OTT platforms became more important than ever during the Covid-19 pandemic when people were stuck at home, faced with a lack of options to entertain themselves. As no new content was being produced for televisions because of a global lockdown, people turned to OTT platforms, where there was no dearth of content to pass the gloomy and depressing days, and maybe even escape reality in the wake of what was happening.
This shift was not temporary though. People got so hooked to these platforms that they're here to stay. According to Statista, worldwide OTT revenue will rise to $83.4 billion by the end of 2022.
5 Vital OTT Platform Features
If you are to compete with the multitude of OTT platforms out there, it's vital that your platform have the following features.
1. User Friendly
For any product to succeed, it must resonate with the users. And if it's a tech product, it won't pick up until it's extremely easy to use, even for your non-tech savvy users. Your OTT app must have a user-friendly interface for it to be easily adopted by target users from all age groups. If users have to struggle to find content on your platform, they're bound to switch to more user-friendly platforms as the switching cost is extremely low.
2. Monetization Potential
Why would you spend your time, energy, and money on building a platform that fetches you no returns? Your platform needs to earn you money. And for that, you have to build in monetization capabilities- like a subscription service, or a freemium model, etc. You could take inspiration from platforms like Youtube that make use of multiple monetization methods, instead of putting all your eggs in one basket.
3. Data Analytics
Building a platform without data analytics is like shooting in the dark. You keep on implementing, without knowing whether it works. You may be spending tons of money on developing features that may not even be used by your visitors and ignoring features that could actually help your business grow. With proper data analytics in place, you can monitor how your users behave on your platform and measure the impact of every implementation you undertake.
4. Live Stream capabilities
With the popularity of live videos, your platform will really benefit from having this feature in place. The youth today is always looking to be updated on what's happening in real-time and live videos are their go-to source. Once the pandemic ends, there'll be events happening across the globe and you could use live streaming to your advantage, to draw in a greater number of subscribers to your OTT platform.
5. Round The Clock Customer Support
You can stay one step ahead in the game by having a customer support team in place, to handle all sorts of queries, technical and non-technical. Despite your best effort, there might be certain areas that encounter glitches or are not easy to navigate through. Your customer support team can really come in handy at such times to help distressed users.
How Can I Build These Features?
If you're looking for help with building an OTT platform that supports all the above features, and then some more, MAZ offers to you the best solution with absolutely no coding experience required. Its easy-to-implement solution enables you to build your very own OTT platform with minimum effort and maximum returns.
While MAZ can help you with the technical features, you'll need to put in some amount of work for non-technical requirements such as assembling a customer support team. But when you have so much of your bandwidth freed up, with the technicalities taken care of, what's the worry right?