
Do you enjoy accessing your Netflix or Amazon Prime account and searching for the newest popular series or film to watch? As you continue looking for something to watch on an OTT platform, does your food also go cold?
You’re not alone, my buddy, if you answered “yes” to even one of these questions. Each of us contributes to a carefully thought-out and superbly executed customer engagement plan.
In a world where we’ve grown so used to the big players controlling our screens, like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+, now is the critical moment for brands in this sector to prioritize engagement in their OTT platform strategy to propel it forward and start competing with other companies in the market. One of the biggest problems facing OTT businesses these days is customer churn. If a viewer isn’t getting the experience they want from a platform, it’s easy to switch to another one. Hence, OTT providers need to find ways to keep viewers using the service after their first viewing experience and win their loyalty.
In our most recent blog post, we explore six strategies for interacting with users on your over-the-top platform to help propel your business to success.
1. Understand and leverage your data
Customer churn is a serious issue for firms looking to establish a presence in the market. Consumers have multiple options due to the increasingly competitive OTT industry. Having said that, as the industry gets more crowded with businesses vying for consumers’ attention, acquiring viewers has become more costly and difficult. For this reason, it’s critical to comprehend and use your data.
You may create a 360-degree consumer perspective by analyzing data on your platform and combining data sets. This implies that subscriber clusters with a high churn risk can be identified using more precise churn prediction models, real-time and historical data, user data and behavior, and other related data. Additionally, you may obtain comprehensive insights into the primary reasons for employee attrition and proactively investigate options to address this possible issue before it materializes.
To better identify which areas may be addressed to assist promote engagement, it is essential to gain a greater understanding of what impacts user behavior. This data, which provides you with a comprehensive grasp of the viewing experience, is largely provided via streaming analytics. The most important factors, in this example engagement and retention, may then be better understood and measured from this point on.
AI application Development services can further enhance these insights by leveraging advanced machine learning algorithms to predict user preferences and optimize engagement strategies in real-time.
2. Carve your niche
As the push for more specialized content gains momentum, personalized experiences are starting to become commonplace on OTT platforms. Establishing a specialty for your content is crucial for increasing engagement and will benefit the expansion of your platform since you will be delivering audience-specific information precisely.
Interestingly, niche subscription services have seen subscriber levels grow more than twice as fast as the seven largest subscription services in the last two years, although popular services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video have all seen significant audience growth in recent years. There are many more services out there ready to steal their hard-earned money, so it’s crucial to carve out that content niche and make sure users stay interested when these global leaders hold the lion’s share of the market.
Because smaller OTT platforms have focused on a particular consumer group, establishing a niche has had a significant impact on engagement levels for these platforms when compared to the larger players. However, specializing can result in a restricted growth potential. However, your app will most likely increase those engagement levels significantly if you are providing your audience with the high-quality, specialized content they are looking for in addition to a slick, well-designed interface.
3. Connect with your users
One aspect that OTT platforms frequently miss is customer service. These days, just releasing an app and providing people with content is insufficient. Customers expect more from a service, and making use of your customer service skills will provide them with an experience they won’t soon forget, making them want to use it again.
Remember users birthdays
Make sure that users enter their date of birth during the sign-up process so that you may send them a personalized birthday email at the appropriate time. Personal touches make a big difference. Who knows, they might even use your platform to watch some of their favorite material as a birthday treat.
Ensure the unsubscribe process is easy
Any OTT platform will eventually have to part ways with its users, which is an awful process. Given this, you must make sure the user has the simplest possible experience. This is not to suggest that you can’t battle hard to retain them by providing special offers on your services or even breaks from subscribing, but always make sure the procedure is easy and quick.
If you’re looking to enhance your OTT platform’s customer service and user experience, you can hire dedicated developers who can implement these personalized features seamlessly.
4. Leverage email communications
At the best of times, attracting customers with email marketing can be challenging, but when done correctly, it can offer several advantages for user engagement on your over-the-top (OTT) platform.
To satisfy the tastes of sizable user bases, numerous OTT platforms make an effort to offer a diverse selection of content. With so many content libraries at your disposal, email communications are a fantastic method to interact with your audience. Referring back to the first point about your data, you can also take action with it by using it to send emails based on past viewing patterns whenever a new series or movie is uploaded to the platform.
5. Push Notifications
Although push notifications can be a little annoying to some, when utilized properly, they can increase engagement in many ways. Making use of smartphone capabilities and offering consumers the choice to accept alerts from your platform opens up a world of possibilities, providing you the potential to connect with users and capture their attention at crucial moments.
Once more, you may better understand your audience’s watching habits and offer push alerts for content that they would find interesting by utilizing your data, which is one of your most potent tools. This information would be recorded, for instance, if someone watched season 1 of a well-known program on your platform. When season 2 eventually makes its way into your platform, you can utilize your analytics to determine which users watched season 1, which will enable you to notify that audience segment that season 2 is now accessible.
Be careful with this one, too, as receiving too many push alerts can get annoying. Make sure your alerts are relevant and well-crafted so they are interesting rather than overbearing.
6. Provide a multi-device viewing experience
It is crucial to provide your users with a multi-device viewing experience to watch content on multiple devices. Convenience has emerged as one of the most significant factors that users look for when signing up for an OTT service.
Make sure you are providing value for viewers by being where your audience is, which will ultimately help to drive that interaction, given the variety of options available to house your platform and the convenience that people desire. In this manner, in addition to the more conventional online and mobile possibilities, you may take into account alternative platforms like set-top boxes and game consoles. Researching how and where your viewers choose to use your OTT app is essential, even though not all platforms are pertinent to your business and strategy. This is another reason why it’s critical to leverage your data.
Conclusion
The success of your service in the future depends on your ability to test, innovate, and experiment with the various ways you may keep users interested in your platform. According to our projections, the OTT app development company will see intense competition in the years to come. You can take your platform to the next level and make sure every user is happy with the service you offer by considering these six guidelines.
Let’s keep users interested and avoid that turnover. To OTT and beyond!