We have a number of tools in place on Vimeo OTT to help you get started marketing your content. We’ve organized the walkthroughs of the tools below by where your customers are located in their journey; we’ll start with new user acquisition, followed by user retention—that is, engaging your current customers—and lastly, we’ll talk about tools for winning back customers who might have left your platform at some point.
In this article
How do I acquire new users?
Many publishers find it useful to market their OTT destination on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, meeting potential customers in places where they’re already engaging. If you intend to advertise on these platforms, we recommend taking advantage of our integrations to help track events and optimize performance.
Vimeo OTT’s own analytics dashboard offers lots of useful data about your customers; however, it’s often useful to also leverage third-party platforms to gain additional insights on people who are interacting with your site. Specifically, we recommend taking advantage of our integration with Google Analytics for Web, and Firebase for Mobile Apps. Using GA will allow you to create and track campaigns, understand search data, and dig deeper into your traffic and conversions.
It won’t be uncommon for many users to find your site within the search engine results (i.e., by typing a keyword into Google search). To maximize the potential for your site to appear more prominently within the results of these searches, we recommend the following tools:
Many publishers leverage people who are already within their network, or “affiliates,” to help promote their site. For example, an instructor or influencer can tell their audience about your site to drive traffic. Promo codes can be a great way for that affiliate to incentive their audience while also tracking how many users they send your way. Campaign Links are a great way to track as well.
- Promo Codes (or coupon codes for TVOD)
- Campaign Links (UTM Links)
Apps are a very important part of your offering, and you want everyone to know about them! Once you launch your app, it’s important to get the word out; check out our helpful guide for maximizing how users find and engage with your apps inside the app stores.
How do I retain my users?
Once your customers are signed up, you’ll want to be in an ongoing conversation with them, since communication is a key part of keeping your users engaged with your platform. You want to make sure your customers are aware of the full breadth of your offering and make as many connections as possible. Email and in-app notifications are two fantastic tools you could be using to maintain this ongoing conversation. Here are a few tools for making the most of this strategy:
- Content Notifications
- Communications via a 3rd-party email platform (i.e. Mailchimp)
If you are using a 3rd party CRM/Email Platform (e.g. Hubspot, Mailchimp, etc.), you may want to consider automating your workflows for sending emails (welcome emails, newsletters, promotional win-back emails, and the like). These tools can help you do just that:
- Zapier + Webhooks
- API (most useful if you’ve got a developer on your team)
For more advanced publishers, having visibility into every distinct action your customers make on your site can be useful. Understanding their behaviors (what they watch, when, where, etc.) can help drive marketing and personalization strategies. For the publishers, our Segment integration will come in handy:
How do I win back my users?
Winning back users who did not convert from a free trial or who previously initiated but then canceled their subscription to your platform should be a key part of your OTT strategy. After all, they connected with your site once before—it makes sense that, given the right incentive, they might find themselves back.
A great way to win back users is via email. For example, you can automate a webhook so that your email provider sends an email with a promo code if they come back when a user cancels. Or of course, you can send them updates on new content to entice them to return. However, in this context, these tools can help:
Also, to get additional context into why your users are canceling, we recommend signing up for a Cancellation report (this is only available to Enterprise-level Vimeo OTT sites):