How to Promote Your CTV Channel

Tips & Tricks
Table of contents

    With the continuing growth of video content distribution, creative artists and publishers are striving to find new opportunities to reach a global audience and increase the amount of their content that can be viewed. To help achieve this, Connected TV (CTV) deserves to be noticed because it finds effective solutions for content creators to achieve their goals. You can launch your own CTV channel and get your video streamed to a vast audience. If you choose the right monetization model, your channel should generate a solid income. You should do your best to maintain the profile of your brand by using particular tools to promote your CTV channel. This means you will get increased content views and your product will boost its revenue.

    The number of people who prefer smart TVs to traditional television is rising steadily. This might be the impetus for publishers to increase  their presence in the CTV space. According to the latest Leichtman Research Group’s report, top cable TV providers in the US lost about 950,000 video subscribers in the 2Q of 2022. This was significantly more than the 590,000 subscribers the TV providers lost in 2Q of 2021. Also, there are now nearly 500 million connected TV devices in US TV households compared to 200 million in 2017.

    In addition, the US CTV market has identified Amazon Fire TV as the market leaders. These CTV devices provide valuable opportunities to increase the number of viewers and generate a sizable income from creating and promoting an app. For example, the most popular CTV platform in the USA offers Audience Network for broad targeting and a revenue share model for monetization. Meanwhile, Amazon Fire TV provides a code-free app creator, disclosing extensive data on consumer preferences and monetization based on commissions.

    These platforms show the new successful trend in profit making apps. In total, the most popular CTV platform in the USA has around 9,000 apps, with almost 100 new apps being published every week. At the same time, Amazon has about 160,000 apps, with around 1,600 new apps coming out weekly. These numbers tell us that there is a high demand for creating and promoting a channel using CTV advertising tools.

    All these factors mean that if you understand the demand for CTV inventories and should take the quick decision to launch your own channel and run CTV marketing of your products on various streaming platforms. The advantages of promoting your channel should not be underestimated. You should include clear steps in your campaign strategy, so that your channel gains in popularity and generates a healthy profit.

    Key first steps in promoting your CTV channel

    The CTV space reveals there are a number of platforms to work with, and this leads to significant competition between them. When opting for one or several platforms to promote your CTV channel, you need  to stick to some basic rules.

    Before speaking about the best practice for promoting your channel, it’s important to understand what your own value system is. In order to capture the attention of a potential audience, you need to use your creativity and make your channel stand out from the competition. This means you should clearly understand the viewers you want to display your content to. By doing some research to know them better, you will be able to design appropriate content with the right key messages. You need to be brave in bringing out new ideas. If this is achieved, there is a good chance that your CTV channel will appeal to a greater number of people.

    Brand creation

    As soon as you are more aware of your audience and your unique value proposition, it is time to come up with a brand. This means creating a unique name, a logo, and providing a philosophy for the channel that will attract viewers to your platform.

    Your website and pages on CTV platforms should include all the elements of the brand. You  will make your channel promo more appealing when you apply a number of important elements that allow you to compete with more than 50K other apps. They include:

    • installing high-quality images for the thumbnail and uploading an image of your logo in high resolution
    • choosing the right category
    • uploading high-quality content
    • making the navigation through your platform clear and straightforward

    Promotion strategy creation and implementation

    Apart from content creation, reach, and brand development, there is the promotional plan to consider. This stage in promoting the channel is vital because it will have an impact on your outcomes in the future.

    Plan your budget

    The first thing to consider in the strategy is to have a clear budgeting plan. It is not easy to create a strategy by yourself. However, you can always look to professionals such as VlogBox to help you. By collaborating with this company, you will need to provide your content, and VlogBox will do the rest to monetize your channel. It offers competitive pricing plans available to both individual content creators and larger enterprises. It is worth relying on these experts to achieve a profitable outcome for your brand.

    Ad creative best practices

    So, proper content as a unique marketing value is without doubt the key to your channel’s success. And along with strong brand creation, the right planning, and budgeting, you will increase public awareness of your product. So, how do you master the design and provide relevant messages to achieve strong results? There are some standards and creative best practices to adhere to, involving a focus on images and concepts. You can deal with other aspects of your ad campaign by using high-technology. So let’s take a look at some important principles to enhance your promotional campaign.

    1. Use attractive design

    Your ad content should be visually attractive to channel viewers. Using different digital ad formats and layouts to bring out positive impressions from an ad is recommended. One of the best ways to capture viewers’ attention is through visual storytelling. People are used to accepting visual elements of an ad rather than just reading words. 

    2. Relevance in content

    The message and ad content should be related to your channel brand and content. If relevance is not considered in a campaign, no interactive effects will help to capture the viewers’ attention. The message should be informative and engaging, allowing the audience to discover the positive points of the channel. The campaign will not look creative if the emphasized benefits do not cater to the customers’ needs.

    3. Monitor your viewers’ needs

    To increase your audience, your viewers should react to your call to action – and watch the content on your channel. The target of an ad campaign should be to encourage an audience to undertake particular actions. But people watching should also understand why they need to do this.

    In this case, it is essential to study your viewers’ needs – where they live, their current needs and interests and so on. You should  analyze the recent trends your viewers are following. This will help you understand them better and provide creative ad content that caters to their needs. Once your audience watches an appealing ad that addresses these desires, they will surely react to your CTA.

    The use of this creative best practice might seem challenging at first glance. However, digital ad tools can help you predict trends and improve your campaign.

    4. Be wise in selecting an ad format

    Creativity often means variety. Be bold when you try different ad formats available for desktop and mobile design like banners, web, native, video, in-app, and media advertising. But first, it is crucial to learn what devices and channels your viewers use and what content format they prefer to watch. This means, you should be able to find the most suitable option that will maximize the value of your creative ad campaign.

    5. Categorize ad creatives

    When scrutinizing an audience of potential viewers, you will find out a big difference in preferences and tastes. For example, older people often prefer to watch ad creatives on websites or other platforms connected to their profession. In comparison, youngsters, unsurprisingly,  are much more likely to spend most of their time on social media. Accordingly, each channel requires the use of a specific ad creative format.

    So, it makes sense to categorize ad creatives in accordance with viewer segments such as:

    • demographic (gender, age, other socio-economic criteria)
    • type (new users, returning, loyal)
    • location (local or international audience)
    • verticals (business, sports, entertainment, politics, culture, lifestyle)
    • source (search, social media, direct, referral, other)
    • device (desktop, mobile web, in-app, CTV, other devices)

    If you use this type of creative best practice for ads, you should be able to build a tailor-made communication channel with your potential audience.

    6. Use SMM techniques

    Apart from the budget, you should take into account different methods of letting people familiarize themselves with your brand. That is why social media is an important way of promoting your CTV channel. You should strongly consider the following points when incorporating these networking websites into your strategy:

    • select key social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others)
    • choose an appropriate level of formality for your brand
    • create an SMM content pla
    • identify KPIs to rate your success

    When reviewing all the points mentioned above, remember to analyze the target audience in the social media space. Also, decide what other social media channels you can involve in order to promote your CTV channel.

    7. Make your brand close to publicity

    Along with SMM tools, it is important to let the public know about your creative messages. For example, put out news stories  about your platform launch and key partnerships to create interest in your audience. It would be a great idea to include interviews and explain more about your channel and how your viewers can benefit from it. You should also go to forums and speak with your target audience. Adopting these ways of communicating with them will only positively affect your strategy. With that in mind, you will understand your target viewers much better, be able to improve your advertising plan and increase their engagement.

    8. Attend dedicated events

    Another successful way to promote your CTV channel is participating in events dedicated to connected TV trends. These will be  monthly or annual  meetings, depending on the theme discussed and the location. For content creators, distributors, publishers, and other ad companies, such events are excellent ways for attendees to gain insights and update their business strategies. Workshops, discussion panels, and small group chats create a perfect networking atmosphere that allow participants to:

    • learn more about the latest trends in the CTV sector
    • rebuild content strategy according to new market challenges
    • discuss important challenges and solutions to overcome them
    • become familiar with new methods and tools to promote a personal CTV channel
    • exchange views with colleagues and leading experts in the global market
    • make new contacts and partnerships

    So, be the first to know about changes and innovations in the connected TV industry by attending dedicated events. This will help you refresh your business model and implement new approaches that will work best for you.

    9. Test before launching

    No matter how well-planned your ad campaign is, even if you followed all the advice and used a matching ad format promotional platform, other factors might appear to impact the ad’s  performance. For this reason, it is important to test your ad campaign several times until you see it complies with the main requirements of a target audience across a particular channel.

    Takeaways

    Once you create a channel, it is crucial to promote it, in order to make it work effectively for you. If you do this successfully, you are more likely to achieve the results you want, gain higher viewership, and generate a solid income. Promoting a channel is directly connected with the value of your video content. This gives viewers a positive impression of your brand and encourages them to take positive action. That’s why content should be relevant and high-quality. 

    But this is not enough to build a channel that will generate high ROI and CPR. A number of factors should be considered, like scrutinizing your target audience, keeping them frequently posted about the channel, creating an in-depth promo strategy, and implementing it. It might seem complicated and time-consuming until you receive sufficient income.

    That is why it is preferable to cooperate with experts like VlogBox that offer great opportunities to promote your channel and make it work for you. With Vlogbox, you will benefit from:

    • receiving your own CTV channel with dedicated support
    • gates being opened to the most popular CTV platforms like Amazon Fire, Apple, and Android TV
    • access to VlogBox’s own Media House, covering a number of important verticals
    • working monetizing models
    • effective digital advertising tools