Everyone has different interests and goals when it comes to live video streaming. Sometimes they want to create name recognition and brand awareness or use video to attract traffic to their website, or even simply present a work of art or idea. In these cases, it's best that the video gets seen by as many people as possible. Barriers to this are always a bad idea, and charing money indubitably puts up one. In this post, we have listed top-notch Tips For Pay-Per-View Live Streaming.
In other cases, however, the idea is to directly make money on the video. If that's your goal, you'll want a Pay Per View mechanism. This makes the video a lot less likely to go viral, and you're bound to get fewer viewers this way. Still, you'll generate revenue directly, and that can end up with much better results than a free video.
Here are six great Tips For Pay Per View Live Streaming. They'll help you enhance your revenue stream and promote your video.
6 Great & Effective Tips For Pay-Per-View Live Streaming
Remember: Social media is a conversation, and you should start participating long before the video goes on air. This way, the video won't come out of nowhere, and you'll have a solid foundation and community to whom you can show your creation.
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Make sure that people know the video is coming some time in advance. A couple of weeks is good, but more time can be better still. Viewers are going to want to add the event to their calendar, which is a lot better than then hearing about it at the last minute. Not only early promotion helps increasing viewing of the video event, it also allows for better brand recognition and gives you the option to present special offers.
A bit of research can definitely pay off here. The amount you charge will depend on factors like the length of your video, expected demand, production costs and operating expenses. It's important to keep in mind that higher prices result in less sales, although they may higher revenue per sale. There's always a sweet spot to find, where raising the price further would lower the total revenue.
When starting out in the for-money video industry, it can be a good idea to price the offering below the sweet spot. When you're new, you'll probably benefit more by getting more viewers who will return later than by optimizing for immediate gain. In the long run, you should look for a price that strikes a nice balance between being paid better per purchase and attracting enough customers.
The logical next step to starting your promotion sooner rather than later is to sell as early as possible, too. Offering customers a discount when they get their tickets early is a good way to do that - maybe a month in advance, per instance. Even better is bundling extra merchandise or perks along with the early reservation. Not only will the pre-order generate revenue, it'll also help advertise the event itself.
If the video is a success, it will likely place a significant burden on your server as well as any hardware you're using. A great rule of thumb is to come up with a projection for a best-case scenario and do some load testing to make sure the infrastructure can handle it. If a lot of people try to watch your video and end up getting a payment gateway lockup or a server crash, it'll definitely disappoint them, and could damage your brand's reputation, so people who could become repeat customers will get frustrated and never come back.
Besides your own equipment, it's important to make sure the hosting service you're utilizing to broadcast the video can handle the expected load, too. You can't control what the hosting company does of course, but keep this in mind when selecting your live streaming platform. Companies such as DaCast use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) which removes a lot of the headache involved with figuring out capacity limits.
Just as you need to be ready to handle the technical side, it's important that you can handle the customers themselves. If you have a lot of users, you'll have people with complaints, asking for help with technical issues, or demanding refunds. Make sure you have an adequate customer service team to promptly and courteously handle each inquiry. Customer service is essential to success, regardless to which business you're in. This is just as true for Pay Per View video as it is for anything else.
Keep in mind that any customer service issue should be handled in a strictly professional manner - something that's supposed to be obvious but a lot of people miss.
When it comes to video streaming, Pay Per View is the most straightforward, direct way to make money. However, there are a few other choices once the event is over, or when you have many videos available, and they can significantly broaden the possibilities. Many of these depend on recording production so it can go in an on-demand status after the live streaming.
One way to do that is through a membership arrangement, something like the way Netflix works. You could sell people access to the recorded videos and allow them to watch it whenever they like. Content could include entire recorded events, selections, or maybe even post-event discussion or commentary - like instant replays of the highlights of a sports match.
The more flexibility you can allow in your options to viewers, the more viewers you're likely to get.
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Closing Thoughts: Tips For Pay-Per-View Live Streaming In 2018
All the usual opportunities and issues regarding streaming video make sense with a Pay Per View options - but asking for money raises a few considerations. It's very important that you keep expectations realistic. The chances of a video going viral in general are low, and when you charge money for it, they drop further. It doesn't make a lot of sense to aim for virality with this kind of video.
If you have a clear target for expected sales and returning viewers, you'll be able to access whether you've managed to meet or exceed the targets.
Internet video streaming is a very new industry built on top of an old one. Entrepreneurs have been experimenting in many ways to find out what works best. Remember that it's normal to feel confused or lost, but there isn't much sense in trying to reinvent the wheel. All you have to do is adapt the age-old techniques that work for theater, movies and musical concerts to a more modern online equivalent.
