In a roundtable discussion titled “Cashing in on the stream,” hosted by BroadcastPro ME and Cleeng in Dubai, leading broadcasters discussed subscriber retention management, improving revenue streams, and enhancing customer lifetime values while enhancing cost efficiency.
Moderated by Alexis Gai, SVP, Sales & Revenue, Cleeng, and Joachim Bergman, COO, Cleeng, the panel comprised:
- Barry Mehdizadeh, Product Director, Shahid, MBC Group
- Faraz Arshad, CTO, StarzPlay
- Heba Al Samt, Awaan Manager, Dubai Media
- Joe Al Khawand, Head of MENA Content Production, Yango Play
- Karim Morgan, Head of Digital Technology, Asharq News
- Melvin Saldanha, VP Technology, OSN
- Nadine Samra, Chief Business Officer, Weyyak
- Peter Van Dam, COO, Saudi Pro League
4 Steps to Driving Profitability
1) Designing and delivering excellent experiences
2) Experimenting with monetization
3) Leveraging data intelligence for subscriber retention
1) Designing and delivering excellent experiences
In streaming wars, every element that enhances the user experience becomes a successful differentiation factor. Innovation and excellence in this sphere impact both acquisition and, more importantly, retention - the precursors to profitability. A seamless and intuitive UI/UX is one such element that attracts and retains subscribers.
In the same vein, super apps or integrating multiple services into a single platform also help build an unparalleled user experience. Heba Al Samt from Dubai Media explained how they’re experimenting with advanced technology to aggregate content, manage rights, and streamline payment processes.
Bottom Line: Designing the best experiences requires innovation in approach and flexibility in action. This necessitates flexible back-end technology that supports designing such experiences.
Explore Mediastore SDK: The solution to build seamless checkouts
2) Experimenting with monetization
Rising competition, widespread subscription fatigue, and surging inflation spurs customer price sensitivity. As a result, experimenting with monetization is now crucial. Broadcasters are responding to this by diversifying their monetizing approaches - a fact clear with the rise of models like Advertising-based Video on Demand (AVOD), Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television (FAST) alongside Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) to enhance profitability.
Faraz Arshad, CTO StarzPlay explained: "At Starzplay, we’ve diversified our offerings; Where we used to be one-centric, we’ve shifted gradually towards live sport and now also offer AVOD and SVOD-based services."
He also discussed their approaches to monetizing innovation a step further. For instance, he spoke about micro-charging to engage subscribers better and ensure they’re not overwhelmed by full-month charges.
Bottom Line: Experimental pricing is now a crucial driver of bottom-line success. Linear approaches to monetizing will no longer work. What’s needed now is an interplay of innovative monetization approaches. This is possible with the support of the right technology.
Read ebook: Pricing strategies for retention-focused subscription businesses.
3) Leveraging data intelligence for subscriber retention
Panelists emphasized that tracking and leveraging data-driven insights is necessary for churn prevention, whether for finalizing the content mix or optimizing subscriber experiences across different touch points.
Tracking subscriber data, proactively identifying churn possibilities, and acting on it will help keep subscribers engaged and limit churn. Understanding this, data-centric companies are looking at data segmentation for their products and identifying ‘golden cohorts’ through watch time and different pieces of content. They’re applying this to other cohorts to limit the probability of churn. Gaï explained further how these insights can be turned into automated marketing campaigns to prevent churn or win back subscribers and maximize return on investment.
Melvin Saldanha, VP of Technology at OSN, chimed in with similar thoughts. He explained their approach to using data to analyze viewing habits and preferences and optimize cancellation journeys by suggesting appropriate content to keep subscribers engaged.
For this, OSN ensures their customers are always catered to. They stream premium content straight out of Hollywood Studios, sometimes the same as US hours. They also follow Disney’s approach of drop-feeds week on week. They’ve tracked outcomes and witnessed increased retention where customers do not binge-watch and move away.
Bottom Line: Churn prevention needs to be proactive if you’re seeking profitability. Make sure you use data to identify potential signs of churn and act on those insights with targeted segments to reverse it before it occurs.
Learn more: Discover the Segmentation feature that makes automated marketing simple
4) Optimizing costs
Amidst rising content and platform costs, controlling costs is vital to profitability.
Karim Morgan, Head of Digital Technology at Asharq News suggested: "Many OTTs fail because of out-of-control cost. Cost of content, whether acquisition or production, the cost in marketing (unnecessary spend), and third, technology - if you can control the three, automatically you'll see the light."
How do you control this, though?
The answer to managing costs better lies in leveraging specialized multi-tenant technologies, optimizing CDN usage, and automating workflow. Barry Mehdizadeh, Product Director, Shahid explained automating workflows for reducing support costs with the following example:
Bottom Line: Innovative technology choices with a cost structure that can optimize Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) can automate workflows, introduce efficiency while keeping cost in check.
Find out: How to kill costs & boost OTT revenues with payments using Merchant
Final thoughts
Innovative and flexible technology is the means to deliver excellent experiences, play with different monetization approaches, and work with subscriber activity data to predict and prevent churn. However, it must have an optimal cost structure to drive true bottom-line success. With that in place, there’s one final strategic fact to keep in mind:
As Al Samt from Dubai Media explains: "Investment in innovation can work, but without the right content, no matter how much the innovation, the customer will never stay."
You may have the best look and feel, interface, services, modules, and everything else, but if you don't have the right content, people will watch whatever they want and leave.
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