Video Business Fundamentals: Webinar Recap

By Chris Bassolino on October 02, 2017

Last week, Zype hosted a webinar on video business fundamentals, covering topics like monetization, subscriber retention, and forecasting revenue. Unfortunately, running a successful video business doesn’t stop at just creating content, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to pursue your passion. Presenting, we had in-house business experts, Cal Hamilton, Senior Director of Customer Success and Dan Manco, Senior Director of Product Marketing.

Watch the full webinar here.

Zype University

Zype University is a self-guided, educational program that helps you build and scale your video business. Over the past couple of years, Zype has helped countless video businesses figure out what works, and what doesn’t. We’ve identified approaches that are critical to OTT success and making money. Unfortunately, these approaches are too often missing, which is why they have become Zype U’s core curriculum — marketing & promotion, contenteing money. Explore the different courses on Zype University here.

Let’s Talk Monetization

The three main monetization models are Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD), Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD) and Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD). You see these models implemented everywhere; YouTube uses AVOD, Netflix uses SVOD and iTunes uses TVOD.

How should YOU choose a monetization model? Well, it really depends on your content and audience. When making an educated decision to monetize your video content, pay attention to publishing frequency, duration of videos, content focus, audience size, and loyalty.

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However, there are absolutely challenges to each monetization model, which begs the question: can you rely on a single model? The hybrid model uses multiple revenue models at once but is tailored to the particulars of the business. Though it’s absolutely possible to make a significant amount of money using only one model, the hybrid approach maximizes your content’s full revenue potential. We also delved into some real-world examples of video businesses that use the hybrid model, including Rooster Teeth & StarTalk Radio.

Pause: Poll Time

During the webinar, we asked attendees a couple of questions. Before going over different monetization models, we asked...

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After going over the monetization models, we asked...

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There was about a 10% increase in those that believe they should use the hybrid model, while no one selected TVOD.

Getting Started with OTT: SVOD

Zype has worked with many video businesses who started out with AVOD and TVOD, but ended up being discouraged by the amount of time it took to generate significant revenue. Though it’s absolutely possible to be successful starting out with TVOD and AVOD, the majority of early-stage content creators/ owners see the most success with SVOD because of recurring revenue.

When getting started with SVOD, it’s critical to consider your product, technology, marketing strategy, and operations.

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Of course, just like running any business, it’s not easy. However, there are clear strategies and best practices you can take to maximize revenue.

Forecasting your SVOD Revenue

Speaking of revenue, we saw a clear need for the ability to forecast revenue. During the webinar, Cal, our data and spreadsheet master walked us through the SVOD forecast tool. Stay tuned for a step by step blog post that’ll walk you through this powerful tool. In the meantime, be sure to read the intro to the forecast tool, and follow along during the webinar recording.

Tactics for Subscriber Retention

But, what if your customers are leaving as quickly as they’re signing up? It’s absolutely crucial that you focus on subscriber retention. To keep subscribers engaged, you should deliver a great viewer experience, communicate with them, keep content fresh and interesting, consider launching a referral program, offer exclusive content and be responsive with customer support.

Q+A

As always, the webinar wrapped up with a Q+A. If you want to gain valuable insight from the questions answered on air, be sure to watch the webinar recording. After this webinar, we hope that you have a better idea of how to take your video business to the next level.

If you have any more questions- be sure to shoot Cal an email at cal@zype.com or Dan an email at dan@zype.com.

Connect your video with viewers, everywhere.