I’m willing to bet that you’ve watched at least one video online today.
Am I right?
Estimates show that streaming has jumped at least 12% this year, in large part due to the pandemic forcing millions of people to hunker down at home, and thus, find their entertainment online.
Here at Vimeo, we’ve seen:
- 5x the number of channels created as compared to last year
- Nearly 20x more new net OTT subscribers to these channels across genres, and
- A 260% increase in hours viewed across those channels
...and demand for original content is only going to grow.
The takeaway: It’s a great time to launch an OTT subscription network.
Right now you may be asking yourself, How can I sell my videos online? Whether you want to learn how to sell tutorial videos online or get more paid subscribers to your fitness channel, we’re here to guide you through it.
Where to sell videos: YouTube, or someplace else?
While many creators might head straight for YouTube to try to monetize their video content, it can be challenging to yield a profit. YouTube uses a classic video monetization scheme called ad-supported video on demand, or AVOD. Viewers can access your content for free, but must sit through an advertisement. The more followers and views your channel has, the more advertisers will be willing to pay.
So let’s say you are able to pull in millions of views a month. Even then, it can be tricky figuring out how to sell streaming videos online in a sustainable way on YouTube alone. Why? Because YouTube - unlike platforms like Vimeo - takes a chunk of your ad revenue — as much as 45%. In fact, channels with as many as 1.4 million views per month bring in under $17,000 per year.
While we give props to YouTube for being one of the first platforms to raise the visibility of independent creators, it isn’t the only game in town for video monetization anymore. When it comes time to choose where to sell videos you create, know that you have options.
9 steps to help you navigate how to sell content online
That brings us to the meat of it all: how to sell streaming videos online. An estimated 74% of households in the U.S. have at least one OTT streaming service today.
Last year alone, global OTT revenue jumped 33% to become a $68 billion market, with projections that this growth will reach $159 billion by 2024. Follow these steps if you want to learn how to sell video clips successfully and grab a share of that pie.
Can you earn a living selling video content online?
1. Figure out what makes your content unique
Like any small business, understanding how to sell video content requires some planning. First, determine your niche. Ask yourself:
- What is it that you want to sell?
- What special skills or expertise can you offer that viewers won’t find anywhere else?
- What are you truly passionate about?
- Would you do this in your free time, even if you weren’t getting paid?
Once you’ve figured that out, do some market research to see if there’s an unmet need or demand for your idea. An easy way to do this is to do a keyword search online or on YouTube to see if others are offering similar content. If so, what can you do differently to set yourself apart?
For music teacher Rob Young, founder of Prodigies, that niche was offering affordable music education for children bundled with curriculum-based tactile lessons.
“Prodigies’ content is more niche than, say, a general children’s video on YouTube,” Rob says. Figuring out how to sell tutorial videos online for kids would take more than just beating YouTube’s algorithm. “We knew we could do more by developing a curriculum that included supplementary materials.”
By skipping YouTube and going straight to monetizing his content, Vimeo allowed him to build a scalable business to distribute his content across the web, TV, and mobile apps.
Read Prodigies’ story →
Other than YouTube, where can I sell my video content?
2. Build your strategy
OK, you’ve done the requisite soul-searching around how to sell streaming videos online for a specific audience. Now you can dig into more details, namely the types of products you’ll offer.
At this stage, you’ll want to ask yourself:
- Who are you trying to reach with your video content? (In marketing speak, who’s your intended target audience?)
- What type of video content are you offering to your audience? Is your goal to entertain, provide expert instruction, be an educational resource?
- What exclusive content will you offer that adds value for your viewers compared to the competition?
Your product doesn’t have to be limited to on-demand educational videos. Prodigies, for example, offers music workbooks and desk bells in addition to their subscription packages.
3. Focus on creating content
Now that we have a baseline understanding of how to sell streaming videos online, next comes the fun part: creating your content. If you create your content in-house, you can consider other ways to engage your audience besides videos.
In addition to his 1,500+ full-length workout videos, fitness instructor Millionaire Hoy also includes engaging value-adds for his subscribers like:
- New workout challenges each month
- Downloadable workout calendars
- Access to the brand’s VIP Facebook group
If your business is rooted in discovering and licensing content, Vimeo OTT takes care of time-consuming efforts like app management, tech development, and customer support, so you can focus on sourcing and sharing incredible stories. But don’t take our word for it: hear how IndieFlix reprioritized sourcing incredible stories by partnering with Vimeo.
4. Upload your content into a CMS
The question is, where to sell videos for viewer consumption? This is when you upload your videos to a content management streaming platform where your current and future customers can access them (and yep, this is also where Vimeo can help).
How do I get started with selling my video content?
At Vimeo, we take care of all your technology needs and customer service with our OTT platform so that you have more time to focus on content creation, growing your brand, and connecting with your audience. Some of the all-inclusive, end-to-end services Vimeo offers include:
- Free migration
- Branded app development, submission, and management
- Comprehensive, real-time insights into content and user behavior
- 24/7 support for both you and your subscribers
That said, you still maintain control of all your content so you have the autonomy you need to churn out content quickly, whenever you want.
“Even though the Vimeo team works on building the apps, we still have direct control over the content,” says Rob, of Prodigies. “I don’t have to tell a third party that we want a certain video going out on a certain day — we can do it in an instant.”
5. Sort your content accordingly
In the same way a library organizes its catalog in a specific system to help patrons find content, it greatly benefits you and your subscribers to organize your content on your channel.
After all, frustration with discovery can lead to churn, and that’s the last thing you want when you’re in the process of figuring out how to sell video clips in a growing content library.
Many creators choose to organize their content into relevant categories. You’ll want to add the appropriate tags and filters to ensure your content shows up in your search results too.
6. Create a branded viewing experience
While we take care of the tech, you still have total control over the video content, its organization, pricing, and the look and feel of your site on Vimeo OTT.
Choose from customizable website templates — including different themes, colors, and the option to use a personalized domain name — for you to create a branded destination for your video content. No coding skills necessary.
7. Choose a monetization model
Now comes the money-making part: which VOD model to choose. Here are three of the most common video monetization models.
Ad-supported video on demand (AVOD)
AVOD is when advertisers pay you for access to your viewers. If you can guarantee millions of views a month, this might be the path for you. There are two types of AVOD models to choose from when figuring out how to sell video content to both your audience and advertisers: Programmatic and direct-sold advertising.
Subscription video on demand (SVOD)
With SVOD, subscribers pay a recurring fee (usually monthly or annually) to enjoy unlimited access to premium content, so long as they continue to pay. It’s one of the most profitable video monetization business models — and one of the most popular. Streaming giants like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ are all SVOD services.
Transactional video on demand (TVOD)
Then there’s TVOD. This video monetization model allows consumers to purchase or rent content on a pay-per-video or pay-per-series basis. For many publishers, especially those live streaming sports — can leverage live TVOD (also known as pay-per-view, or PPV) as their primary revenue driver.
Looking for even more info on how to sell video content? Take a deep dive into monetization models →
8. Get your videos seen!
The next step in the journey of understanding how to sell content online is to get them seen.
When it comes to promoting your brand and content, social media can be a useful resource. Add a link to your website on your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram bios, and also link your social accounts on your website. This makes it easy for customers to follow you, interact with you online, and mention your brand’s handle in posts — free publicity itself.
Weekly newsletters are also a great way to reach your followers. If you’re in the pre-launch stages, you can pique people’s interests by sending updates to let them know when you’ll be starting service. Once you get going, you can pivot your newsletter to sending alerts about new content.
9. Expand your reach with branded apps
If you really want to know how to sell streaming videos online, branded apps can play a large role in its success.
Offering your content through branded TV and mobile apps means that your viewers have even more flexibility to consume your content how they want. Not only will customers get a fully branded experience, but options for in-app signups and payments make it seamless to transition from a one-time viewer into a paid subscriber.
In fact, Vimeo’s own data shows that having a branded app increases subscription video signups by 20%, and reduces churn by 33%. Vimeo OTT includes branded app development for:
- iOS
- Android
- Amazon Fire TV
- Roku
- Xbox
- Apple TV
- Samsung Tizen
Our team takes care of customization, regular updates, analytics, and even the difficult and time-consuming process of launching an app in various marketplaces. And that means you can give more attention to the creative side and build your brand.
Can I build a streaming app myself?
Some brands may try to develop an app on their own, or hire an outside team of developers to do the work. But know that the costs associated with building a custom app can add up quickly.
On the low end of the scale, a simple app hosted on a single platform can cost an estimated $25,000 (and that’s being conservative). Meanwhile, the cost of building a more complex app will land you squarely in the six-figure range on account of the time and labor that goes into it.
We believe that creators shouldn’t have to spend boatloads of energy and money on the technical stuff, but have the space to do what they’re passionate about: create. That’s why we built our OTT streaming platform as a scalable solution that packages all levels of the tech and support into a single product that will:
- Get you to market in record time
- Help offload the upfront costs of creating an OTT network
- Allow you to put your starting capital to work in smarter ways to grow your business
Vimeo OTT offers transparent, predictable pricing and plans that grow with your subscribers, removing the worry from how to sell streaming videos online. (Oh, and we won’t take 45% of your revenue, either.)
Learn more →
How to sell video content with Vimeo
By the year 2021, the world will consume 3 trillion internet video minutes a month. To put that into perspective, that’s 5 million years of videos per month — or about a million video minutes — every. Single. Second.
At Vimeo, we help creators learn how to sell streaming videos online successfully and gain a foothold in the video-on-demand space. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting to create videos or have a full library raring to go, Vimeo empowers you to create a destination where you can:
- Stream live or on-demand video content across the web, and mobile and TV apps
- Monetize your videos via subscriptions, one-time payments, or advertising
- Manage your own content library with an easy-to-use CRM
- Track video performance and analytics
- Run promotions and special offers
We’ve worked with creators from myriad industries — fitness, entertainment, faith, kid’s content, sports, instructional, and more — to create 1,000+ VOD-optimized channels boasting more than 1 million end users and 3 million live streams annually.
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The best part? Anyone can get started with Vimeo OTT, right now, for free.
Get to know Vimeo OTT →
Explore Vimeo's cutting-edge tools, including the AI script creator, video teleprompter, captioning generator, and video translator to streamline your video creation process.
