You’ve got a budget. This is the year you’re going to allocate OTT as part of your digital strategy and you want to make your dollars work for you. We’ll help you do just that. How? Read on for our best advice.
Tip #1: Work Smarter, Not Harder
Embrace programmatic ad placement. With consumers viewing Internet-fueled content streams from desktop and smart TVs to mobile, you have to be ready to serve up targeted ads when and where they’re hanging out. Our programmatic technology does just that.
Imagine it’s Friday. After a late night of toasting the end of another busy week, you and your buddies are back at your apartment watching late night movies on Roku. The guys are hungry. Just then you see an ad for $5 off pizza delivery in your neighborhood. You feel like the stars have aligned and know cheesy goodness will be at your door soon.
This scenario isn’t a coincidence. It’s perfectly placed programmatic ads in front of a targeted OTT audience that we knew would love to try our client’s delicious pizza. The best part? This promotional programmatic magic happened on a Friday night, beyond traditional sales channels, with no overtime effort or after-hours fees. Automated, effective simplicity sure beats standing on the corner waving a sandwich board hoping folks will stop in, right?
Tip #2: Understand Consumers Beyond Personas
Let’s be honest: Buyer personas are vignettes of ideal, imagined audiences, people who we think actually log in and interact with streaming services. By investing a little time and budget in tracking and analyzing the people who are engaging with your brand online before launching an ad campaign, you can be sure your OTT ad spend is actually being used to reach your genuine target audience each and every time.
This approach can be applied across multiple channels, to creatively follow your audience along their journey. Let’s say your learning center runs a 15-second video at the start of a well-known online DIY show. . A viewer is enticed by the help your business offers, clicks away from the video, and types the center’s URL into their browser to learn more about classes. We can track that, and retarget your viewer next time they watch their favorite video tutor as a reminder to sign-up with the learning center.
Spending your budget on that retargeting click, rather than a new random viewer, is more likely to convert your education-minded audience member into a consumer.
Tip #3: Cast a Wide Net, Initially
Finally, as you prepare to launch into the world of OTT advertising, go in with a mindset of testing the waters. All the waters. We love to see our clients experiment across various devices and channels to see where their audience is truly thriving and when they’re most active.
Once you learn more about your audience and have data-backed insights that show exactly where you should funnel your budget, you can niche down and make every penny work harder for you.
For example, don’t assume since you own a comic book shop that also sells on Amazon that your biggest audience is lingering on Amazon’s Prime Video. You might find out they’re actually swarming to individual channels on on Crackle for their favorite animated features.
Sometimes a large audience list can seem unnecessary, but there’s likely a scenario where specific audience segments within that large net are relevant to your business. If you’re advertising your affordable gym membership, it doesn’t mean you have to target only people who show interest in health and fitness. Your innate message is to motivate and influence people to become members at your club. So, why not target food enthusiasts and dog lovers too? Taking risks like these help you discover like-minded audiences that perform just as well or better than your intended audience.
We want to help you stretch that OTT ad spend budget as far as it can possibly go. We know the way to do that is to use technology to pivot as needed, leverage every bit of information about your audience as possible and embrace unexpected outlets so your messaging gets in front of the people most likely to take action. Contact us today to learn how we can create results for your team.
Andy Dixon
