Never has the value of OTT apps been more realized than during the coronavirus pandemic. With an increase in the number of millennial cord-cutters, OTT provided light when things were plunging into darkness during the global disaster. Mental health issues were on the rise and OTT offered relief from the ample free time that was pushing people into overthinking.
Independent publishers have always tried to follow the trend to establish their place in the market. As soon as the digital world became big enough to compete with print media, new trends emerged to establish a competitive advantage, and video streaming grabbed the most attention globally.
How Independent Publishers Adopted the Growing Video Trend
In keeping abreast of where the digital world was heading, publishers began to look for monetization opportunities. More money would come from more audiences, a large chunk of which now come from streaming services.
But how did streaming services become so popular? As of today, 4.66 billion people in the world use the internet. Traditional TVs have now been replaced by smart TVs, and content viewing on devices such as tablets and other mobile devices has been made possible, making it easier for viewers to consume content from wherever they want, whenever they want.
Did publishers intend to monetize through OTT streaming services? No, not initially. Video content used to be a supplementary offering, in the hope of driving more traffic to the publishers' written content. What ended up happening in the process was that video content gained more popularity, proving to be a more engaging medium of conveying information.
Why Are OTT Streaming Apps the Perfect Platform for Independent Publishers?
Below are three reasons why OTT streaming services are perfect for publishers.
1. Advertising revenue
Emarketer has predicted OTT advertising spends to hit $14.6 billion in the US, as over 50% of adults use at least one OTT service. By showcasing your content on these platforms, you can hyper-target your audience by leveraging the power of online user information available and show relevant ads, resulting in a better user experience and higher CPMs from your advertiser.
2. Lowering Churn Rates
Vindicia has reported that the churn rates for OTT platforms are on the decline, thus increase a customer's lifetime value. Data-based content creation and recommendations are keeping viewers loyal and away from competitors.
3. Customer Lock-ins With Subscription Models
Knowing that you have recurring revenue coming in this month, irrespective of whether or not you'll be able to meet your revenue targets, allows publishers to sustain in the long run, and also plan for the future. By offering their content on OTT apps, publishers can create a pool of subscribers from whom they will receive money until the end of their term, whether or not they get new subscribers in the meantime, ensuring a constant inflow of working capital.
OTT Streaming Apps Are the Future
OTT platforms are increasingly investing in machine learning and AI to understand their users better and gain a competitive advantage. By being able to recommend the right videos to users and deploying video streaming analytics, they're attracting more consumers than ever.
A smart publisher will be able to leverage this technology and the programmatic advertising world and match the right advertiser to the right viewer, personalizing and enhancing user-experience, while being able to make money from them at the same time.
MAZ offers easy-to-manage OTT solutions that are ideal for independent publishers. Are you ready to take your content distribution to the next level?
