The digital age has made it imperative for entrepreneurs and marketers to brainstorm new ways to reach their customers. While social media marketing and content marketing continue to rule the roost, OTT or over-the-top apps are becoming increasingly effective as customer acquisition tools. In fact, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and other such apps are fast replacing traditional TV channels.
It isn’t surprising considering that roughly 80% of consumers in the U.S. report that they’ve subscribed to a video streaming service. Also, the number of SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) subscriptions in the US is projected to skyrocket to 307 million by 2025.
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Image via Deloitte
So, if you’ve been contemplating launching an OTT app for your business, it’s high time you take the plunge. However, building and deploying an OTT app is a complicated process. Between developing a business model and outlining a marketing strategy, creating your OTT app requires extensive planning.
Let’s take a look at a few factors you should consider before you start developing your OTT app.
Is An OTT App The Right Choice for Your Business?
Building an OTT app yourself requires a tremendous investment in the form of time, capital, and manpower. You need to first determine whether an OTT app will be useful and relevant to your audience. This involves developing a firm understanding of your industry and target demographic. Typically, OTT apps can help businesses in the following industries:
Who Are Your Target Users?
The next step is to dig deeper into your target audience’s mind and outline distinct user personas. Use LinkedIn and Twitter polls, Instagram AMAs, online surveys, etc. for a better understanding of your audience’s needs and preferences.
Identify the type of content they enjoy consuming and the OTT platforms they’re most likely to use. Also, interact with your existing customer base and determine how your OTT app can provide increased value to them.
What is Your Customer Acquisition Strategy?
You can’t build an OTT app and expect users to find and download it from app stores. Instead, you must outline a concrete strategy to promote your app, as well as attract and retain customers.
Build a responsive, visually attractive, and user-friendly website to showcase your app and its features. Make sure you optimize it using relevant keywords to improve its SEO and visibility.
Also, develop a cross-platform social media strategy to promote your app and build an audience for it. Consider offering a free trial or discount to tempt your target audience to download the app and become leads.
What is Your Business Model?
Building and maintaining an OTT app is expensive. If you're building an app from scratch, it can cost anywhere between $100,000 and $500,000 depending on whether you recruit in-house developers or outsource the job to a third-party agency. You will need steady flow of revenue to maintain the app and stay ahead of your competitors. Design-first systems like MAZ can reduce development expenses by 75% or more, but expenses related to content licensing, management, and promotion will remain.
That’s why you should outline a business model to monetize your app. Depending on your niche and target users, you can choose different revenue models, such as AVOD (Advertising-Based Video on Demand), SVOD, and TVOD (Transactional Video on Demand).
What is Your Content Strategy?
Next, you must outline the type of content you’re going to publish on your OTT app. Apart from developing a repository of video on demand (VOD), you can also host live streams. The key is to assess your audience’s preferences and choose themes and formats that’ll appeal to them.
How Are You Going to Build the App?
Do you have the budget to recruit full-time developers or a third-party agency to create the app? While this approach gives you more creative control, it involves a hefty pocket pinch.
In the absence of adequate resources, you should use a feature-packed platform, such as MAZ, to quickly create and launch your app using high-end tested layouts. Our enterprise-grade platform even lets you choose from different revenue models and marketing tools.
So, get in touch with our team now to get started with your OTT journey.
