Tactics to Grow OTT Subscription Sign-Ups

Having great content is only one piece of the OTT puzzle. While 55% of UK broadband homes are watching OTT video, only 30% have paid subscriptions; in the US, the margin is a lot closer with 70% of homes watching OTT video and 64% of owning a subscription. With the OTT space growing daily and competition getting tougher, it becomes increasingly difficult to capture the attention of your audience, and harder yet to persuade them to become paying subscribers.

Thankfully there are tactics, beyond simply having an enticing catalogue, that the TV industry can embrace to encourage conversions.

Consumer Insight

Collecting and utilizing consumer data is not a new concept, however, leveraging new technology like digital fingerprinting means that we can now improve how audience data is used. With these advancements, organizations can collect data on where consumers are coming from, the route they have taken to the site, the videos they are clicking on, how long they spend on the site, and the links they engage with.

Audience Driven Offers

Once consumer insight has been collected, providers can design and tailor offers and marketing campaigns based on their audience’s interests and habits to entice them to sign up for a subscription. For example, OTT giant Netflix utilizes free month trials as a tool to attract audiences (helping it reach over 81 million members across 190 countries) while another provider may elect to offer something like free access to just 3 sports videos before requiring a subscription. The benefit of offering a free trial is that companies can use the behavioural data collected during that period to target the viewer with more relevant marketing and offers to increase the likelihood that they convert after the trial is over.

Leverage Corporate Partnerships

Although a bit newer in the TV space, publishers have long since embraced corporate partnerships to increase subscriber counts. As an example, The Daily Mail incentivized readers to purchase a 12-month subscription to their MailPlus app by offering a free Kindle Fire with purchase. In the digital space, The Times elected to bundle a subscription for their app with a Spotify subscription, thereby leveraging the strong appeal of the Spotify service (boasting 100 million active users and 20 million paying subscribers to date).

Want to Optimize the Customer Lifecycle?

While getting audiences to sign up and pay for your services is a key, there are of course other areas of the customer lifecycle which service providers need to optimize.

During our webinar, MPP Global’s VP, TV & Entertainment, and Data Scientist share insight on the importance of engaging and managing customers throughout the lifecycle, how to leverage audience insight and how to effectively retain customers and drive revenues.