How To Include OTT in Your Overall Marketing Strategy

By incorporating over-the-top, or OTT, advertising into your broader strategy, you can make great strides toward marketing success. This type of advertising delivers your ads to viewers who are streaming movies, TV shows and other digital content through OTT devices, including smart TVs, streaming boxes and video game consoles. These audiences are typically more connected and engaged, especially as many viewers are open to watching ads in exchange for streaming free content.

OTT offers additional benefits that can boost your overall marketing strategy. These include:

• Granular targeting: Marketers can tap into geolocation, demographic data, and device information to target viewers at the household level.
• Personalization: OTT’s targeting features allow marketers to deliver ads that are highly relevant to viewers, increasing the efficiency of their buy.
• Advanced analytics: Marketers can analyze metrics related to ad exposure and engagement – like video completion rate – to guide future ad strategies.

To get started, utilize the following three strategies to successfully integrate OTT into your marketing strategy.

1. Cross-Marketing

OTT can be used as an additional tool to promote your products and services to a specific audience. By using cross-marketing tactics, you’ll not only build your online brand presence across multiple channels, but you can also foster brand recognition and trust among your customers.

To be successful, you must optimize your ads for each individual channel. As you do this, target the right audience and keep your marketing creative consistent to drive frequency and promote a unified presence. For example, your OTT ad should include the same sounds, visuals, key messages and calls-to-action (CTAs) as your radio and digital ads.

2. Retargeting

With retargeting, you can reinforce your marketing message with the same audience – helping you convert more leads into customers. OTT is a great tool for retargeting potential customers who may have consumed your ad on another channel but didn’t take action. This can increase brand recall, as well as influence their decision to purchase your product or service.

If you were to decide to retarget customers through OTT, they may hear your ad while listening to the radio or browsing online, and again while streaming movies at home – further strengthening the connection with your brand and its products and services.

3. Personalization

When done right, OTT leverages advanced targeting capabilities to deliver highly relevant ads to a specific audience. This supports personalization, which can deliver powerful results for your business, including increased conversion rates, increased engagement and a measurable lift in business results.

To use OTT to increase personalization in your marketing program, be sure to define your audience, leverage the tool’s targeting abilities and utilize its analytics systems. This allows you to deliver ads that speak to the needs and interests of your ideal customer, which can increase the efficiency of your advertising and improve your marketing ROI. When combined with other channels such as radio and digital, OTT can provide valuable audience insights that guide future marketing campaigns.

Incorporate OTT to Improve the Success of Your Marketing Program

When you utilize the best practices above to include OTT in your marketing strategy, you can greatly improve the success of your advertising campaigns. Incorporating this channel can increase brand awareness and visibility, foster engagement and drive profitable customer action. To get started, consider partnering with a trusted media partner, such as Hubbard Chicago, to help you build a media plan that successfully integrates OTT into your overall marketing strategy.