Start Creating shows, articles or movies to entertain your audience? OTT is not only for Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO and other major players in my opinion. Even these platforms (especially Netflix) had a humble beginning before climbing the ladder. As a result, you can also set up and start a successful OTT trading business.
No one can deny that OTT streaming is a type of business operation. Whether you create your own interior like Disney, buy from distributors like Hulu, or both as Netflix app, the OTT broadcasting market is large enough to accommodate many other players with different trading points (USPs).
According to Statistics, by 2021, global revenue in OTT video broadcasting business will exceed $ 171,772 million. It will grow at 10% CAGR between 2021 and 2025 and will reach $ 251,879 million by 2025, representing an average user turnover rate of about 35%.
The market is still growing, especially in developing countries that are currently experiencing an internet penetration revolution, so you have a great opportunity to join a very lucrative industry.
Want to learn how to start your own OTT business to enter this market? Here’s a simple, step-by-step guide that shows you how to get started with your OTT streaming service and turn it into a profitable business to generate high revenue.
Step #1: Find OTT streaming content
In an ideal world, any guide on how to start an OTT Entertainment Content would advise you to choose your OTT business model first, but I disagree. Before you go any further, I recommend that you figure out everything you can about content sourcing. The reason for this is the current market’s high level of competition.
It used to be possible to make money by simply picking any business model and streaming some decent OTT content, which you could have produced or sourced from a third-party, 3 or 4 years ago. You can no longer choose any business model for any type of content.
Your OTT streaming platform’s business model must be compatible with how you acquire content. As a result, it’s preferable to first sort your content-sourcing before mapping a perfect business model to it. (We’ll learn more about this in the next step)
Step 2: Choose a good business model.
To make money, OTT services around the world use three different business models:
- AVOD (Ad-Based Video on Demand): Inserts your ads into the platform to generate revenue from advertisers and provide a free streaming service to your viewers. For example, YouTube, cwtv.com, and so on.
- SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand): Charges a monthly user fee for access to all content on your OTT platform. Viewers will give you direct revenue. Netflix, Disney + and other streaming services are examples.
- TVOD (On-Demand Transactional Video): Allow viewers to pay only for the content they want to watch. For example, paid movies on Amazon Prime.
Which over-the-top (OTT) business model is best for you?
It depends on your content delivery strategy and the type of content you are creating.
- If you have exclusive rights to any internal or third-party content that users cannot access anywhere else, SVOD, like Netflix, can work wonders. You can try different levels of subscription plans to attract different types of customers.
- Combining TVOD and SVOD is a good idea if you have exclusive rights to new releases.
- You can set a fee per view (PPV) for exclusive content, while allowing users to access other content for which they have paid.
- If you do not have an advanced library that regularly adds new names, users will subscribe to your platform for free. Here you can choose a separate TVOD model that allows users to pay only for the works they want to watch on arrival.
- If you have several popular titles but do not have exclusive rights to them, users will want to watch ads (AVOD) if they can broadcast them for free.
In my opinion, SVOD is the best way to make money from your platform. Consumers despite ads, and recent research has revealed that viewers are slowly opting for an experience without ads. Consumers are increasingly willing to pay for OTT content.
As a result, try creating a progressive content library with new titles that are regularly added to the platform.
Plus, you can always choose a well-balanced combination of all three models and make money from your library based on exclusivity. The platform uses all three models for different types of content, just like YouTube.
Step 3: Create an OTT streaming platform.
It’s time to create an OTT streaming platform for your business once you identify the content source and connect it with the right business model.
OTT is a much larger ecosystem than any other segment in broadcasting. For example, to create an email shopping website, all you need is a website, an Android app, and an iOS mobile app to reach your entire customer base.
On the other hand, OTT broadcasts are more diverse in this regard. You might not only feel compelled to target websites and mobile apps, but other major platforms like Android TV, Samsung TV, Apple TV, Roku TV, Amazon Fire TV, etc. This is a good idea, but I recommend making the first MPV. Wait and see what happens, then move on to the next step if your MVP pays off.
How do you create a startup (MVP) for a streaming service?
You can create an MVP for your streaming service in one of two ways:
- • You can build an OTT platform from the ground up
- Buy a ready-to-use OTT streaming script.
It ‘s better to invest in developing your solutions from the ground up if you have a unique ideas in mind. You could either hire a development team or hire a software development firm to do the work for you.
In either case, designing, developing, testing, and deploying an MVP from the ground up will take at least 6-7 months: front-end, back-end, Android App, and iOS App.
You can calculate the cost of a project by estimating a development cost of $ 80- $ 100 per hour in the United States.
Get the same set of solutions for as little as $ 1K- $ 2K if you buy a turnkey OTT streaming script, and More Over get it in a matter of days. You may now wonder which type of turnkey script to select. It depends on your company’s business model.
You can use a decent Netflix clone Script to create a subscription-based VOD streaming platform.
Such a script can be found on the Internet for a one-time fee and complete source-code access, allowing you to customize your platform at any time and not be limited by the stock features.
Similarly, you can choose a reliable YouTube clone script from the market if you want to use a hybrid of AVOD, SVOD, and TVOD models.
Once you’ve found a turnkey script, all you have to do is install it on your webserver, integrate it with your media server (for example, AWS), upload your content, set up your monetization channels, and go live with your platform.
General Chat Chat Lounge The majority of turnkey script providers will assist you throughout the process.
Step #4: Locate your audience
Once your platform is up and running, use video marketing to promote it and let your target audience know about it
Here are some pointers on how to publicise your platform and attract your first viewers or subscribers:
- Proactive social media marketing: make the most of social media. Create social media pages (or handles) for your company and begin gaining followers. To reach out to potential customers, use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter ads. To attract paying customers, post teasers and trailers on social media.
- Even Netflix, the world’s largest video-on-demand service, uses YouTube Marketing to attract new subscribers to its platform.
There are a Number of ways to use YouTube for video marketing, from posting teasers. Creating Teaser YouTube-specific videos and collaborating with YouTube creators, as well as YouTube video and display ads.
Aside from these, traditional marketing channels such as Google search ads, Bing search ads, content marketing are all viable options.
In summary
Remember that the video streaming market has not yet been conquered by hippos. You don’t have to be Netflix, Amazon, Disney, HBO or Hulu to succeed as an OTT service.
In addition to these famous names, there are many other OTT services that are doing great. In fact, most of them are small regional and niche players who don’t even agree with hippos. Instead, they fill in the gaps left by the big players.
This is a huge market and even small players can make a lot of money. All you have to do now is figure out how to benefit from the four steps in this guide.
So, think and find out where to invest your time, money and resources, as well as when to avoid unnecessary expenses. You will succeed.
