When people go online, one of the activities they spend a lot of time on is watching videos. In the US, 50% of internet users watch online video content every day. Meanwhile, those in Saudi Arabia and Turkey lead the pack in online video consumption, with 64% of respondents from each country saying that they watch video content daily. And according to Statista, YouTube is one of the most popular free sites while Netflix is way ahead of Hulu and Amazon Prime Video for SVoD.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey have 64% of respondents saying they watch online videos daily while the share for the US is only 50%.

You may wonder what makes these online video platforms tick. It could be their content library, their accessibility, the openness of their communities, or something else. 

But there are some fundamental things that attract people to these sites, especially to SVoD ones. We listed a few below to help you launch your own successful video streaming platform

 

1. A clear-cut and varied subscription model

When video streaming was still at its infancy, people turned to the only choice available. But now, there are many companies battling for the attention of video consumers. However, it is not just about the content library that users consider when choosing a video streaming platform to sign up with–they are increasingly becoming concerned about the price, too. 

That is because not everyone watches movies and series every day, so users are looking for flexible subscription models, such as pay-per-view, daily, weekly, per-series, or per-series season.
You can take advantage of this growing need for flexible subscription tiers in your own online video platform. There is now video streaming software that enables you to create unique consumption and payment modes so that you can attract more users. This way, you can have leverage over your competition when it comes to pricing.

 

2. A gifting option

Did you know that in the 2018 Deloitte holiday retail survey, the researchers found that people are most likely to purchase gift cards or gift certificates for other people (52%)? Unfortunately, over $1 billion of gift cards remain unspent every year, as MarketWatch disclosed. That is because it is most likely that recipients do not even like the gift certificate they received.

The Deloitte 2018 Holiday Survey shows that 54% of shoppers plan to buy gift cards or gift certificates for others.

However, most people still consume video, and a subscription to your platform is likely to be appreciated by anyone, especially if you have varied content that attracts different types of consumers. With a gifting option, you can make it convenient for your audience to tick off their holiday shopping checklist.

 

 

3. A marketing toolbox

Your video streaming service will not take off unless you have viewers signed up. It is also unlikely to stay afloat unless you get more subscribers who can raise your profits. That is why it is imperative that you have a marketing toolbox that contains the necessary features that can help you find, attract, and retain subscribers. 

Fortunately, there are social media management tools for small business that you can count on. These can assist you in sharing information about your platform on various social media sites as well as engage with your target audience at the right time. You can also count on automated marketing features to find prospective subscribers on social networks and drive them to your platform. 

But if you are not keen on having multiple software or tools for marketing, the best live streaming software or video content serving solution would have adequate tools that can help you reach your marketing objectives.

 

4. An organized video library

Imagine that you are a person trying to learn about common binary trading mistakes. Imagine also that you are doing this on a video streaming site whose library is not the most organized, thus leading you to become frustrated and to abandon the platform.

It is not a pretty picture and it can lose you members of the audience who may be avid video consumers, for good. To prevent that from happening to you, you need to build an organized video library. This means creating categories, tagging videos, and arranging them in a way that would make sense to your viewers. 

By putting effort on this kind of thing, you can allow your users to find the content they need in a little amount of time. This would lead them to appreciate your search function and your library overall. As a result, you can look forward to retaining your loyal users.  


 

5. An AI-powered recommendations engine

Back in 2006, Netflix set up a program to find machine learning professionals who could improve its recommendations engine. One team created a solution that was better by 10%. It may not sound much but it was enough for the streaming giant to offer the grand prize to them. In fact, in 2017, MarTech Today reported that most of what users watch on the platform are based on personalized recommendations. This has led to them inducing subscribers to stay and to retain them for a long time. 

You can take a cue from the popular video streaming platform and augment your own recommendations engine. This would enable users to find content that is close to their likes so you could keep them engaged. What’s more, if you have a self-improving system, you could continue satisfying the content needs of your audience. 

 

6. A Picture in Picture feature

Have you experienced watching a video and have it interrupted because you needed to browse something or do another task? This is most common on mobile and it can be an annoyance to viewers. 

You can resolve this issue with ease though by implementing a Picture In Picture capability. This creates a hovering player that users can position anywhere on the screen so they can keep on watching the video while they are browsing your library, search results, settings, and other areas of an app. 

This way, they do not have to interrupt their streaming while searching for the next thing to watch. 

 

7. A reliable video streaming solution

The most critical thing in creating a video streaming platform that can attract a large audience is a reliable solution. This means that you need a partner who can provide a strong infrastructure that can support your needs and those of your end-users. This is similar to offering a great video conferencing platform–you need to have a stable infrastructure that can allow coherent communications even when the internet connection is not the best. 

To that end, you have to consider the video encoding options available, the capacity of the Content Delivery Network, and the security of your and your customer’s data. With these things in place, you can be confident that you can deliver high-quality content at a fast speed to your customers wherever they are in the world, regardless of the device they are using. 

 

Effective video delivery and audience retention

We mentioned that personalized recommendations are important in keeping your audience engaged. Among many other things, this is one aspect you have to keep in mind when configuring your online video streaming platform. But this is not something you pay attention to only once and forget. You have to continue refining it to ensure that you keep providing quality recommendations to people and also to augment it using user insights and the latest technologies. 

From there, you can work on your marketing approaches using in-built or external tools that let you draw in more audience to your platform. This way, your platform can keep on earning. 

Do you look for a video streaming solution? Let’s talk : hello@okast.tv


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