Redefining Engagement for OTT Video Services

Today’s definitions of engagement are not good enough for OTT video services. Metrics such as total hours watched, monthly active users, and total views are interesting but not actionable. We need a better understanding of engagement to catch each audience cohort at inflection points and keep them engaged.

Brightcove is redefining video engagement with a focus on the audience lifecycle and a bias toward taking action. The key is setting a new engagement status for every registered user, TV-E member, and subscriber based on their video viewing habits.

• New. Users with a view in the last week, but none in the last year.
• Engaged. Users with multiple views in the last month. Views may not have gaps longer than 28 days from previous views.
• Recent. Users with no views in the last week, but at least 1 view in the prior three weeks.
• Re-engaged. Users with a view in the last week, but no views in the prior 4 weeks.
• Idle. Users with no views in the last 4 weeks, but at least 1 view in the prior 8 weeks.
• Inactive. Users with no views in the last 12 weeks, but at least 1 view in the last year.

Actionable Viewing Patterns

Once we know where key cohorts of audience members stand, we can better discern their lifecycle with the service and take actions to keep them engaged. There are three viewing patterns that are particularly useful in identifying actionable insights.

1) Disinterested Viewers

Disinterested viewers sign up, watch a few videos over the first few weeks, and then begin to lose interest until they become inactive. This is a common pattern for any video service, and identifying this cohort as their usage begins to drop is critical to keeping them engaged and avoiding churn.

We recommend a weekly outreach to audience members with a “Recent” status via emails or app notifications. Promoting new hit shows coming into the window as well as hidden gems is a great way to get these users re-engaged.

2) Spotty Viewers

Spotty or intermittent viewing can be a healthy usage pattern for your video service. These viewers sign up for the service, explore the catalog for a week or two at the beginning, and then fall into a cycle where they use the service every several weeks.

Audience members with spotty viewing may be picked up in your messaging to recent users or your regular outreach to engaged users.

3) Seasonal Viewers

Seasonal viewers sign up as a subscriber and are highly engaged until they finish all of their favorite show or the sports season ends. When the next season picks up, they re-engage with the service.

Understanding these fans is critical in driving them back to the service as well as marketing other relevant shows or off-season content to extend their viewing past the current season.

Export Subscriber Engagement Status

Brightcove is redefining engagement to give Audience Insights users a more comprehensive understanding of the level of engagement across their whole subscriber base. We’re also adding the engagement status to each subscriber as a standard field in our data export. Marketers, editorial teams, and even your sites and apps can react to this data to drive a healthier, long term relationship with each audience member.

Your audience is telling you exactly what you need to do to maintain their loyalty, just through their viewing patterns. With the right platform, all you need to do is listen.

Learn more in our PLAY episode, “Maximizing your Audience Lifecycle”.