Converting Leads into Loyal Subscribers: Part Two
In part one we looked at optimizing the marketing conversion funnel and user journey to turn new leads into loyal subscribers. This week we dive deeper and take a closer look at the digital ecosystem and ideal channel mix for marketing a new OTT service.
The digital ecosystem gives an overview of the channels you should be utilizing pre, during and post launch. The channels outlined work together to build brand awareness, user interest, drive action and improve retention rates.
The Digital Ecosystem
Your website homepage and the OTT service itself are central to your digital ecosystem as all channels feed into them. They are the area on your funnel and user flow where potential customers take action – whether that’s submitting their email for future comms or subscribing to the service.
To break it down, there are two channel categories in your digital ecosystem that help drive leads and convert them into subscribers – the first being acquisition channels and the second, retention channels. Some channels, like social for example, can and do fall into both categories but play different roles depending on where the customer is in the user journey (as outlined in last week’s blog post).
Acquisition Channels
Your acquisition channels essentially help build customer awareness and interest. Acquisition channels for new OTT service entrants should include:
- PR
Work with an external agency or build your own PR strategy pre-launch. To get the word out, you’ll need to build relations with publications that your target audience is likely to relate to, solidify your key message and create an exciting press release for launch.
- Social (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
Identify which social channels are most commonly used by your target audience. You don’t need to be on all social networking sites. It’s better to have fewer pages on a handful of sites that are active and engaging than a lot of neglected pages everywhere.
- Paid SEM
Put a budget in place for online advertising and stick to it. Paid ads can help boost awareness and enable you to stand out in a crowded market. Research your competitors, identify your keywords and experiment with ad copy and A/B testing.
- Organic SEO
Search engine optimization is essential and will help drive organic traffic to your website and service. Identify your keywords and phrases and use them in the copy on your webpage and within the service. Content metadata that is SEO optimized is a great way to boost traffic – for example, potential customers could find you simply by searching online for a particular TV show or movie.
Retention Channels
Your retention channels keep customers interested and engaged before and most importantly after they have taken action and subscribed to your service.
Create an email comms strategy that includes, welcome emails, onboarding emails, and even weekly or monthly newsletters. It’s important to keep subscribers engaged, and emails are a great way to promote new content, offers and inform them on service updates or new features.
- Social
Your social channels are as important for retention as they are for acquisition. Build a trusted online community for your users where you can keep them up-to-date on new content releases and service features. Your customer service team can also play an active role here and use social channels to communicate directly with customers.
- Overlays and Push Messages
Overlays are a fantastic way to promote new content, offers, and discounts in your service, and even encourage visitors on your website to sign up to a newsletter. Push messages are useful if you want to send direct messages to users to remind them to open the app if you have new content available for example.
Check out last week’s post where we looked at the conversion funnel and ideal user journey here. You can also read more on reducing churn rates.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Want more advice and support on converting your leads into loyal subscribers? Get in touch with the Magine Pro team and find out how we can help. You can also learn more about our branded OTT solutions and services here.
Converting Leads into Loyal Subscribers: Part One
Loyal subscribers don’t tend to form long virtual queues on the day a new OTT service is launched. A well-executed pre-launch marketing plan may drive a lot of traffic but there’s no guarantee those that show up will sign up and stick around.
Converting potential customers into paying subscribers requires pre-planning and a good marketing strategy. To be successful, you need to optimize your conversion funnel and user journey. Conversion funnels apply to all online sales-focused businesses and outline the journey a potential customer will take before they commit to purchase. In it’s simplest form, the conversion funnel has four main steps that we’ve outlined below.
Awareness
The first stage is all about building awareness around your brand and service. At this point, the funnel is broad because although a large volume of people may become aware of your service through marketing, they may not be interested in going further and finding out more.
In order to successfully build awareness that leads to subscribers, focus your digital marketing efforts on a defined target audience. Use social media to reach out and spread awareness, run targeted paid ads online and ensure you’re website and service is SEO optimized to improve organic reach.
Interest
At this stage, only those who are aware and interested will look for more information and effectively enter the funnel. This may be reflected in increased click-through rates on your paid ads or even a boost in organic SEO-lead traffic.
The trick here is to keep interested visitors engaged. You need to give them a better understanding of what your service includes and the value it provides. Offering promotions or discounts on your website in exchange for visitor emails is a great way to keep them moving through the funnel. Once you have their email address, you’ll be able to send more helpful info and reminders to them later.
Desire
The funnel will shrink further because not all those who showed interest will actually want the service after they learn more. This stage is predominantly influenced by the service itself and in particular what content is available and whether it appeals to them. It is here that you need to show potential customers why they need your service – what are you offering that others on the market aren’t? Or, what is it you do better?
Ramp up your marketing efforts here and retarget those who have visited your website or service but not committed to subscribe just yet.
Action
This is the smallest part of the funnel as only a small percentage of the original leads will want to take action and subscribe. It’s important at this stage that the process to do so is simple and straightforward to minimize bounce.
Even after customers have taken action you need to stay active to reduce churn. Automated onboarding emails are a great way to introduce customers to your service and remind them to come back regularly to watch new content. You can also use your social channels as a tool to keep them engaged and up-to-date on new features, content or promotions.
The funnel above gives a great overview but mapping out a detailed user flow will ensure your strategy is tight and easy to follow. It also gives you an opportunity to outline what channels you want to utilize, alongside customer comms that need to be in place pre, during and post launch. Here’s an overview of a typical user flow, which also includes the retention stage you’ll need to consider after action.
In part two we look more closely at the digital ecosystem and the ideal channel mix for marketing a new service. You can also check out our post on 5 ways to reduce your OTT subscription churn rate.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Want more advice and support on converting leads into loyal subscribers? Get in touch with the Magine Pro team and find out how we can help. You can also learn more about our branded OTT solutions and services here.
5 ways to reduce your OTT subscription churn rate
It’s much harder (and more expensive for that matter) to attract new subscribers than it is to keep the ones you already have. It’s a competitive landscape, and with so many OTT services offering low entry barriers and free trials, it’s much harder to encourage users that switch from service to service to stick around and stay loyal. Without a doubt, you’ll need a solid strategy to keep your users engaged and successfully reduce churn. To help you get started, we’ve outlined 5 of the best ways to reduce churn and build a positive user experience to boot.
1. Keep things fresh
Regularly adding new content to your service is a great way to ensure your users return and remain engaged. Give them a reason to stay active and even recommend the service to a friend by adding new content every week or month. You can also try changing the content that’s displayed on the start page – hero existing content that your users may not have seen yet. Even regularly updating the content artwork can help make your service feel new and fresh to users.
2. Maintain a buzz
Don’t expect your subscribers to stick around after they’ve signed up, you still have work to do. Continue to reach out to your users via email and on social channels to let them know what’s available to watch or what’s coming soon. Build and maintain the buzz around your service to keep users engaged and active.
3. Give back
Let your subscribers know you care and increase value by offering loyalty based subscription discounts or surprise download giveaways. You can even promote bonus offers for those who recommend your service to their friends.
4. Re-engage inactive users
Don’t let subscribers slip away, entice inactive users back to your service with targetted marketing and promotions. You can do the same for those who have recently canceled their subscription; remind them you exist, what they’re missing and make it easy to get back on board!
5. Keep up appearances
It’s important to maintain your OTT service. You don’t need to offer the latest features but it should be easy for users to manage their accounts and payments. A user-friendly interface is essential and video streaming should always be seamless.
_______________________________________________________________________
Want more advice and support on reducing churn rates? Get in touch with the Magine Pro team and find out how we can help.
IBC 2018: The OTT Takeover Looms
The idea that OTT will eventually eclipse traditional delivery methods is nothing new, but after seeing some of the latest developments at IBC this year the cord cutting revolution may soon be complete! The industry is evolving rapidly and new tech developments have built new momentum. It’s certainly an exciting time to be apart of the industry and we’re eager to see what the year ahead has in store.
IBC has been considered the annual go to industry event since 1994, and is the leading exhibition and conference for media, entertainment, and technology. The event attracts professionals from around the world involved in content creation, management, and delivery. Here at Magine Pro, integral team members have been attending IBC for over 15 years and since launching Magine Pro in 2016 we’ve exhibited in hall 14.
On reflection of this year’s event, IBC 2018 gave a much better insight into the future of media streaming than we’ve seen before. In particular, how media streaming is evolving and what direction it may take in future. The Content Everywhere hall 14 was packed with vendors presenting much more commercially efficient streaming solutions. There was also an emphasis on diversifying of CDN and meta clouds – something we’ve expected for some time but they’re finally looking like real and viable alternatives.
There also appeared to be more solutions that can efficiently handle ingestion of large-scale broadcasts. Both AWS and Google showcased new products for this. The actual transition of legacy TV distribution is finally about to take place, or so it seems.
AWS, in particular, demonstrated new services that address the bottleneck issues for live streaming, namely how to ingest traditionally aired linear broadcasts in an optimized and more efficient way. And since it’s AWS, these services are already fully integrated into their ecosystem, allowing their existing partners to take advantage of them in existing deployments. For Magine Pro, it means we’re able to offer more efficient ingest services to our clients through the Magine Platform AWS environment.
Google and AWS are certainly eating their way into the IBC halls as both had much larger booths than in previous years. A sign of what’s to come no doubt and where the most interesting development will take place; the transition to the cloud – next years outspoken mantra.
Facebook was also present in the Content Everywhere hall this year but didn’t have as big a presence as we anticipated. They surprisingly seemed like a much smaller video tech entrant compared to the likes of Google and Amazon – now the video and media behemoths of IBC.
We found the speaking and panel session agenda at the Content Hub was particularly well balanced this year though with engaging topics and debates regarding the state of the industry and its future. Our Head of Commercial Operations, Fredrik Engdahl also took part in one of the sessions, ‘Telco TV: The Convergence of Broadcast and Telecoms’. If you missed it, you can catch up here.
We also showcased our branded OTT solutions and services for live, linear TV and VOD content on our stand in hall 14 . If you didn’t get a chance to stop by, you can find out more about our products here or download our latest white paper. Get in touch if you would like to learn more or try a demo.
We’ll be heading to Cannes for MIPCOM this month. If you’re attending and would like to meet with a member of the Magine Pro team, get in touch!
As for IBC, we’ll see you next year!
Telco TV: The Convergence of Broadcast and Telecoms
This week, we attended IBC in Amsterdam. IBC is one of the world’s most influential media, entertainment, and technology shows. The annual exhibition and conference brings together industry leaders from around the world to discover the latest innovation in technology and debate the current challenges and opportunities facing the electronic media and entertainment industry.
During IBC, Magine Pro’s Head of Commercial Operations, Fredrik Engdahl took part in the panel debate, ‘Telco TV: The Convergence of Broadcast and Telecoms’. If you missed the session on Monday at the Content Hub, don’t worry you can catch up below.
Fredrik presents his views on the current state of the industry and specifically how telcos can successfully move into the OTT market by either vertical integration or through partnerships. The panelists also debate the future of telcos in OTT and how through partnerships they can leverage each other’s strengths to provide the best customer experiences.
You can watch the session in full below.
You can also check out Fredrik’s latest blog post ‘Operators and OTT, live together in perfect harmony’ where he discusses the issue in more depth.
Meet Magine Pro at IBC 2018
IBC 2018 is next week in Amsterdam, so there’s no better time to map out your schedule for the event!
IBC is the world’s most influential media, entertainment, and technology show. Its peer-reviewed technology conference remains the place to launch the most important new thinking and is matched with a comprehensive exhibition which brings together close to 1,600 exhibitors, each showcasing the state of the art in technology.
If you’re attending IBC and would like to showcase your content on a proof-of-concept OTT service at your meetings, get in touch! Our Pioneer OTT solution is the perfect solution and is so quick and easy to set up, no tech experts are needed! You can tailor the service to your brand and include up to 100 hours of VOD content or one linear SD channel. Find out more here.
This year, we’ll be exhibiting in Hall 14, stand C25. Come grab a coffee and meet the Magine Pro team. You can find out more about our OTT solutions and services and see a live demo of the Magine Pro Console, our web-based management tool that enables you to independently curate and manage your own OTT services. You can also find out more about our experience and pick up a copy of our latest white paper on the stand. Book a meeting with the team today!
And make sure you don’t miss Fredrik Engdahl, Head of Commercial Operations at Magine Pro, take part in the ‘Telco TV: the convergence of broadcast and telecoms’ panel session at the IBC Content Hub. Add Monday 17th, 3:30pm to your calendar now!
________________________________________________________________________
You can book a meeting with the Magine Pro team at IBC here and find out more about our proven OTT solutions and services.
How to build a profitable OTT business
As the OTT market has grown considerably in recent years, new market entrants face fierce competition. But you don’t have to square up to the likes of Netflix or Amazon Prime to get a good piece of the proverbial pie. At Magine Pro, we believe there’s still plenty of room in this growing market for new services to set themselves apart from the mainstream competition.
In our latest white paper, we look into the opportunities for new market entrants who want to independently monetize their live, linear and/or VOD content. Download it today and find out why we think niche services that appeal to particular audience interests are the way forward. We also outline the best types of content for OTT, monetization models that make the most sense, as well as, global distribution and how Magine Pro can help you get your OTT business off the ground!
Within the white paper, you’ll also find out more about Magine Pro’s OTT solutions and services, including our VOD encoding and quality assurance capabilities and our Pioneer and Premium OTT products. Hit the link below to download now and get in touch with us to discuss how we can help you. Alternatively, book a meeting and meet the team at IBC this September in Amsterdam and demo our services for yourself on stand 14.C25.
Download white paper
Q&A with Head of Commercial Operations Fredrik Engdahl
In this Q&A, Fredrik Engdahl who is Head of Commercial Operations at Magine Pro discusses the current state of the OTT industry, as well as the challenges and key opportunities for those looking to launch a new service.
What are the key opportunities for your customers in the current market environment?
The OTT market is showing tremendous growth, making it an extremely interesting time for new entrants and those already within the industry. We are now starting to see consumers subscribing to three or more OTT services, and although they are the smallest, they are also one of the fastest-growing segments in the market. At Magine, we believe it’s a great opportunity for our clients to grab the number three or even four spot next to the OTT streaming incumbents such as Netflix, HBO, and Hulu.
In recent years, the viewer’s appetite to consume new types of independently produced content has also increased. And we’ve seen content production costs and content sourcing becoming less of a barrier for those looking to launch their own OTT service. We’re really seeing a democratizing of content distribution in the OTT market, and hopefully, we will see this trend accelerate in future.
What are the major technology drivers for the business going forward?
The foundations for global growth in OTT are now falling into place. In fact, we’ve seen increased investment and coverage of fixed and mobile infrastructure. Consumer data buckets are getting bigger and data even cheaper. Expansion of LTE networks and 5G roll-out will further expand the availability of data connections in existing and new markets for OTT streaming. This is particularly important for those considering launching their own OTT service, as consumers are now spending more time watching video content on their mobile devices than ever before. Mobile viewing is one of the biggest growth areas, and we expect to see this continue in the coming years.
Traditionally OTT has proved most popular for linear TV and video-on-demand content. However, the demand to broadcast live events via OTT is on the rise. Previously the required hardware, distribution, and transport of live streams had been complex and unstable. This was a significant barrier for new market entrants as it resulted in negative customer experiences and lacklustre live stream quality. With better delivery methods and new protocols for live streaming being experimented with and rolled out though, more OTT services are able to successfully deliver live to audiences globally at great quality and with little effort.
Another interesting development is the ongoing refinement of server-side dynamic ad insertion technology. Ad-supported OTT services are becoming a more viable alternative for OTT monetization. Services can better monetize their audience through ads with higher CPMs.
What are the biggest challenges new market entrants face along the way?
For our clients, securing content and distribution rights still remain as one of the biggest barriers, even though it has improved somewhat in recent years. It can be challenging to balance the cost of content with marketing alongside operating a sustainable service at a viable consumer price.
At Magine Pro, we leverage our years of experience in the consumer market to support our clients with content acquisition, marketing, and sales. We also put great time and effort into being at the industry forefront in regards to new technology, enabling us to offer the best and most innovative technologies to our clients.
________________________________________________________________________
Meet Fredrik at IBC this September on the Magine stand 14.C25, and find out more about how Magine Pro can help you build and launch a successful OTT service. In the meantime, find out more about Magine Pro OTT solutions and services here.
Data-driven OTT services
The OTT market has grown considerably in recent years. There are more video streaming websites and apps for consumers to choose from than ever before. With so much choice, it’s no surprise that viewers have become more critical of the value and experience an OTT service has to offer. How else are you going to justify staying on and paying another month?
Because of this, service providers can’t afford to sit back and see how things go at the end of every month. By that time, you could have lost a big chunk of your subscriber count. Consumer expectations and demands change quickly, so it’s imperative service providers stay one step ahead. Analytics is key to user retention and even win back, as you’re able to identify what is working and what needs to change.
Data can help to reduce churn and improve the customer experience. It can also identify upsell opportunities and even increase ARPU by enabling players to take concrete actions based on findings from sign up funnels, payment flows, customer journeys, subscriber engagement, and user pain points.
Analytics are at the core of Magine. Data informs every decision we make, from content acquisition for our own consumer services to service updates based on user engagement levels. It even helps us to determine whether to invest in more infrastructure in new markets around the world. The data and learnings generated from our consumer services also ensure the continuous and rapid development of Magine Pro’s partner OTT services.
At Magine Pro, our partners get access to deep data via the Magine Pro Console. With near real-time feedback, they can make informed decisions on content, user behaviour, and monetization. The Console enables them to review service usage and operational analytics as well as build custom KPI dashboards to track users and behaviour. It’s designed to help our partners better understand their audience and most importantly what content is working and where it’s being watched.
To find out more about how analytics informs our services and solutions, get in touch. You can also learn more about our OTT Solutions and the Magine Pro Console here.
Introducing Plejmo by Magine Pro
Magine has operated its own consumer services for over seven years in Germany and Scandinavia. Our journey began back in 2012 when Magine TV, our SVOD linear TV service, was founded and launched in Sweden. In 2015, we expanded into Germany with Magine TV Deutschland, and Plejmo officially joined Magine.
Plejmo was founded in 2002 in Stockholm, Sweden and is the largest movie library in the Nordics market. The TVOD service delivers great movie content to viewers anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Plejmo joined Magine looking to migrate their streaming service and subscribers from their existing OTT platform vendor to Magine Pro’s OTT platform with no downtime or loss of quality experience. Unlike our other B2B partner’s, Plejmo also became part of the Magine family, and to this day continues to operate as one of our two consumer services.
We build OTT services for new business and also work with existing services that want to change their current platform providers like Plejmo and Draken Film. Our B2B solutions and services are based on our in-market consumer products, which means our partners can leverage our experience and technology to streamline their operations and build their own successful OTT business.
You can find out more about Plejmo’s migration over to the Magine Pro platform here. And head over to their website to sign up and start watching great movies.
Here’s a sneak peek at the Plejmo service
