A Keyhole to the Paywall Model - Advantages and Disadvantages

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2. A Keyhole to the Paywall Model: Advantages and Disadvantages As we gravitate towards a free-for-all consumption ecosystem across domains, entertainment is the most evident example of this trend. Viewers today come with an expectation that entertainment ought to be free. The trouble is, monetisation is becoming increasingly challenging for content creators. While advertising is one way to go if you have a large viewing universe, a sizeable portion of this revenue is routed to the host platform that the content is broadcast on. YouTube is a good example of this. Content creators who are serious about turning into full-time broadcasters may find it hard to sustain a livelihood on a third-party streaming platform. With the dawn of turnkey technologies like StreamTube and StreamNow, made for video sharing and live streaming respectively, setting up your own streaming platform has become easy, affordable and lucrative. Amongst the monetisation /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

3. options available, the paywall has risen to prominence within tech communities. Today, we talk about how a paywall can help you earn big bucks and how it is better than some of its counterparts. An Insight Into Long-Form Video: For a long time, there has been a strong internet movement towards the democratisation of video entertainment. Content creators of all sizes have entered a fray once considered exclusive for media magnates. With the arrival of content hosting platforms /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

4. like YouTube and Vimeo, there is a common perception that a level playing field has been established for content marketers, big and small. And while there has been a rise in video channels, content volume and content quality, boutique content entrepreneurs aren’t benefitting as much monetarily as one may think. Content platforms stand to gain the most from small-time video creators, by taking the lion’s share of earnings from video views. Unfortunately, third-party platforms aren’t built for small-time players. Instead, they rely on enormous economics, powering big content creators further while keeping small ones where they are. Essentially, generic online video has morphed from being an income engine to a marketing tool. Types of Monetisation There are two primary means of monetisation for video creators and curators: advertising-led monetisation and paywall-led monetisation. Here, have a closer look. Monetisation Route 1. Advertising-Led Monetisation /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

5. Advertising comes in an assorted basket of formats as far as online video is concerned. From pre-rolls, overlays and mid-rolls, a content creator can decide where to place an advertisement over a video. If the platform is owned by the creator, that is. Conversely, a third-party platform may not afford you the luxury of choosing where an advertisement airs within your video. Advertising is heavily dependent on traffic and can be capitalised on if viewership is significant. Online advertising is the most popular monetisation route in the online video universe, especially because there is no investment involved on the part of the content creator. The medium is fuelled entirely by advertisers. There are various formats of video advertisements, outlined below. Linear Advertisements As the name suggests, linear advertisements are rolled at some point during a video, dividing the content into two halves. Linear advertisements are bucketed into categories based on when in a video stream they are aired. Pre-roll advertisements are displayed before the commencement of a video whereas mid-roll advertisements are featured in the middle of a video. In both cases, a viewer has to watch the ad before moving onto the content. In- /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

6. stream ads are ideal for on-demand video formats, but not so much for live streams. Since the latter category operates in real-time, chunks of the stream may be knocked off due to an ad, providing a subpar experience to viewers. Nonlinear Advertisements Nonlinear advertisements are those that feature as overlays or banners across the screen. Aside from ads that are rolled out end to end, a content creator or platform may also choose to supplement marketing properties with ad banners, tickers and text during a video. Monetisation Route 2. Video Paywalls Video paywalls are versatile, powerful monetisation tools for both live streaming and video on demand. They come with differential pricing, channel packages, playlists and in-platform gateways. All in all, they form a far superior proposition for long-form video content producers. Paywalls are gated paths for video content consumption that can only be unlocked with a payment or a promise of payment. Usually, a credit card payment is taken in advance or credit card details are stored as a foremost step. Paywalls can be implemented /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

7. at various degrees. A hard paywall for instance, limits all content on a site whereas a soft paywall is useful in a freemium model if a user wishes to gain access to premium content. Paywalls are also useful in monetising bite-sized pieces of content. Pay per download, pay per stream, pay per view and subscriptions are some examples of this. iTunes uses paywalls to metre its content on a per-item basis. Pay Per View Model Pay per view is a prime example of how paywalls can be leveraged effectively. In this model, a viewer makes a payment for a specific piece of content and is sent a link to download a copy of the video. Pay per view is exceptionally advantageous to those who own multiple devices. The model enables fluid content transfers across phones, tablets and desktops and also allows offline consumption. If a user buys a piece of content, they become the rightful owner upon making the payment. This makes it easy for content creators to reconcile sales and review analytics. Pay per view could give rise to piracy, however and this is something that should be monitored. The model presents many merits: it is affordable, instant and supports adaptive bit rate technology. Subscription Model /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

8. A subscription model could prove effective if you have a vast library of content you’d like to share with viewers. This format could draw greater interest from viewers and make it easier for both parties to regulate payments. Subscriptions offer unlimited viewing across available offerings at a staple cost. For you, as a content creator, a subscription model could promise a consistent revenue stream, allowing you the liberty to plan out your business investments in advance. Subscriptions are used by many well-placed entertainment platforms. Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Hulu occupy the top 3 spots amongst these. Such a model is more likely to promote customer loyalty, repeated subscription and cross-category sales. Deciding Between Advertising and Paywalls If you’ve been struggling to decide which form of monetisation to pursue, you should know a few basic facts before making a decision. For starters, the views per video are usually lower on a paywall model than on an advertising-led model. And understandably so. However, even if your viewership is lower, you could make far more /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

9. money on a paywall than you could otherwise if you play your cards right. By maintaining an optimal price point that sits well with your viewer universe, you can draw in genuine users and still run a profitable platform. It’s important to read into market sentiments by conducting research to know what price point users favour. Implementing the Paywall Here are a few tips that will sail you through the paywall implementation experience. Tip 1. Offer Previews Yes, your content is payable, but that doesn’t mean you can’t offer your users previews on social platforms. In fact, previews act as excellent bait for unsuspecting social media users. Create sponsored campaigns with snippets of your video content or even live videos. Even if you host your stream on your own platform via StreamNow or StreamTube, you can always create your own channel on YouTube as a marketing tool. Place your short-form content there, and reserve your longer, more elaborate content for your own website. Tip 2. Go Niche for Live Events /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

10. Live events have caught on in a big way across the internet. If you do decide to host a live event of your own, make sure you go all out with promotions. Create a marketing roster well in advance and attempt to build a niche audience by targeting your users via sponsored ads. You could do this on Google, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. By generating excitement early, you can bring a host of new users on board. Tip 3. Implement Even Pricing /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

11. Instead of jumping into the deep end of the pricing pool, think about what would entice users to come back to your platform. It’s important to understand what users think is fair and attune your pricing to customer sentiments. Remember that word of mouth can work in magical, mysterious ways so it’s important to be on top of your game. Tip 4. Implement Auto-Renew An effective way to have users subscribe repeatedly is by implementing the auto-renew function. Many users don’t have the time or energy to manually re-subscribe and this is a clever way to bring your entire base back on board. Plus, this way, your revenue stream stays in tact. Tip 5. Innovate Your Content There are a gazillion entertainment platforms that are constantly trying to put out the best content so it is imperative that you consistently augment your value proposition. You can do this by seeking new content partnerships, introducing newer formats of content and creating exclusive in-house shows. By not ramping up /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

12. your content quiver, you could lose out to rivals who have been experimental and edgy with their content proposition. If you aspire to carve out a career rooted in long-form video content, you should consider introducing a paywall model in your business. Online advertising is not yet an adequate model to sustain content creators. Income streams are slow and dry in advertising- led content formats and content producers are left with little or no income by the end of a video cycle. It isn’t difficult to make the switch to a paywall. Frameworks like StreamNow come with an inbuilt paywall feature that you simply have to feed details into upon purchase. Your business can become an overnight phenomenon with a paywall model. Go on; start writing your success story today. /StreamHash /StreamHash www.streamhash.com

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