It’s vital for any new business to have a solid customer communications strategy in place before launch. For OTT services, how you choose to communicate with your users will have a direct effect on the long-term success of your service.

Take our own partner’s for example; combined they add over 650 hours of new content every month. However, without an effective communications strategy in place, no one would know a thing about it; not their current paying subscribers or new potential customers. And with content being the key reason people sign up to a service in the first place (and return every day, week or month), it’s pretty important it’s not overlooked.

One Magine Pro partner, in particular, will see on average around 30% of their paying subscribers active in a month when no new content has been added. By comparison, this will rocket to over 80% when new content is made available. But it only does so because they have actively promoted new content through their marketing channels.

The digital marketing channels you choose to utilize are important but don’t pit them against one another when you’re planning your CRM & communications strategy. Social Media marketing and email marketing are as important as each other. Sure, social gives you the best chance to reach large audiences instantly, but email enables you to nurture relationships and convert leads (generated through social) into actual paying subscribers.

You can use social as a tool to help drive traffic to your website, landing page or even service sign up screen. And it’s here you can encourage visitors to stay in touch by submitting their email address for further info your service and future updates on new content or features and service promotions etc.

At the very least your email communications strategy should include:

• Automated welcome email sent to all those who submit their email address.
• Onboarding emails sent to introduce new subscribers to your service.
• Re-activation emails sent after time period delay to encourage visitors to return, re-subscribe or complete signup.  
• Automated customer service reminders to inform users when payments have completed or subscriptions are coming to an end etc.
• Weekly or monthly newsletters to update users on new features, content, and any service promotions.

Onboarding emails

At Magine Pro, we recommend all our partners prepare their onboarding comms prior to launch. Onboarding emails can educate customers about the service and also relieve some pressure from the customer service team. We also recommend our partners send a short survey to their users during their first week after sign up; this will not only help improve their experience but also the product in the future.

Proposed Onboarding Funnel:

• Day 0: Introductory welcome email
• Day 1: Welcome offer/promotion
• Day 3: Overview of devices to stream on
• Day 5: Overview of the services offered
• Day 7: Short survey to feedback on their experience so far
• Day 10: Deep Dive into the service and features
• Day 14: Upsell email that promotes additional content packages
• Day 30: Reactivation #1 (if a user has not returned and completed sign up)
• Day 50-70: Reactivation #2 (reminder if a user has not returned after sign up)

Onboarding emails can be set up before launch to send autonomously. You can also A/B test with emails to see which subject lines and messaging work best.

Email campaigns

Alongside sending automated onboarding emails, regularly reach out to your users. Email is considered a retention channel, designed to keep customers interested and engaged after they’ve signed up or subscribed to a service. A weekly or monthly newsletter, for example, is a great way to keep your users informed on service updates, promotions and new content.

Don’t let subscribers slip away either, entice inactive users back to your service with promotions via email. You can do the same for those who have recently canceled their subscription; remind them you exist, what they’re missing and make it easy to get back onboard!

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Looking for a little more marketing advice to get your OTT service off the ground? Check out our blog where we also cover how to convert leads into loyal subscribers, reduce subscription churn rates and optimize your OTT service for Search.  

You can also get in touch with us and find out more about our global OTT solutions and services here.