How Math Tutor DVD Grew Video Revenue 50%

Brightcove Solutions With Mobile App and Social Drive 20 Percent Increase in Subscribers

In 2004, Jason Gibson launched Math Tutor DVD, a business-to-consumer learning company offering students of all ages extra help tackling math and science subjects like algebra, physics, and calculus. With a background in academic tutoring himself, Gibson began by creating specially-designed lesson plans and then filming courses with a friendly, encouraging approach.

Gibson first burned his video courses to CDs and sold them on eBay. He eventually transitioned his course content to DVDs and launched his own e-commerce website using a distributor to handle DVD sales and shipping. Then with the growing popularity of online video, Gibson debuted the Math Tutor DVD YouTube channel, which proved a far more efficient mode of content distribution. At the same time, he began shifting his website to a membership model, emphasizing on-demand video subscriptions over DVD sales.

To support this new monetization model, Gibson needed to find a video platform that not only offered video hosting behind a paywall, but also provided customers with superior viewing across multiple devices. He decided on the Brightcove platform to do just that. Gibson’s recent inclusions of Brightcove Social and Brightcove Gallery have also helped boost consumer engagement across several social platforms, including his YouTube channel, resulting in a 20 percent increase in subscriptions within a few short months.

Math Tutor DVD Moves to Online Video, Builds New Membership-Based Revenue Model

Since Gibson’s e-commerce website was already built with the necessary infrastructure to support automatic billing, login, and security, all he needed was the right video platform to host, manage, and drive engagement for his online video content.

Gibson chose Brightcove for its streamlined platform, easy workflow, and e-commerce capabilities that support subscription-based and pay-per-view access to online video content. He implemented the platform and adjusted his revenue strategy, transitioning to a paid membership model. This allowed users to access video courses either through a monthly unlimited subscription or a pay-as-you-go option. Since introducing the new membership model, Gibson has seen a 50 percent increase in video-driven revenue.

“Revenue from the members’ area, which is basically driven by Brightcove video, is around 50 percent of total revenue now, whereas before it was zero percent,” says Gibson. “About half the entire business is online streaming digital delivery.”

Combining Brightcove Gallery and Brightcove Social Boost Subscriptions by 20 Percent

By partnering with Brightcove, Gibson has been able to create a more lucrative revenue model for his company, plus increase audience engagement across multiple channels. In fact, Math Tutor DVD’s new membership platform has contributed to a year-over-year 20 percent bump in membership.

The site itself uses Brightcove Gallery’s In-Page Experiences, which allows visitors to sample lessons before purchasing a membership. These limited sampler videos, also pushed to his YouTube channel, are short in length and give prospective users a taste of what they’d be getting as a member, encouraging them to interact with the content and learn more about the company’s services.

“I’ve had lots of people say, ‘There are many free lessons out there, but you guys have it organized step-by-step, sequenced, one-two-three-four,’” says Gibson. “By visiting that Gallery, they were able to see exactly what they could get as a member.”

With the ease and simplicity of Brightcove Social’s distribution tools, Gibson is now able to post video clips to various social platforms, which helps drive traffic back to his website and increase memberships. They also prompt visitors to click through to the Math Tutor DVD YouTube channel, driving viewers back to his site. Out of Gibson’s YOY 20 percent membership boost, a whopping 85 percent of that occurred in just four months of using Brightcove's social solutions.

Brightcove Social’s cross-posting feature has also helped Gibson save time in distributing video across multiple social platforms. Because of this, he now has time to create additional lessons and grow his video library with even more engaging educational content.

“Now, I just go into Brightcove Social, I tag, click, and cross-post. I press the schedule button and then just forget about it. This is what’s really responsible for growing the channel seventeen percent in four months. Every couple days each week a new video just pops up in Facebook or YouTube, which drives engagement, clicks, traffic, and more subscribers. Brightcove makes me look like a bigger company. So for me, it’s a kind of magnification,” explains Gibson.

Math Tutor DVD Caters to Mobile Users With New Apps, Driving Additional Revenue Stream

Recently, Gibson debuted the Math and Science Tutor mobile app, a free, on-the-go companion to his online video courses. Built by Brightcove’s Global Consulting team, the app offers over 1,500 lessons across all math and science subjects, and users are able to sample almost half of each course’s material free of charge before committing to buy. According to Gibson, the try-before-you-buy model helps engage learners and encourage membership sales. Similar to his website subscription model, users can pay monthly for unlimited access. And because Brightcove streams video within the app, users never experience any lag time. All content is crisp, and viewing quality is top-notch.

“Every video in that app is streamed through Brightcove,” says Gibson. “So it’s not a download. It’s not like you have to wait for the video to load. You just open and press play to access all my lessons, and there’s an option to subscribe.”

In just over one month, the app has tallied 4,000 total downloads, and has received numerous positive reviews within the Apple app store.