerful and advertisers generally pay huge amounts for streaming their ads on your video on demand platform. You can also choose your ad pricing depending on your platform’s popularity and the type of content to be chosen for the ad.
If you are just thinking about how to start a streaming service, it is recommended to design your services based on the ad-based business model. As your VOD platform gains more users, you can expand to other monetization models eventually.
VOD ads are broadly categorized into pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads. As the name suggests pre-roll ads refer to the ones that play at the beginning of a video. Whereas, mid-rolls play ads in the middle of a video and post-rolls play ads at the end of a video. These ads are generally skippable or non-skippable in nature depending on how the ad network chooses to keep them. YouTube works primarily based on this revenue model.
Pros
AVOD works the best if you are new to the business as it brings in additional revenue with very little investment of your money and effort. This is one of the most common and easy ways to generate passive income.
Cons
As ads are everywhere online, too many of them can annoy your viewers.
Transactional Video On Demand
The transactional VOD business model allows you to buy content on a pay per view basis. It is exactly the opposite of what SVOD is. Instead of paying for the entire content, viewers are required to pay for only the content they want to view, buying a piece of individual content also facilitates users to keep it with themselves either on your VOD platform or download to their personal devices. Alternatively, TVOD can also allow users to rent a piece of content from a video streaming platform for a period of time and once the period expires, they will not be able to access the same content again. The transactional model works with live programming where users purchase a particular piece of content to view it. WWE streaming service is an example.
Pros
In TVOD, there is no confusion in understanding what your users prefer. You can easily understand whether there is a great demand for a particular video or a type of content. It also brings in better revenue opportunities for new content releases.
Cons
In the TVOD model, user retention is a common problem as users have a tendency to pay for particular content and then go off the platform. For the same reasons, it is difficult to push users to purchase new content.
Hybrid Video-On-Demand Model
When you have a vast library of videos and your platform is getting popular day by day, you can implement a hybrid of different revenue strategies to monetize your videos. You can choose a hybrid of AVOD, SVOD, TVOD, or any combination that works for you. If your audience base is deferred and you want different monetization models to target to suit the needs of different types of audiences, it is best to opt for a hybrid VOD model. You might have a large set of audience who don’t want to pay for accessing content but won’t mind watching ads in between and vice versa. YouTube is one of the best examples of a Hybrid VOD platform. It doesn’t just rely on advertisements to monetize. YouTube Premium is an example.
Is SVOD the Best VOD Model to Make Money?
Subscription video on demand is the most common type of VOD service offered by streaming platforms. In 2017, 55% of Americans were using Netflix and 31 % were using Amazon Prime video service.By 2022, it is estimated that over 568.4 million users would be using these platforms. While SVOD is not the only realm of streaming giants like Amazon, Hulu, and YouTube, many new VOD businesses are using subscription models to grow their income and audience.
If you are looking for different ways on how to start a company like Netflix, it is not mandatory to follow the exact path of Netflix. Choosing the revenue model that suits your business and your target audience is the ideal way to go for it. Next, let’s look into the popular revenue models in the market and understand what suits your business the best.
Costs Involved in Running a Streaming Business
The question of how to make money using a live streaming app and how much you can make cannot be answered without learning about the cost of expenses and expenditure a streaming business has to incur to get these profits.
Licensing Cost
To stream popular shows and movies in a legal manner, video streaming websites have to bear a cost to license and acquire content which differs for different types of content. For instance, Netflix reportedly paid $100 million to keep the popular series “Friends” on its service for 2019, almost three more than its previous licensing fee of $30 million.
Production Cost
Unless you are planning to acquire content from content creators, you have to bear production costs for creating your own originals. Offering original series is a great way to evade licensing costs and offer exclusive content to your users. However, the production costs can go higher when producing your own content.
Marketing Costs
Once your platform is up and running on the internet, you have to compete with N number of streaming platforms including giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. Beating the competition involves a lot of marketing expenditure. Marketing costs primarily including the expense for advertisements, payments to affiliates and device partners, and the trial month fee of every user.
Research and Development Cost
Every popular streaming website invests in the research and development department. For example, Netflix focuses a lot on research and development and that is one of the reasons why they are pioneers in the market with just a subscription-based business model.
Technology and Development Cost
From the moment you create a movie streaming website and have users visiting your site, you must ensure a seamless and lag-free viewing experience to all of them. Netflix has partnered with hundreds of Internet service providers to localize a substantial amount of traffic. Technology and development costs make up a major portion of the overall cost you have to bear.
It also includes streaming delivery technology costs and the costs involved in designing new applications and other infrastructural costs. Regarding the video streaming server costs of Netflix, it uses its own content delivery network (CDN) called Open Connect, but also depends on the service of top tier CDN Akamai. Data is stored in Amazon Web Services (AWS) where terabytes of storage can be deployed to a thousand servers quickly. It is important to leverage the services of a good content delivery network even if you are not planning on growing fast because you are eventually going to scale.
CDN offers guaranteed delivery of content to users through a geographically distributed network of servers. It transforms your streaming website into a scalable system to meet any major viewership spike in demand for your content.
General and Administrative Costs
These costs include the payroll and other expenses on the human resources of the business as well and the partnership fee needed for the administrative purposes of the company.
Miscellaneous Fee
Besides all of these costs, there can be other miscellaneous costs like payment processing fees.
How To Price Your Content The Right Way?
Behind any successful revenue model stands a well-designed pricing scheme. It is one of the most critical elements of any business strategy, especially for SVOD services. If you are looking for how to make a movie website like Netflix, pricing your content is one of the important aspects to consider.
Pricing video will always be a work in progress and with the constant changes in the market, you need to experiment with different approaches. You will get to know your customers and their spending habits as time goes by. To help you with this, here are some tips to choose the right pricing scheme.
Consider Value and Customer Satisfaction
Building a pricing model based on the value and customer satisfaction will help you make your VOD platform as sustainable as possible. Additionally, offer your users enough choices that will help you to retain existing users while attracting a new audience. Approaches including tiered pricing, freemium, or consumption-based pricing will help your viewers commit to a plan that suits their personal preferences and needs.
Analyze Your Revenue Goals
It is significant to understand how much would your video on demand business be making in monthly revenue. Make sure to include overhead costs to your goal.
Consider The Size of Existing Followers
Once you have created a movie streaming website and gathered in a few users, analyze the size of your audience. How big is your current audience and measure the number of followers you have on social media? How many contacts you have on your email list.
For this formula, use the total number of followers from each individual platform. Your existing audience or the ones you are currently not monetizing is the main revenue potential you are going to focus on as they are our biggest supporters.
Start With A Low Price Window
If it’s your first time monetizing your services, aim for a low pricing formula. The most successful customers offer monthly subscription prices anywhere between $2-$50.
Industry and Genre Must Be Considered
The nature of your content will have a direct impact on how you price your content. The best thing is to start with basic market research to see what other subscription video services with niche similar to you are charging their customers. If you are planning to charge higher than your biggest direct competitor, you must be sure that your services are with a significant difference and offer more value to your users in terms of the quality of services. The next thing to consider is your Content type and genre. Each type of content has an industry price average that you must consider unless you offer content that’s obviously more valuable.
Niche and Specificity Matters
Niche content or micro-niche content to be specific is valued high due to its ideal audience. While small and limited, if a service is very focused on a particular niche, users usually won’t mind paying for that extra bit.
How to Start a Streaming Service Like Netflix?
You are on the right track of building a streaming solution to create a movie streaming website customized according to the preferences of your audience. The goal is to delight media consumers and ensure all-time technology support to keep your users happy at all stages.
To build a fully functional streaming website to cater to your global audience, it is best to choose Netflix clone open-source that comes equipped with all the essential features and functionalities. Clone scripts are readymade website script that comes equipped with powerful admin dashboard, web app integration options, Android and iOS native apps to get started in the video streaming industry.
You can choose the best video on demand platform providers to build your VOD platform who will customize their solution to match your preferences and business goals including the revenue model suited for your business.
Choosing A Revenue Model For Your Business
In an increasingly complex digital world. You can build profitable video on demand business by choosing the best revenue models that generate more money than you could ever think. The secret is to find the business model that serves both your customer’s needs and your business goals. Some of the best in the world are listed above and you need to pick the one that suits your requirements. We understand how difficult it gets while choosing the right revenue model when creating your own Netflix and the doubts that come bundled with it which is why we help consult on you the same. Get in touch with us now.
Live video streaming has come a long way from the old times when transferring video over the Internet was not even possible. Today, individuals and businesses across the world use live streaming as a tool for communication and marketing, as well as modern means of offering entertaining content to the audience.
The advancements in cloud computing have revolutionized live streaming and brought in the emergence of massive corporations and popular live streaming platforms. When you analyze in-depth, live streaming and the cloud network share a symbiotic relationship. One will not expand without the other growing. The increasing demand for live streaming has grown rapidly and the cloud business has also experienced a stable growth curve.
In the past live streaming was limited to traditional TV broadcast networks. However, today with the expansion of cloud networks, anyone can stream a quality video that is close to the broadcast networks. The increasing demand for live streaming will require cloud technology to expand at a rapid rate to meet this rising demand.
Benefits of Live Streaming For Your Business
Undoubtedly live streaming presents a brand new way of digital communication, content consumption, and promotion. Beyond the growth of the audience hooked to live content, live streaming presents a great way to drive revenue for businesses. Streaming live videos to your customer base may sound like a fun and easy thing to do. However, implementing a live streaming strategy requires careful planning to achieve your business goals. Before learning how to start a live streaming business, it is important to understand the benefits of live streaming.
Here are some of the benefits of live streaming for your business.
Low Barriers to Entry
Most of the time, all that is needed to live stream is a smartphone, an internet connection, and a social media profile. This ease of entry to leverage the potential of live streaming makes it the most effective marketing tool.
Real-Time Communication
When you conduct a live streaming event of your business, you are engaging with your audience in real-time. This gives your viewers a sense of belonging to the moment as people love being part of stories as they happen. They actively understand more about your business in a personal way and are likely to share it with their friends.
Interaction
Live streaming evokes a sense of excitement among your audience. During your live streaming, you can ask questions and connect with your audience, offer to poll, or get creative to any extent to engage them. The live streaming itself is inherently about building a community to make your customers feel inclusive and exclusive at the same time.
Cost Reduction
Some brands use live streaming as a part of their training programs, webinars, employee onboarding, or even seminars. Everyone who is physically and virtually present receives the same training simultaneously, thereby saving the company’s budget. Implementing live streaming in your business strategy can save a lot of money in the long run.
Why Is Live Streaming More Popular Than Video Streaming?
Compared to pre-recorded videos, live videos are in high demand with the younger audience. It is mainly because they feel more engaged with live content than pre-recorded content, Further, live videos are more engaging to users due to its “real” element as it is exciting to witness something that is not scripted.Statistics show that people tend to watch live videos 3 times longer than other types of videos on Facebook.
Video on demand content in many aspects is the exact opposite of live streaming content. Video on demand is a traditional system of creating and sharing content. Create a video, upload it on video sharing platforms like YouTube for the viewers to watch it, and you are good to go.
While there are some obvious benefits to video on demand like the ability to have more control over video creation and publishing, live streaming is a modern approach to the traditional way of creating video content and hence, the most preferable choice these days. But, it doesn’t mean that live streaming alone can satisfy your marketing needs. A combination of live streaming and video on demand is what your business needs.
Both have their own benefits and there is a lot you can achieve from embracing the best of both. For example, you can repurpose live content for on-demand viewing. Once the live stream is over, you can upload the videos to video-sharing platforms and make it on-demand content.
That’s not to say that live streaming doesn’t have its drawbacks. Live streaming can be more technically demanding than traditional methods when you want to add a professional edge to your live videos. It might require you to buy additional gears, capture cards, multiple card setups, and a professional live video streaming software for high-end streaming.
That’s without even mentioning the importance of upload speeds and cloud technology for live streaming. So yes, it can get demanding if you want to create a high-quality live streaming experience. However, the engagement factor is so popular today that it alone would make worthwhile to explore live streaming for your business.
Benefits of Cloud Technology For Live Streaming
The age of domestic servers has been surpassed by a quiet revolution of cloud technology. When you create a live streaming website, you have to deliver live content to a range of devices in a matter of seconds. To get things in place, you need to choose a technology to support your services. There is no one size fits all approach as every scenario comes with a unique set of requirements.
Handles Compatibility Issues and Encoding
A major advantage of using cloud technology for your live streaming service is that both encoding and device compatibility issues will be taken care of. For example, cloud services like Microsoft Azure offer a multiple platform player for displaying studio-grade encoding that is dynamically encrypted with 28 bit AES. There are no server upgrades to worry about which can free up resources as well.
Scalability
The scalability of cloud-hosted solutions for live streaming represents another major advantage of eliminating the startup costs associated with physical servers. This ensures that customers only pay for the services they are using at a given time. As the number of users increases, greater bandwidth can be allocated to offer multiple streaming simultaneously and offer buffer-free viewing on a number of output devices.
Current and Future Trends in Live Streaming
Keeping aside the ease of access, live streaming is loved by people. Live streaming is an excellent opportunity for two-way interaction with your target audience. The popularity of live streaming apps like snap chat, Periscope, Facebook live, etc. supports this idea. Here are some of the current trends in live streaming.
Social Media Dominion
We have witnessed the demand for live streaming on social media capturing significant events across the world. We are also seeing eSports live streaming constantly breaking viewership records. Live streaming services like Periscope, Snapchat, Facebook Live, YouTube Live, and IGTV has skyrocketed its popularity, especially among the younger audience. Sending live videos as a method of communication with peers seems to be natural for the young generation.
Marketing Media of Choice
Live streaming video is reinventing the way brands plan their marketing strategies. Live streaming has already become an essential marketing tool that can help businesses grow. Brands are becoming more willing to invest in live streaming than ever. Reports show that 95% of businesses say that live video will be an important part of their 2020 marketing mix, with 25% stating that “live content will be a top priority, edging out the scope of pre-recorded videos. We also see businesses going live regularly on social media and their websites. Companies are getting better and better at using live video to bring down those unapproachable corporate walls, adding an authentic human interaction to the mix.
Internal Corporate Communications Booster
In business relations, brands are using live videos to strengthen their corporate culture and build solid relationships internally. Internal team meetings, employee training, etc. can be done through live videos which increases productivity and engagement. This is why Cisco acquired a video conference startup WebEx back in 2007. They successfully foresaw a future where live streaming is helping people to communicate better.
Education Empowerment
Live streaming is enhancing the way we learn. Conferences, talks, and events are being live-streamed on a regular basis. Universities like Harvard and Stanford are taking advantage of live lecture streaming. This gives their students access to knowledge anytime, anywhere, taking down barriers to education. Consequently, students who may not otherwise be present at the lecture are now able to partake.
Machine Learning In Live Streaming
Machine learning is the latest digital transformation that helps streamline and personalize the user experience for all kinds of technology. This algorithm essentially “learns” what yields a positive result and what doesn’t, and continuously improves itself based on this collected data. There are many opportunities for machine learning applications in live streaming scenarios of all sizes, including large multi-camera events, smaller single-camera live streams, and even lectures at educational institutions.
Computers will be able to learn certain cues like lighting, face and speech recognition, etc. in order to automate live switching, recording, and even adding lower thirds. For example, “smart” live video will be able to automatically start the stream when it recognizes a specific voice or person has appeared on stage. This technology can even track the presenter across the stage, keeping the focus on them. Once the stream is over, the technology can automatically generate and upload a highlight reel of the event based on cues like audience applause and lighting. The potential for AI and machine learning is huge, and there are many specific examples of how it can be applied.
Further Marketing and E-Commerce Involvement
Just like video ads before normal videos, we will also see the live video start to ingrain deeper into marketing, becoming its major tool. We will see more brands going live with their own shows, introducing their own brand ambassadors and trusted experts like the following example.
More live events will be used as “see-now-buy-now” eCommerce platforms for a live online shopping experience. As a result of frequent and intentional use in marketing, live video production will become a regular part of the marketing education curriculum. New and better tools for measuring ROI of live streaming campaigns will become available.
Purchasing Power
The revenue impact of live video cannot be ignored. Nearly half of the users say they would pay for live, exclusive on-demand video from a favorite speaker, performer, or sports team. In general, video boosts sales, as well as recognition of a brand. 64% of customers are likely to make a purchase after watching a branded social video.
Getting the Timing Right
Like with written content, length matters. Live videos up to two minutes long hold viewer’s attention, after which time there’s a drop-off. Many videos in that one-to-two-minute-long duration are explainer videos, which tell about a product or service and helps consumers understand the company better. The zone where you don’t want to be is between two to six minutes long. Attention span and time spent on videos picks back up again for those that are between six and 12 minutes long.
Of course, this timing is for video in general. The rules change a little when it comes to live videos, streaming videos which are often sporting games, events, television shows, movies and the like. With this type of watching, viewers will often spend up to several hours watching their favorite team play or binge-watching a favorite show.
For social videos, the rules are a bit different. Here’s the breakdown by the platform.
Facebook– While there is no minimum time for the length of a Facebook Live video, but it’s best if your stream is at least 10-15 minutes long. Facebook itself states that longer broadcasts attract more viewers, as more people have a chance to learn about the broadcast and tell their friends. Engagement on Facebook Live streams keeps increasing until about the 15-minute mark, then remains fairly stable through the maximum length of four hours.
Instagram– The ideal length is under 30 seconds for a regular video post and 15 seconds for a Story. For IG Live, it can go up to one hour.
YouTube– The average length of the top 100 most-watched videos on the platform is between five and seven minutes.
Video customer support
Live Q&A sessions as a way to receive help immediately and from real, knowledgeable people will become more and more widespread. Similarly, to current over-the-phone customer support, live video customer support centers will emerge. Receiving support with real-time visual aids will help solve issues faster.
Live streaming and cloud
Live streaming solutions have adopted cloud scaling to enable larger bandwidth and better speeds. As live streaming happens in real-time, it can’t be repeated. Hence it needs to get right the first time itself. The factors like speed and bandwidth are necessary to handle heavier video requirements and offer a better viewing experience to the audience.
These days, even small businesses leverage live streaming o bring their customers close to their brand and make them feel more connected. These interactions help in taking their marketing strategies to the next level.
However, it also comes with the transmission of large data that results in latency issues. By scaling on the cloud, live streaming platforms can increase their bandwidth to offer better streaming performance and viewing experience. While CDNs handle that part efficiently, many businesses don’t have access to it to handle the heavy traffic and hence cloud scaling is very important.
Cloud technology also offers live streaming platforms a cost-effective, flexible, and secure solution for setting up their workflow. This serves to meet the requirements for both live streaming and video on demand services.
Let’s understand this with an example. During a live broadcast of a sports event, the traffic is easily 10 times or even more than on normal days. Provisioning for servers and other infrastructure will end up creating a large up-front cost for infrastructure which otherwise won’t be utilized in normal scenarios. The cloud technology with its pay-per-use strategy serves as an ideal solution for live streaming platforms with an effective costing method at a very high rate of security, scalability, and reliability.
A typical End-To-End functional workflow for cloud-based live streaming looks like the following.
Production
The production process begins with the acquisition of the camera feed. In the case of live streaming, the camera feed may be backhauled to a central production faculty via a dedicated Internet connection.
Ingestion
In live streaming, the camera feed is directly connected to the cloud-based live streaming solution. As opposed to video on demand content where the content is uploaded via a CMS.
Monitoring
Any disruption in the ingestion process during live streaming will directly impact the viewing experience. For the automated workflow running in the cloud, you need a way to identify any failure and report it. This is where monitoring will help to ensure that everything is running as expected.
Encoding
If you are looking for different ways on how to create a live streaming website, you have to be mindful of the various different platforms and devices on which your content will be played. The streams uploaded to the cloud will be of one format and specification. For your live videos to be played across different devices like smartphones, tablets, desktops, and smart-TV’s, the video must be converted to different formats and specifications. This process of conversion is called encoding and is an intense concept.
Ad-Insertion
To make money out of your live streams, it is important to insert monetization channels to your live streams. You can either offer your live content to your audience for a fee or offer it without any fee, but insert ads in between the broadcast. If you are using an advertisement based monetization method for your live streams, you need to insert it along with the process of encoding to serve as a reference point to display ads during playback.
Protection
The major challenge with live streaming or any digital video playback is content protection, especially if you follow a pay-per-view or subscription-based business model. If your business involves the scenario of piracy prevention and revenue generation, it is highly important to protect your content. Some aspects of content protection are authentication and authorization. Choose a secure cloud technology that adheres to digital rights management to encrypt the content. These security measures restrict viewing or copying of content by unauthorized parties.
Delivery
Besides understanding how to start a live streaming business, you must also learn in-depth about how to deliver content without any potential delays. This is where CDN’s come into play. Content delivery networks with their vast networks of servers spread across several locations offer web acceleration by serving users with a cached version of the live stream requested. Hence, it is highly important to choose live streaming solutions with in-built CDN’S to optimize the delivery of live videos with low latency, high speed, and low packet loss.
This is how a sample cloud-based workflow based on Microsoft Azure’s media service looks like.
Live streaming offers a great opportunity to reach out to a broader audience and is spurred to be on a positive growth trajectory with improving mobile broadband connectivity and increased Internet penetration. Demand for live videos is expected to rise along with cloud technology. Ensuring a smooth and swift playback experience across different platforms under different network conditions is a challenging task bringing some of the best cloud technologies to work together. A cloud-based workflow for live streaming is proving to be the core of building a scalable, reliable, extensible and robust live streaming platform.
How many times have you watched a video and seen a product that instantly caught your eye? And then you proceed to the description to find the product link. You are not alone. Now imagine the ability to click on a product, add to the cart, and checkout- all within a video or after the video. This is the value proposition that drives the concept of shoppable video.
What is Shoppable Video?
A shoppable video is a multimedia recording that allows users to initiate a purchase from the video. More advanced versions of shoppable videos allow you to directly make a purchase from the video window itself. Whereas, in a non-interactive video, the URL of the product link is displayed instead of a clickable action. Shoppable videos are a type of interactive video.
How Does It Work?
Shoppable videos are the right blend of commerce and content. A shoppable video content removes the gap between the content and the underlying buying process. Creating an impressive content is very important as it ensures people are watching your full video and not miss the products displayed in between.
Features like Hulu’s shoppable previews allow the on-demand audience to buy movie tickets with just their remotes. This is a practical tool that simplifies the whole process into instant sales.
As technology keeps advancing, more interactive elements and shoppability will be integrated into the viewer’s favorite movies and TV shows on OTT platforms. Shoppable videos are a perfect way to help shoppers make purchase decisions. Ultimately, leading to a significant boost in sales. The audience is looking for more engaging and interactive content from their favorite brands. You can incorporate shoppable content into your OTT platform and leverage the most potential revenue stream. For launching your OTT platform, you can use ready-made solutions to stream your video content.
Brands are looking for ways to reduce the gap between marketing and purchasing. Shoppable videos are able to achieve both. It helps to build a personal link between a customer and products to increase customer engagement. Most importantly, this shortens the customer decision making a path to boost your sales.
Benefits of Shoppable Videos
There are many benefits associated with shoppable videos and marketing products on an OTT platform. Some of them are:
Simplified Buying Funnel
The video content becomes instantly shoppable and this simplifies the buying funnel.
Increased Customer Engagement
Shoppable videos have increased customer engagement and offer optimum ROI. They are one of the perfect ways to increase user engagement, conversion rate and to decrease shopping cart abandonment rates.
Invaluable Performance Insights
Most OTT platforms, offering shoppable videos also gather significant real-time performance data. This data allows businesses to find out the best performing elements of their campaigns. Ultimately, it helps to get more potential customers.
Top strategies to launch successful shoppable videos
Here are the top strategies that OTT services must implement in their platform to launch successful shoppable videos.
Incorporate Shopping Into The Viewer’s Experience
People are inspired by the products in the videos they watch. However, there is no easy way to direct customers into the buying process. OTT platforms can shorten the search and buying cycle and make the shopping experience seamless with convenient shoppable videos. For the same reasons, most customers are more likely to become open to shoppable videos as a part of their regular viewing experience.
Craft a Less Intrusive Experience
Shoppable videos improve the viewing experience. However, if not designed in the right way, they might just not give the desired results. Today, most videos add dots to indicate the interactive element. However, OTT providers must design a less intrusive experience to notify viewers about shoppable elements in the videos they are watching. The cues can either appear in the opening part or during the end credits, which can be switched on or off as required.
Create Branded Content In A Measurable Way
Branded content is a new emergence in OTT programming and live streaming platforms. Brands are subtle when it comes to product placement in videos, but this just provides brand impression data. However, with shoppable videos, content owners can track click-to-view, click-to-buy, and click-to-share interactions, and ultimately will get a clear view of conversion data.
Branded content within a movie or TV show allow the audience to either seek more info about the product onscreen or click-to-buy. This may transform the way brands and content owners monetize using this Ad format.
Don’t Overdo Interactivity
Interactive OTT opens up plenty of opportunities to offer customers with everything from general entertainment to super-niche offers. It activates new revenue streams like shoppable videos, non-intrusive sponsorships, and individually targeted advertising.
There is no better time to convert a visitor when they are enjoying a well-crafted content. Whether it’s a shoppable show, or purchasing products from a favorite artist, or ability to donate to your favorite filmmaker, any video commerce is easy to use and frictionless. Most importantly, it must never get in the way of content, but must be able to enhance and convert it.
Conclusion
For OTT players, customer acquisition and retention is a major challenge. Revenue models that are subscription-based, ad-centric or a combination of both only offer a sustainable business model to a certain extent. Shoppable videos give a completely new revenue stream potential that also helps to differentiate OTT service offerings in the midst of tight competitions.
By adding commerce and interactive elements, OTT and live streaming platforms can explore the measurable impact of shoppable videos in their sales. Shoppable videos can link directly to the point of purchase, allowing OTT platforms to go beyond general advertising.
Moreover, advertisers can get some additional ways to market their products and uncover user buying preferences, all with the trackable conversions and data they desire. The possibilities with shoppable video commerce can be endless.
Sports is honored with a ceaseless furor among the fans. From club soccer, cricket, rugby, baseball to chess matches, fans dependably purchase tickets to their preferred games. It is one such circle which has never observed a decrease in the income.
Every day, new games are being added to the broadcast rundown, and TV channels are communicating live games from a variety of genres. Nowadays, the furor for games has gone up in the sky with live streaming services broadcasting games straightforwardly to mobile apps and internet browsers.
Increasingly, thelive sports streaming softwarehave also gone extremely accessible with each day new streaming app joining the league with others like Hulu, Twitch, and YouTube Live.
How profitable are sports live streaming?
In a bustling life where a large portion of the general population don’t get time to watch their preferred teams playing on the TV, live streaming applications enable them to take a look regardless of where they are.
You can figure the notoriety of online live sports streaming by the fact that a critical populace in the US inclines toward watching games on Smart TV Apps or mobile apps regardless they can still watch the same on the traditional TV channels. It has occurred because of the growing popularity of live TV apps like Hulu, which enable clients to stream TV content through the web. As a result, there has been a decline in the market of traditional TV broadcasting as Apps like Hulu are offering the same in addition to extra benefits.
Just think of it in this way. Traditional TV channels are still being broadcasted in 480P, 720 P, and 1080i. Where platforms like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime are offering the content in 4K quality. Today, users take OTT streaming as a perfect alternative to cable TV. In return, they get access to all the Cable TV content bundled with extra stuff like on-demand Movies, Web series, Live Sports streaming, and Originals.
One more factor that makes live sports streaming more popular is the grown penetration of internet in the developing and developed nations. The same has also helped new business joining the league and building new live streaming platforms with easily accessible Live Sports Streaming Software solutions in the market.
What’s the best way to monetize a sports streaming service?
Tickets. They have always been an effective way to monetize any sports event. People love watching live games and for that, they purchase tickets to the events. A sports streaming software can be built with a similar monetization model, where users can purchase the streaming for a particular sports event. We call it a Pay-Per-View (PPV) model.
The idea of PPV is exactly the same as selling tickets. You can set a price and ask users to purchase the stream in the same way you ask them to purchase the stadium tickets. Many of the live sports streaming software solutions come inbuilt with the PPV monetization model. You just have to look carefully to find a sports streaming software like StreamNow, which comes inbuilt with PPV and many other monetization channels. PPV is amazingly easy to set up with StreamHash and you can bundle it with others as well, for example, PPV with Ads or PPV with Subscription packages.
The future of live sports streaming is already bright. Check out this infographic to learn more amazing facts about sports streaming as a business that you perhaps didn’t know:
Are you here to know what type of video streaming business to start with?
But where do you start?
With so many options available out there, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed by the possibilities…
While you are jumping through hoops to start a video streaming service…
It’s important to narrow down what exactly you want to streamline and achieve.
And it’s really not about finding the cheapest source or best platform in the market. It’s all about choosing the right platform that possesses the greatest number of attributes that could benefit you or your business.
Here at StreamHash, over the years we’ve witnessed all the video streaming business models that cite the benefits of reaching the broad audience worldwide and generating revenue.
And based on our keen research and analysis we have made a product for video streaming and live streaming businesses…
This blog outlines you a comparison chart of the video streaming product and its features to help you out choose the best for your business requirement.
Our product helps businesses bridge the gap between offline and online when it comes to Video Streaming (Live and On-Demand) by providing an end-to-end video streaming platform in one-time investment.
Now try to identify for yourself which product and associated features are most necessary for your streaming goals. What are the non-negotiables? On which features could you compromise?
If you’re already a customer of one of the video streaming platforms, why did you choose it? Are you satisfied with the services you’ve received so far?
The answer to the above question will bring your brand a unique identity and thus stand out from the crowd…
So if you are thinking about venturing into on-demand or Live Streaming anytime soon, our comparison chart can help you get some sense into the way forward.
However, it’s quite difficult to keep up with every detail as an aspiring entrepreneur you might come with something different sight… In that case, send us an email or leave us a comment below and we’ll get it fixed!
