The demand for video membership sites has grown exponentially over the past few years making it a highly profitable sector worth exploring. Starting from education to entertainment – the rise and growth of video membership sites is dramatically changing the pattern of online content consumption around the globe. And the online content providers are leveraging this trend at an increasing rate.
The global membership economy growth is hugely driven by the video membership segment including health & fitness, elearning, sports, entertainment and others that all together has surpassed a market value of US $424 billion in 2022 and is subject to grow further in the coming years.
Nearly 98% of Americans have a subscription to at least one video membership site while 75% of them have two or more subscriptions. And this just gives a glimpse of the lucrative growth scope this sector offers.
In order to grab the most of the low-hanging opportunities and increase your video membership business profitability further, now is the best time to grow your video membership site. And in this blog, we will walk you through all you need to know to grow your video membership site easily. So let’s get started!
Below are some of the proven and most effective strategies to grow your video membership site like never before.
In video membership sites, content is the main draw, and you can grow your membership site subscriptions when you have unique content that draws the subscribers to you.
Another factor that plays an important role, is the pace at which original content is being released on your membership site, too slow and users will start canceling or too fast can cause fatigue as well.
You need to pick your niche carefully after evaluating factors like – Where is the content coming from, is this created by you or is this being acquired? What will be the release format – Is this stand alone content or will it be like a series of content under the same umbrella (e.g. Episodes).
You must ensure that your content is completely aligned with the specific niche and your overall video membership business. For instance, if you are running an edtech video membership site for the engineering students to upskill their programming skills, then you must produce more programming tutorials that help accommodate their requirements better.
In a nutshell, content is the most important aspect of growing your video membership site and business, and getting this right will mean the success of your business is assured.
You need to bring in more variety in the monetization models to target a wider audience base with different preferences. Some of the popular monetization models and their advantages are as given below –
A subscription-based monetization model lets the users pay a recurring fee to access the video content. This is a popular monetization model for video membership sites, as it allows users to access all the site’s content for a set period of time, such as a month or a year.
The main advantage of a subscription-based monetization model is that it provides a steady stream of revenue for the video membership site, as users are required to pay a subscription fee on a regular basis. On the other hand, it is convenient for the users who prefer to consume video content more regularly over a period of time.
In an ad-based monetization model, users can access content for free but are required to watch advertisements in order to do so. This is a popular model for video membership sites, as it allows users to access the content at no cost and hence increases the number of users on the site who can later be converted into paid customers.
Also, it helps generate revenue for the site through advertisements. For instance, IMDb TV from Amazon uses this model and it is one of the most viewed AVOD channels in the US!
In a Pay-Per-View (PPV) or TVOD monetization model users pay a one-time fee to access a specific piece of video content, rather than paying a recurring fee for access to all content.
This is a frequently used monetization model for video membership sites, as it allows users to only pay for the content that they are interested in, and not anything extra. One of the leading examples of it can be found in Amazon Prime Video, where you can watch a specific movie by only paying for it. Another vivid example is UFC PPV.
Bundle monetization models let the users pay a certain fee to access a specific bundle of video content. This allows users to access a specific group of content that is relevant to their interests, rather than paying for something they don’t require.
This is highly popular among customers due to its flexibility and affordability. Hulu, ESPN+, and Disney+ bundle is one of such examples that comes with three plans –
And introducing these bundle plans worked wonders catering to the fast growth of their subscribers that surpassed 235.7 million in 2022!
Did you know that an average free trial conversion rate is 20% and can be as high as even 60%! What can be a better way than offering a free trial first and letting your audience upgrade it to a paid plan once they get hooked to your content or find how useful they are!
You can even offer a no-credit-card free trial plan to gain the trust of the first time app or website visitors to utilize this strategy at its best!
Did you know that Netflix generates nearly US $1 billion annual profit only from personalized recommendations? It is advisable to segregate your target audience on the basis of their key requirements, top preferences, view patterns, and other relevant factors to recommend them with the most relevant content as per their preferences.
Most of the leading video membership sites have mastered this practice to recommend their audience only what they require and prefer to watch more. For instance, if a customer prefers to watch more thriller movies on a video membership app or website like Netflix, the customer should get similar recommendations for other thriller movies, or series.
This also gives you the scope to cross sell and upsell your content like PPV and helps boost the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User).
One of the most effective strategies to grow your video membership site is growing a dedicated community. It is recommended to ensure this from the day one of your video membership business, however, it’s never too late!
A community means, you have a video membership site around a niche (e.g. offering professional certification courses) and beyond just the videos, you set up other learning options like a discussion forum where community can seek help and answers from each other, a “mentor” section where you bring in the teachers or coaches and audience can post questions to them, a weekly live stream community engagement where people can see each other and interact with each other.
These types of options go a long way in creating a “community” that helps not only retain your existing members but also acquire new members.
People are 4 times more likely to make a purchase when referred by a friend, family member, or their known one. Also, research revealed that the lifetime value of a referred customer is 16% higher than the non-referred ones!
Not only is it highly effective to expand your video membership business fast but it cuts down your marketing and promotion costs effectively while letting you expand your audience base significantly. You can simply offer fixed referral bonus points, or some discount in the subscription plans for both the existing and new subscribers.
Even the leading video membership sites like Netflix, Coursera, Udemy, and others frequently run their email campaigns with various targets like customer acquisition, upselling, cross-selling, brand awareness generation etc.
Over 30% of marketers find email marketing as the most effective strategy to grow business and your video membership site is not an exception. You can run dedicated personalized email campaigns highlighting the top perks of taking the membership of your site. To ensure deliverability, you should use email verifier software that matches your business needs.
Also, it is important to include the right CTAs in your campaign aligned with your email campaign goals such as free trial, register now, and others.
Sponsorships can be a valuable strategy for growing a video membership site. By partnering with businesses or organizations, a video membership site can gain access to a wider audience and increase brand awareness.
Also, it can help establish a video membership site as a trusted and reputable source of content, which in turn helps boost brand loyalty, and customer experience.
Furthermore, sponsorships can help to grow a video membership site by providing additional marketing and advertising opportunities. For example, a sponsor may be willing to promote the video membership site through their own marketing channels, such as social media or email campaigns. This can help to increase the site’s visibility and boost the customer acquisition rate considerably.
Affiliate marketing lets a video membership site partner with other businesses or individuals to promote the content to their own audience in exchange for a commission on any resulting sales.
More than 80% of the advertisers allocate at least 10% of their budget for affiliate marketing while 15% of the revenue of the digital media industry comes from affiliate marketing. Furthermore, over 84% of the online content publishers claim to have positive results from affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is an effective strategy to leverage the audience of the affiliate partners and expand your audience base fast and increase your sales.
However, you need to choose your affiliate partners wisely. For instance, if you are running an edtech video membership site for marketing professionals, then your affiliate partners must have a similar audience base who can actually be interested in your content.
It can be a good idea to collaborate with the expert content providers in the same field to add more value, volume and variety to your video membership site content and grow your video membership site further.
You have two options to collaborate with content providers –
When you look at option #2, you can further supplement this by providing content creators their own login access to manage and publish their own videos and depending on your deal with them – provide them with revenue sharing options as well as options to set their own pricing on the content.
Muvi One offers a content partner portal that allows you to do all these and much more when it comes to content partners. Here’s more about Muvi One’s content partner portal.
Add-ons like coupons, discounts, and promotional offers like complementary plans or free upgrades can never go wrong! 93% of the online purchases include a coupon or discount code as it conveys a sense of gain to the buyers.
Research says that you can increase sales up to 73% by using coupons and discounts. A proper combination of all these can increase your sales significantly. Flash sales, personalized offers, and others drive impulse buying and help you grow your video membership site easily.
Let’s not forget the power of online events and webinars to boost your online presence! Create an impactful brand presence on your target audience and enhance your lead conversion rate.
Nearly 70% of the marketers are investing in online events and webinars more than last year and this just gives a glimpse of its unlimited potential. 95% of the businesses including video membership businesses claim that online events and webinars help them generate leads.
You can create informative events and webinars that are aligned with your video membership business. For instance, if you have an elearning video membership site offering courses on data science, then you can conduct webinars on how to pursue a data science career and invite some industry leader from the similar field.
As we already know, social media promotion gives you optimum exposure on multiple platforms to various audiences. You can create short videos, teasers, posts, digital flyers, events etc. and promote them on multiple social media like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and others.
There are over 4.59 billion social media users around the globe and social media promotion helps you target a major part of that audience. Based on the type of your target audience, you can give the proper weightage to different social media.
For instance, if your target audience is school and college going students, then Facebook and Instagram can be the suitable social media. If your target audience is B2B leaders, stakeholders and working professionals then LinkedIn and Twitter can be a better fit. So, always opt for a video membership platform provider that offers easy social media integration and sharing solutions.
You must analyze the performance of your marketing campaigns on a regular basis to assess how effective they are and whether there are any loopholes to improve them further.
Also, you need to keep a track on the important KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) like average watchtime, drop rates, audience attention span, peak hours and others to optimize them further. Always opt for a video membership platform provider that comes with an in-built analytics & insights solution. This will reduce your overhead and save you from spending extra.
With the growing number of video membership sites in various sectors, the competition in this field is getting fiercer than before. But at the same time, the market holds high potential and growth scope. The above strategies will help you grow your video membership site easily to secure a better market position without making a hole in your pocket.
With Muvi One you can launch and grow your video membership site with ease. Its feature-packed solutions can accommodate your every requirement to scale up your video membership business while offering more competitive perks like –
and many more.
Take a 14-day free trial today to try it firsthand (no credit card required).
The video membership market is swelling fast contributing majorly to a global membership industry with US $1.5 trillion forecasted value by 2025. So, definitely now is the best time to grow your video membership business.
Some of the proven strategies to grow your video membership site are adopting multiple monetization models, social media promotion, sponsorships, affiliate marketing, offering coupons and discounts, to name a few.
Content is king for your video membership site business. You must focus on creating unique videos both standalone and series to draw more audience to your video membership app/website.
Written by: Ishita Banik
Ishita is a Content Writer with Muvi Marketing Team. Apart from business writing, she is also an acclaimed author of three best seller romantic thriller novels. In 2020, she got featured in The Hindustan Times, a leading news portal as an inspirational Indian author.
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