Tips on how to effectively monetize content

As the demand for video and content production grows worldwide, companies of all sizes and industries gradually increase their library of content or media archive. From TV or movie rights owners to independent artists or creatives, large corporations, startups, public and educational institutions, brands or sports clubs, more and more businesses rely on video production to transmit their values, improve communication with their audience or simply to increase their revenues and offer a better service to their customers.

However, few are still fully aware of the value that lies in all this content that they are creating and even fewer are aware of the monetization opportunities that they might be losing as a result of ignorance, lack of time, disorganization of media files or lack of adequate tools and technology.

There is an audience for practically all types of content and it is in our best interest to make the most out of it. What is the secret to ensuring effective and easy monetization of all the content we produce? Where should this process start? We review some basic tips and key technologies that should be considered for it below.

1. The foundation of content monetization is cataloging and file organization

We cannot monetize what we cannot find. Although this idea may seem obvious, it has many more implications than we can even imagine when we talk about media files. Storing our content in shared folders in an on-premise server can be enough when we are just starting to produce video, but as our media archive grows, it is a completely inefficient process especially considering that not a single person will be able to remember by heart over time the content of each video clip, its status, its technical features or where it has been stored.

It is very important to rely on technologies that allow us to organize all videos quickly and easily even, why not, automatically. Indexing and cataloging our media files using metadata is an essential step in this process, and investing in a Media Asset Management (MAM) system such as VSNExplorer, or hiring a provider that offers these services instead, is a vital first step in the process of content monetization.

2. Multiplatform distribution is no longer a desirable option, but a necessary one

According to a recent Google research on digital video and streaming, 77% of viewers turned to web platforms and non-linear channels during the lockdown as a source of new and fresh' content. In fact, up to 50% of users say they find content relevant to them on this kind of platforms, according to their experiences and tastes, compared to 32% who achieve the same with traditional television. In line with these data, eMarketer points out that in 2021 more than 106 million households in the US will watch streaming content, eclipsing the number of households that pay for traditional TV services like cable or satellite.

As part of the explosion of video consumption, it is becoming unfeasible to consider monetizing content just through a single window of exploitation and in a single video format. Today, the key to getting the most out of our video content is precisely to reach maximum audience taking minimum risks. That is, reaching an increasingly fragmented audience through a diverse set of platforms and devices that follow various combinations of business models.

In this sense, companies must be able to reuse, repackage and distribute their content for all types of platforms, including, of course, social media. IIt is exactly here where technologies such as VSNCrea, our Broadcast Management System (BMS), can help companies in scheduling all their contents for different exploitation windows, rather linear or nonlinear, throughout the entire media lifecycle and in a simple and even automatic way by using smart rules to schedule content for the long term.

Thus, a media company or a production company could decide, for example, to release its new series on TV as the primary viewing window, and once the broadcasting rights have ended, release it on its own VoD platform as a second window. They could even promote short clips of the series through social media as well. In the same way, a private company could broadcast its new event for investors through its WebTV and then host the recording on its corporate website and on its YouTube and Vimeo channels, as well as announcing the availability of the video on demand through their social networks.

In any of the previous cases, a system like VSNCrea would allow for a quick search of the files to be broadcast or published on each platform directly from the updated catalog of available contents. Subsequently, it would allow users to organize and schedule the publication or broadcast dates of each content for the different windows, platforms or channels. All with just a few clicks and in a matter of minutes, from a single centralized system for linear and non-linear channels.

3. The key to optimal monetization is Business Intelligence

Throughout ingest, cataloging, scheduling and distribution or broadcast processes, a huge amount of data worth analyzing is collected. These data are extremely valuable to help users make informed decisions about how to improve the monetization of their content (quality, audiences, cost, advertising revenue, preferred consumer platform, ROI, etc.). That is why any advanced tool for media management and content scheduling should have a Business Intelligence module that allows accessing all kinds of data, information and graphics, including those coming from third-party solutions (eg: ERP systems), in order to help users make a better assessment of which aspects are improving content monetization and which ones should be revised or changed.

4. Increasing revenue streams with a content hub is always a good idea

A traditional and simple solution to extract the maximu

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