Are you looking for the best ways to boost your business? Do you want to take advantage of the latest and greatest to stay ahead of the curve? Then you should really plan and map out an OTT programming strategy. But what is OTT? And how can you ensure your strategy gets the results you want for your business? Read on below to find out what an OTT programming strategy is, and five ways that you can best implement it.
What Is OTT?
OTT is an acronym that stands for over-the-top. If you’ve never heard of this before, don’t worry. It’s a newer term, created for the current media. Specifically, it refers to the switch from cable to streaming services.
OTT doesn’t mean over-the-top in a too-big or too-bold way. Instead, OTT refers to a streaming service that delivers content via the internet. It gets its name because the streaming service is over the top of another platform.
Since the way people consume media has significantly changed over the past decade, the methods of advertising must as well. That’s why, in order to keep up with the times, you should consider implementing an OTT programming strategy. The popularity of streaming, and “cutting the cord” with cable, is only increasing more and more. There is a lot of growth potential in the OTT field, and getting on that train now could really pay off in the future.
You can find a more in-depth explanation of OTT here. Here are five expert tips to create the most successful OTT programming strategy:
1. Make Sure You Stand Out
The first step of an OTT programming strategy is to figure out the mission statement of your specific business. You also have to make sure it isn’t too similar to other offerings.
Often, too many options for the same thing means your business could get lost in the shuffle. Since streaming is constantly expanding, the market will continue to be extremely competitive. That’s why it’s incredibly important to favor ideas and strategies that are unique and eye-catching.
One of the advantages of the move to streaming is that there’s room for more niche offerings, as long as there’s an audience for that niche, of course.
2. Understand Your Audience and Their Preferences
Part of a successful OTT programming strategy requires finding, nurturing, and understanding a core audience. To start, this means having ideas for what your intended audience would look like. Once you have that figured out, the next part of the strategy is how to reach them.
In order to best reach your desired audience, you will have to figure out their preferences, habits, locations, and other details. In today’s digital world, understanding your audience needs to go beyond that. You’ll also want to have an idea of their online habits, such as social media usage and likes. After all, social media will be an incredibly important part of your marketing campaign.
One of the advantages of the move to streaming is that a lot more audience data is available to you. This gives you an idea of where, when, and how people will watch your business’s content. For instance, you’ll be able to see what devices they will use to watch your content. Different options include smartphones, laptops, tablets, video game consoles, smart TVs, and so forth. You’ll want to look at how much time they spend on those per day too.
3. Determine Marketing and Promotional Tactics
As with any business, marketing is one of the most important elements of a successful OTT programming strategy. You want to make sure promotions are positioned effectively to reach the intended audience.
This is one reason why it’s so helpful to create an OTT programming strategy with a marketing group and, more specifically, a group that specializes in digital marketing. These types of marketing groups can implement the most state-of-the-art tactics to reach your intended audience. They’ll also be experts on how to best use social media.
Social media is an incredibly effective tool, but email marketing is also an ideal way to reach and communicate with your audience. As you build up your consumer base, create an email list. The most successful streaming services, like Netflix, regularly send out email newsletters.
4. Remain in Contact With Your Consumer Base
Once you have an audience, you’ll also want to keep them around. If consumers don’t think they’re being treated like a priority, they won’t be sticking around. Make sure to include extras and incentives to communicate your gratitude. This can include loyalty rewards, special customer discounts, and personalized recommendations.
Also, make sure to listen to your audience’s feedback. That way, you can remain confident that they’re getting the content from your business that they want. This is also a way to stay abreast of any issues, and it will highlight what areas are doing well.
5. Evaluate and Make Changes as Needed
A successful OTT programming strategy won’t end after you launch. You’ll want to measure your initial success and continue to take stock of things from time to time.
Even if you reach your initial goals, you have to keep going. For instance, if you reach your intended initial audience, that’s great! However, in order to survive in a competitive market, you’ll need to keep growing your audience. That means continuing to strategize on how to make your marketing and promotions reach more people.
A major part of keeping the success going is to regularly evaluate what is and is not working. Then, once you have these insights, you can figure out what steps to take. After doing so, you can reevaluate to see if the issues were effectively addressed.
For the best results, you should discuss an OTT programming strategy with a professional marketing group. These groups make it a mission to always stay on top of the world of streaming and all the latest media trends. This up-to-date insight, in addition to their overall expertise and experience, means the results could be greater than you even dreamed, and you can trust that they’ll be able to pair this media expertise with your business’s unique elements, wants, and needs.
Talk to an expert at InnoVision Marketing Group. You can find more information about OTT programming on the InnoVision website.
