The Big question - How to create and keep new subscribers?

Below are some guiding principles I have highlighted to various clients as they wish to drive scale and incremental growth to their unique OTT service:

1. BUILD A REWARDING USER EXPERIENCE (UX).

Based on relevance and a degree of personalisation- Search and Discovery Engines drive both end user experience and business growth by aiding acquisition and retention.

Meet new standard in UX set by established incumbents:

Convenience and instant gratification.

Seamless use of an app.

Showcasing the most relevant content- finding relevant content is paramount in increasing subscriber acquisition, building loyalty and consumer engagement.

Visual, immersive, easy navigation for all ages, accessible on any device and available in all main languages.

2. GO BEYOND THE ALGORITHM

Deep consumer insight through existing users via ‘Big Data’ analysis.

Create insight into new target clusters as opposed to current subscribers usage.

Developing the need for off platform targeting of new clusters to build new business growth.

Need to discover new genres, new categories of content that go beyond user’s recent viewing history. Build an editorialisation strategy to aid broadening horizons beyond current portfolio of viewing.

Create discovery via dynamic content promotion so that fresh new content is at the top of any search result, followed by other ranking content based on views and what is trending.

Aim is for the platform to shine the light of the array, depth and richness of the content catalogue for the user.

3. BUILD AN ENHANCED CONTENT STRATEGY

Need for Strategic Planning for Original Programming & building Tent Pole Events

Original content is paramount in driving both retention and subscriber growth both during growth phase and targeting taste clusters at market maturity phase.

Greater future need to map out content at key periods of the business year to boost demand and new acquisition or to ring-fence subscribers via retention activities.

Editorial Strategy- Create multiple editorial strategies using both automated and strategic selection:

(Allow editorial teams to create curated lists, themes, freely editing and maintaining them- Trending Now, Popular Today, New Releases, Our Choice).

Programming of key series is a tactical weapon

- use it wisely and differently.

Develop a variety of Content Release Strategies

Binge Viewing is what viewers ultimately want and have been accustomed to date but holding back key titles and releasing them say weekly or in batched episodes may well aid retention as it creates longevity and stickiness (especially in early stages of growth when the catalogue is content light).

With the volume of shows available watching say 3 episodes each week of your show of choice maybe more palatable as viewing time will become limited as we explore and enjoy various dedicated services.

Greater consumer understanding of each platform release strategies

Need for use of new ‘on platform’ promotion of new series to better communicate what date they drop each week or month- maximise return-on-investment of new content to better aid retention and acquisition.

Building Streaming Brand Awareness

As traditional media businesses turn to D2C- They are albeit slowly reclaiming back their own licensed studio content. The short term opportunity cost of loss in licensed revenue is outweighed by key brand driver content being solely on the platform long term, thus reducing established OTT services range and longevity of content. As a result incumbents are forced to acquire lesser quality and lower volume titles or forced to create.

There will be a greater need to attribute ‘own content’ to the platform as opposed to a competing platform.

Maximise Content Marketing via differentiating promotional activities for different types of content.

Be more ‘Experiential’

Programming of Series needs to become more experiential via Fan engagement - recreating the water cooler moment!

Create super-fan live communities enabling viewer collectives to interface with like minded fans a milli-second after your favourite mouth watering series has finished so they can discuss and mull over the action.

Build out E-commerce opportunities to build a content property’s via retail consumer products.

4. BUILD A CORE SERVICE WHICH IS MORE THAN ATTRACTING SUBSCRIBERS

Gathering and mining data on your consumer’s usage- enabling informed decision making to be made on what video content to produce and what merchandise to sell.

Attracting talent – Use data to prioritise Writers, Showrunners, Actors via exclusive partnerships and distribution deals to create and build out original content into returning hit franchises and monetise the IP.

5. CREATE ADDED VALUE FOR THE SUBSCRIBER

House your service as part of super aggregator (Roku, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+) with unbundled content & bundled streaming offerings at price sensitive points.

Combining the above strategies and tactical activities will aid business growth and achieve performance indicators:

Improve returning customer rate and enhance click through rate to usage and increasing overall video views.

Enable discovery of new exclusive and original content.

Drive engagement, creating loyalty via improved search and discovery.

If you wish for deeper thinking, and insight to aid your own business, please do get in touch:

Email: DavidBooth@dbb12mediaconsultants.com

David Booth |Global Media Executive driving business growth across OTT, Digital Media & Linear.