You’ve heard the old adage about making sure you have a solid business plan before you start any big project, and that saying is truer than ever with streaming services. Create your brand from the ground up, outline your payment options, structure your content and create a marketing strategy.

GET A PROFESSIONAL TO CREATE YOUR BRANDING FOR YOU

You need a great brand, and you need it to be unique. You need a catchy name, one that people will remember. You also need a logo and colours that will make your brand stand out from the crowd. You can create your own branding or hire someone to do it for you. It’s better to have someone with experience and knowledge of how streaming services work.

This will cost money, but it’s an investment that will pay off in the long run. A professional will be able to create a logo and colour scheme that reflects the feel of your brand, and they’ll make sure everything is designed in a way that’s easy to read on different devices.

WRITE TERMS AND POLICIES FOR YOUR SERVICE 

Yes, most of your customers will not read your terms and conditions or your privacy policy. You need to have them anyway for two reasons:

1. Payment gateway and app store providers will request them before you can sign a contract or release apps.
2. They define the relationship with your customers. They give you a framework of what you can and can’t do. And tell your customers what they can and can’t do.

Writing legal texts usually takes the longest so you best get to it as soon as possible. If you are wondering what should be included you can have a look at other streaming services.

SIGN UP FOR A PAYMENT GATEWAY

Earning money with your content is probably your most important goal. If you want to sell subscriptions or rental content you will need a payment provider that

• can handle transactions
• support your preferred payment methods
• allow you to handle refunds and payment disputes
• helps you to prevent fraud and manage risk
• gives you the necessary financial reports

Magine Pro is already integrated with Adyen and Stripe, two reliable and professional payment gateways with a wide range of supported payment methods. Signing up with them can take some time. If you have a business plan and at least an outline of your terms and conditions you can start the conversation with your preferred provider.

When the contract is done the technical integration takes only a few hours and you can test the full purchase flow the same day. 

You can also sell subscriptions through apps. Besides an app store account you need a merchant 

agreement with the store provider. Don’t let the revenue share discourage you from using this opportunity. Apple, Google and Amazon have launched Small Business Programs that reduce the revenue share from 30% to 15%.

STRUCTURE YOUR CONTENT

Content is king! That saying still rings true. Potential customers will choose a streaming service mainly because they are interested in the content.

It is one thing to transcode the content. The big organisational part is actually knowing how you want to sell it. You can plan ahead by structuring your content into bundles.

Want to give access to everything? – Create one bundle.
Want to sell theme packages? – Create a bundle per theme.
Want to combine subscriptions with rentals or Pay per views? – Create a bundle for the subscription and one bundle per rental or Pay per view.

Prepare your metadata:

1. Get images: 16:9 and poster
2. Have a title, short synopsis, cast, directors, genre and any other essential information you think is necessary to present your content
3. Add labels. In the Magine platform labels are used to categorise content e.g. for collections without presenting the label to the customers.

Last but not least, think about translations. If you offer your service in multiple countries with different languages you will need translations of your metadata.

CREATE A MARKETING STRATEGY

For your streaming service to stick out from the crowd you need to know your target users very well. If you know where they are it will be easier to find channels to address them. Partnerships can help you to increase your reach and raise brand awareness.

At Magine Pro we can support your efforts with:

• Dynamic links
• Push notifications
• Integrations with content discovery services as Just Watch and PlayPilot
• Marketing integrations through Google Tag Manager e.g. Gift cards, referral and affiliate programs

And when you think about the price point for your content, don’t give everything away for free. Sure discounts help to increase the interest in your service. Giving away your content for free first in a trial and then with 100% discount will leave your customers wondering if your content is actually worth something. Be brave, charge something even if it’s nominal.

PREPARE YOUR SERVICE FOR SUCCESS 

Finding the right vendor for your streaming service can take time. There are plenty of details to discuss. Use the time to prepare yourself and your team. Planning out your streaming service before you agree to any contracts will make the process more manageable after the agreement is signed. It will help you to launch your streaming service on time and beat the competition. At Magine Pro our onboarding specialists will guide you through the setup process. 

Magine Pro offer a flexible OTT platform that can be customised according to your needs. Create a video streaming service with us and monetise your live events, linear and VOD content seamlessly through subscription, advertising and/or transactional business models. What’s more, we have a team of experienced experts on hand who can help you launch and grow your OTT business successfully. And if you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you build and launch a successful OTT business, get in touch with us today.