What is Vimeo OTT?

Image assets courtesy: Vimeo

In a nutshell

Vimeo OTT is a solution for broadcasters who want to offer an OTT video subscription service
From hosting videos, organization and distribution, Vimeo OTT has helped many content creators, mainly in the B2C sector, to upload and embed their content
Vimeo OTT takes your videos straight to users who want them
Vimeo offers VOD and livestream hosting on both the original Vimeo platform and the livestream platform

Since its launch in 2004, Vimeo catapulted to notoriety as a video-on-demand platform geared initially towards artists and creators. Through its free service, it allowed its members to upload and share videos to build and grow their fan bases. In addition, it has made it easier for content creators in the business-to-consumer (B2C) market to sell and promote their products and services through direct video livestreaming.

What is Vimeo OTT?

Vimeo OTT is a streaming service platform that helps content creators and broadcasters start a video subscription channel and website, providing them with the tech and support they need to boost their audiences. While you’re busy creating quality video content, OTT handles all the technological duties. OTT stands for “over-the-top,” which means the OTT team sells videos directly to users without using broadcast or cable platforms. Basically, Vimeo OTT allows you to monetize your content without splitting profits with a middleman. Examples of OTT platforms include Hulu, Amazon Video and Netflix. Examples of business-to-consumer, where a company sells a service or product directly to a consumer, are companies such as Walmart, Amazon and Target. These are all direct sellers who sell directly to consumers. Vimeo OTT allows its users to do just that through their streaming service platform.

How Vimeo OTT works

Vimeo OTT allows your brand to become the spotlight of their platform by allowing you to start a subscription service on any online streaming platform, such as Apple TV, Android TV, iOS, Android and countless others. Instead of using conventional cable or IPTV distributors to broadcast, OTT platforms send content over a high-speed internet connection. Users then could gain access to content directly from the creator without going through an intermediary. Online intermediaries do not have ownership of the creations or merchandise marketed on their site. What they do is connect sellers with buyers and make their profit by taking a cut of the transaction.

The way Vimeo OTT works is that once you upload your content, you can permit users to access your videos through subscriptions. Your customers can either pay a monthly or yearly fee for unlimited access to your branded video content collections or buy your content through purchase or rental pricing. When you upload and display your videos as products, you can set either a purchase price or a rental price — or both. In Vimeo OTT, you can set up your products as “streaming only” to disable downloading.

Vimeo OTT benefits

Vimeo OTT offers a premium service for businesses looking to grow their audiences and reach more potential customers. With its business-to-consumer, or B2C, business model, Vimeo OTT’s platform helps you move your product into a digital space, selling your product directly to consumers. By selling directly to consumers, creators can avoid price markups on their products. You’re able to deliver products or services upon customer requests, which cuts your overhead by a great degree, and your website can reach a way more substantial customer base than stores can. Additionally, Vimeo OTT allows you to use customized features. You can customize your apps, website and checkout page. You can supervise your subscriber growth in real time. Also, you can give your audience a client base app consistent with your recognized branding. And on top of that, Vimeo OTT gives you high-quality video supplied with a top-notch video player and CDNs (content delivery network).

Why use Vimeo OTT?

Yes, Vimeo OTT has competition out there. Yes, there may be other platforms offering better rates. But considering the load of features Vimeo OTT provides, it becomes clear that it offers many benefits over its competition. For broadcasters looking for an OTT video subscription service, Vimeo OTT offers many professional-grade features, such as OTT monetization, high-volume storage capabilities, account management and premium support. You can choose from three plans: Starter, Growth or Enterprise. In addition, you get video analytics where users can access statistics depending on the plan level you choose.

Here are some of those valuable features you get:

A powerful CMS that lets you upload videos from any device or cloud storage
Subscription-based monetization with paywall integration
Customizable branding of apps and video player

Here’s what you can do on Vimeo OTT

In addition to all of the inclusions and highlights mentioned above, Vimeo OTT lets you add new videos and metadata. You can add basic metadata to your videos, such as release date, genre, director and ratings, making it easier for viewers to find your content via search. Plus, you can add tags that help describe your content. You can choose from and add a host of metadata to your videos. Simply go to the top navigation in your admin:

Go to Content > Videos
Select the video you want to add metadata to from the list
Open the Discovery menu on the left side
Type in your metadata, and be sure to click the (+) button where appropriate to apply the metadata
When satisfied with the metadata you’ve added, click Save in the upper right corner

You can then select which components you’d like to appear to your customers.

Tracking growth

Vimeo OTT also allows you to track subscriber growth. To access the report from OTT Admin, click on the Analytics menu and select Subscribers. A graph will give you the total count of users based on Subscriptions and trials for that day. You can set the date and intervals for the subscriber’s report.

Customization

You can also customize your page with themes, fonts and banners. After choosing your site’s theme, you can use the Theme Editor for additional customization. Navigate to Manage, then to Theme Editor. Along the left side is a panel where you can edit various components of your site. Clicking Publish will push any changes you’ve made to your live site.

Batch uploading

You also have the option to batch upload several videos at once. To do that, go to the top of your Admin. There you’ll see the Videos tab under Content. All of your video content gets uploaded there. You can batch upload multiple videos at once by dragging and dropping the batch into the uploader. They’ll begin to upload. You can track its progress on the Videos page. Once the video is uploaded, it will start the transcoding process. You can also follow that progress on the Videos page. You’ll receive an email when the video’s finished processing. From there, you can add it to a subscription collection or make it a purchase/rental product.