Adding a live chat overlay to your website is a powerful way to enhance livestreams and customer interaction. The instructions in this guide will help you to get started. Before getting into the technical tips, let’s clarify the purpose of a live chat overlay.
What Is A Live Chat Overlay & Why To Add It To Your Website?
A live chat overlay is a simple way for your customers and staff to exchange chat messages on your website. A live chat overlay is usually added to a website using a chat widget compatible with most major browsers. Brands in all sizes and shapes have in their websites, from small yoga studios to giant broadcasting conglomerates.
It is called an overlay because it usually does not operate as a full-screen application. Instead, the chat window may appear in the bottom-left corner or bottom-right corner. Keeping the conversation on the side allows customers to easily see the rest of your website. That means your users can see the video stream or other content on your website while chatting.
How To Add Live Chat Overlay
Use these steps to select a live chat app for your website and test it to ensure it is a good fit for your goals.
1) What Is Your Goal For Adding Live Chat?
Adding a chat window or chat program to your website requires some tools. Arena Live Chat is different – it usually takes less than an hour to set up the chat widget. That said, it may take longer for your employees to learn the most effective ways to participate in a chat session.
Before investing the time and resources required to power a chat conversation, get clear on what you plan to achieve. Generally, most companies add a chat function to their website for a few reasons: increase time on site, lift customer loyalty and boost lead generation. It’s also possible to gain more sales by adding live chat.
Once you know what you want to achieve, you can start compiling a list of options.
2) Get Inspiration From Other Chat Experiences
Your customers have probably used chat widgets and services on various other websites before coming to your website. Some of the most popular chat options available today include:
Facebook Live
Facebook Gaming
Twitch Chat
Youtube Chat
Spend some time looking at how these services offer customization options (e.g. the ability to change the background color), chat transcript and chat history. Simply observing how users interact with a chat box widget is extremely valuable.
If you’re already using one of the platforms above, it’s easy to see the appeal in using the platform’s solution like built-in YouTube chat. While YouTube and Switch can offer a fantastic streaming experience, it’s still wise to have a chat pane on your website. Having your chat pane can better customize the experience and ensure that your customer service team covers questions in the active chat.
3) Make A List Of Live Chat Widgets Options
There are many chat apps on the market you can use. For simplicity, let’s assume that you are looking for chat windows focused on bringing users together. Automated customer service using common chat bots is an entirely different experience than live chat.
Some popular choices include
Arena Live Chat
Arena Live Chat is an excellent choice to bring live chat to your company. You can install it quickly, and it runs fast. With built-in content moderation features, Arena Live Chat is an excellent choice for significant events.
Zendesk Support
Zendesk is an excellent live chat choice if you are focused on improving customer service specifically. Zendesk also has Zapier integration so you can easily connect it with your current infrastructure.
ChatBot
While automated chatbots are not the focus of this post, this category is worth touching on. ChatBot is a chat app aimed at small businesses looking to automate the purchase and customer service experience. Adding some type of chatbot to your company is an excellent way to augment the efforts of your in-house customer service team.
4) Test The Performance With A Free Trial
The next step in adding a live chat overlay to your website is to install a free trial. For example, you can install Arena on your website in a few minutes. Once you have it installed, invite a few colleagues to join a chat session and experiment with the chat experience.
In particular, compare how the live chat performs on the following aspects.
Chat Appearance. Customizing your chat box is important so look for ways to customize the chat box theme in terms of color, branding, and additional options like a fade-out option. The ability to change background opacity matters critically to the appearance as well.
User Options. Your users should be able to control their chat experience by switching to a popout chat window. In addition, there should be ways for the user to manage chat comments like exporting a transcript, sending private messages, or replies. The ability to manage chat content is critical when you have a large number of chat participants.
Browser Compatibility. Test the browser with popular web browsers like Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. If you find that only the latest browser version performs well, highlight this fact to your users to reduce technical support requests.
Interaction With Your Website. Carefully check the chat window covers critical features on your website like audio controls. Is it possible for users to buy products on your website while using the live chat widget?
5) Select Your Live Chat App
After your complete a few test sessions with your live chat tool, give each tool a score. You might rate live chat apps based on speed, the ability to customize the chat appearance, user options, browser compatibility and website integration.
It’s important to consider all of these options along with cost before selecting a live chat app for your website.
6) Promote Your Live Chat With Events
Installing a live chat option on your website is an important first step. Simply having a live chat widget in place is not enough to achieve success though. You also need customers to show up!
Combining live chat with events is one of the most powerful ways to drive engagement. Use these 8 best practices to promote your online event and attract more chat users.
Add Live Chat To Your Website For Free
Not sure what your website will look like with a live chat overlay? The best way to find out is to add a live chat widget today and experiment with it. You can also try Arena Live Chat for free.
Prepare for the cookieless future. User privacy concerns have prompted the advertising industry, Apple, and Google to develop new marketing strategies. New privacy laws make the conventional approach to personalized advertising no longer work.
To succeed, advertisers need to meet new consumer expectations and regulatory restrictions by creating direct connections with their audiences. Success in a world without third-party cookies starts with understanding how the world has changed.
New Opportunities In The Digital Landscape Changed
The future of cookies will take two primary forms: cohort-based marketing and first-party relationships. These opportunities deserve a prominent place in any effective marketing strategy today.
The Rise of Cohort Based Marketing: Not Ready For Prime Time
Rather than tracking each user’s online behaviors, the new approach pioneered by Google and adtech companies is cohort-based advertising. This means aiming your advertising at a group of people with similar interests instead of a single user. One example of this trend is the federated learning of cohorts (FLoC) that Google has pioneered. This concept is exciting because it will leverage machine learning to enhance digital advertising.
The FLoC concept was initially developed in 2021 in a privacy sandbox created by Google. This particular technology came to an end in January 2022. There are some ongoing consumer privacy concerns with the approach taken at Google. As a result, the company is moving in a new direction called “Google Topics” (or Topics API).
It’s not just privacy concerns that cause difficulties for cohort-based marketing. Fundamentally, tracking a large group of people may not be a good match for the customer journey you have developed.
First-Party Relationship: The New Way To Understand Consumer Behavior
Also known as a first-person cookie, this marketing approach is exciting. A first-party cookie is direct rather than relying on third-party cookie data from others in the marketing industry. For example, a potential customer lands on your website and accepts browser notifications or signs up for your email list.
Companies can target relevant advertising directly to their potential customers with this direct connection. Using your Customer Data Platform and Google Analytics, you might notice that one user is regularly visiting your “on-sale” pages. Based on that information, you can tailor marketing to that individual user. For example, send them more emails or notifications emphasizing your seasonal sales. In essence, establishing a robust first-party relationship means personalized messaging becomes much more manageable. A deep understanding of what your customers want means you can improve your emails, Google Ads, and other marketing campaigns much faster.
How To Succeed With First Party Cookies
Thriving in a 1st party relationship world requires solving two problems: the need for more website traffic and user consent.
1) Increase Website Traffic
First, this strategy requires potential customers to come to your website. That is getting harder today because many popular websites and tech companies operate as walled gardens. These walled gardens maximize user time on their website rather than sending people elsewhere.
2) Renewed Focus on Earning Consumer Consent
The second challenge is that privacy standards require you to seek consent to establish a direct relationship with a user. The adtech industry has previously played fast and loose with the privacy rules. Also, privacy regulations like GDPR have pushed companies to change their advertising strategies. It’s not just regulations either – companies like Apple have pushed back hard against invasive tracking methods. As a result, third-party data like traditional cookies are largely becoming obsolete.
Gaining consumer consent in this brave new world requires offering something attractive to users. There are different approaches to gaining consumer consent to individual user tracking. Common solutions include promising users a personalized experience, offering a discount (i.e. a discount code) or a free resource like an exclusive webinar or report.
Audience Engagement: A New Hope For Marketing
The future of cookies is fundamentally focused on creating and deepening direct relationships. Your online presence has to become more exciting and appealing to your potential customers. Your online content, events, and experiences have to be so appealing that your audience happily agrees to receive marketing messages from you.
Three Strategies To Grow And Deepen First Party Relationships
Use the following strategies to keep users returning to your website week after week, even as the digital landscape changes. By the way, offering engaging content and experiences has a secondary marketing benefit. You’re giving your users more chances to share your content with other people.
1. Boost Investment In Content Marketing and Online Events
To keep people coming back to your website repeatedly, appealing products and services are not enough. Your marketing itself needs to add value like original data, a community of like minded people and exciting content.
So, what exactly does a boosted effort in content marketing look like? According to the Content Marketing Institute, more than half of B2B marketers have increased their spending on video, events (including digital and hybrid), owned media assets (i.e., content you own and control), and paid media.
As third party cookies decline, it’s wise to take inspiration from a variety of brands who are achieving wins in content marketing.
Salesforce offers a wide range of content marketing initiatives like podcasts (e.g. the Marketing Cloudcast and the Marketing Trends podcast), events (i.e. the Dreamforce conference has attracted tens of thousands of attendees) and much more.
Dropbox shows that interactive approaches to content marketing can become wildly successful. A few years ago, Dropbox created a “What kind of marketer are you?” quiz to create awareness – a campaign that attracted significant leads.
PayPal, the well known financial technology firm, shows a simple way to create content marketing: work with your users. PayPal Stories have recently featured a variety of successful small business owners and entrepreneurs. This PayPal approach to content marketing shows that you can make customers the star of your content marketing.
Investing more deeply in content marketing matters because it gives your customers a reason to keep coming back to your website. When customers are motivated to visit your site regularly, you have more opportunities to ask for their consent to market to them through their browser, email, and other means.
2. Grow Your Social Media Audiences
The best way to be ready for the end of cookies is to drive the audience to your own website. This way, you can generate proprietary, first-party data about your audience. Attracting your audience from social media is worthwhile because these audiences have already shown interest in your brand.
Since there are many social media platforms, there are two simple techniques to decide which platform to focus on. Start with your customers – what social media platforms do they like the most? Running a survey of your customers to ask them about their favorite social media sites can help to guide you.
Further, you also want to think about which platforms have sufficient reach and advertising opportunities. For example, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok have a significant market share and interesting significant advertising features. Building a following on those platforms is another way to grow despite the uncertain future of cookies.
3. Build Your Customer Data Platform
Simply increasing the number of website visitors and subscribers is not enough to succeed in a cookie-less future. It’s vital to deepen your understanding of consumer behavior.
Implementing a Customer Data Platform is a significant next step. A CDP connects to your existing apps and platforms like your email marketing software, Google Analytics, and CRM. Drawing together multiple sources, it can help you understand the content and experiences that your customers engage in before buying.
Once you have a CDP in place, use to understand the customer journey in detail. Look at how many touchpoints a potential customer has with your brand before they buy. For example, you might see that high value buyers attend events like live shopping and download a few specific types of content.
As a result, you can quickly refresh your advertising strategies monthly based on the specific patterns your users are engaged in.
What To Do This Month To Thrive Without Traditional Cookies
Choosing the right marketing strategy matters, but your team also needs to know what exactly to do this week and this month to succeed. Use these tactics to win in today’s marketing game without focusing on third-party cookies.
1. Integrated Email Marketing Analytics
The emergence of new marketing opportunities like the metaverse is exciting. Positioning your brand to win in these emerging areas can pay off long-term. However, you also need to keep your eye on this quarter’s results.
Optimizing your email marketing effectiveness remains one of the best ways to drive higher returns. For example, check if your email marketing software supports A/B testing on subject lines, links and other elements. This approach lets you achieve individual user tracking through email.
Logging into your email platform and reviewing its trends on open rates, clicks and replies only give you part of the picture. It is also vital to know whether a subscriber has attended an online event or engaged with your sales team. Arena’s CDP platform makes it easy to connect the dots between email marketing data and other customer interactions.
2. Boost Push Notification Marketing
While email marketing has exceptional ROI, it is not the only opt-in digital marketing option. With push notifications, you ask the customer for permission to send messages to them directly through the browser or mobile apps.
According to Airship research, opt-in rates for mobile app push notifications range from 29% to more than 70%! To earn high opt-in rates from your prospects, keep investing in engaging content and virtual events. When prospects enjoy your content and experiences, they will happily opt in to receive more information from you.
3. Review Your Privacy Policy
Customer expectations for privacy and data protection are increasing every year. As marketers pivot away from cookies, your privacy policy needs to keep up. There are several layers to updating your privacy policy for the post cookie era.
Start by reviewing your privacy policy to see if it reflects the customer data you are currently collecting. If your privacy policy was last updated over a year ago, it might be out of date. For example, adopting a customer data platform to build a comprehensive customer profile may require an update to your privacy policy because you are changing how you use data.
Next, take a hard look at your security safeguards. You probably have robust systems to protect highly sensitive data like payment data. However, your marketing databases also contain personal information, ensuring that data is protected.
The New Way To Achieve Personalized Marketing
Cookies were powerful because they unlocked personalization for digital marketers. As we say goodbye to cookies as a central strategy, how can you keep data-driven personalization?
The answer lies in setting up a customer data platform for your brand. It’s more than data dashboards and exciting reports. A customer data platform is one of the best ways to identify advocates and passionate fans in your audience. With a CDP, your marketing team can also learn which marketing assets are driving your results.
Discover how a customer data platform can solve today’s most pressing problems in marketing. Download Arena’s CDP Ebook: The Future of Marketing and Sales. Your marketing personas will be grounded in factual data with a CDP in place.
A content wall is a powerful way to attract online visitors and keep them on your website for minutes. Best of all, you can create a content wall fast by leveraging social media and post updates. To create your next Content Wall, use this ultimate guide to engage your audience!
What Is A Content Wall?
A content wall is a digital hub where you present curated content to your audience in various formats. Also known as social walls or social media walls, a content wall can combine posts from your community and your staff. For example, your social walls might feature Instagram posts from customers, videos from your YouTube channel, and blog posts. Publishers, companies, and educators can use content walls to engage their communities.
A content wall is distinct from your blog in a few ways. A blog is often structured with posts in reverse chronological order (i.e., the newest posts are displayed first). On the other hand, a content wall is a curated experience typically focused on a single theme like a specific conference.
In brief, content walls present and package content from multiple sources and make it easy for your audience to consume this information.
Five Reasons Why Companies Are Using Content Walls
There are five reasons why more companies invest in curating and presenting content walls.
1. Enhance their positioning
Selecting blog posts, videos, images, and other material for your content wall takes significant effort. When a company develops a reputation for selecting the best content on a given subject, you will draw in more traffic and be perceived as an expert authority in your field.
2. Increase revenue from your audience
Giving your audience a good reason to stay on your website for more extended periods of time is a crucial benefit of content walls. When a customer spends several minutes or longer on your website, you can display more ads and generate more revenue. Further, you can also present more calls to action (e.g., sign up here to get notified of our monthly content wall series)
3. Aligning the marketing and editorial sides of your business
Publishing companies sometimes struggle to bring together their editorial content and marketing communications. A social wall can help! Your editorial team starts the process by selecting the best content around a given theme (e.g., the very best photojournalism showing your city). The marketing team can then step in to organize and structure the content to make it more engaging.
4. Decreasing reliance on social media websites
Relying on social media sites to bring traffic to your business puts your growth at risk. What happens when ad costs go up? Or if these companies change their algorithms to make it harder to bring traffic in? Over the years, one thing has become clear. Social media sites want users to stay on their sites rather than leave.
Your goal is different – you want people to come to your website after discovering you on social media.
There’s a solution to this challenge – add highly engaging content experiences to your website. What do the most popular social media websites have in common? Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram all present feeds to their users. Creating a content wall of highly curated content gives your audience a reason to experience a sense of community right on your website!
5. Increase audience loyalty
Allowing your audience to discover new ideas and insights on your website is powerful. In a way, your audience will start to experience a sense of adventure by visiting your content walls. That means your audience will keep coming back to see more content. Over time, your audience is likely to trust you more, which means that it is easier for them to download content, ask for information and make purchases.
Adding content walls to your business is even greater for publishers.
Content Wall Publishers & Media: 6 Ways To Grow And Stand Out
Publishers are in the business of creating exciting, informative content for their audience. Today’s publishers create articles, blog posts, social posts, live streams, videos, and live chat experiences.
You can draw even more value from these assets by presenting them as content walls. These curated experiences are valuable because they are organized in focused themes that speak to the audience’s interests. This means you’ll be positioned to compete with today’s most engaging online services like Netflix, Disney+, and social media sites.
Now, let’s explore how content walls can help publishers attract readers and subscribers and deepen those relationships effectively.
1. Positioning your company as an authority in your industry
Fake news and misinformation are major social problems today. So becoming a trusted source has become even more important recently. The Pew Research Center has found that a personal connection to a journalist or news organization can increase trust.
One way to develop and strengthen that trusted relationship is to create high-quality content walls. Thoughtfully creating a content wall with the very best content on a topic positions your company as trustworthy. This is a great place to highlight how much work your staff put in.
For example, you might point out that your journalists evaluated over 500 sources before picking the 20 best sources for technology stock insights. In essence, you’ve saved your audience the trouble of sifting through endless sources to find quality data and insights.
By regularly presenting curated content walls to your audience, your audience will increasingly view your website as the best place to find high-quality information.
2. Increase your visibility and discoverability in search engines
It’s not enough to be a trusted authority anymore. You also need a consistent, reliable way to attract new people to your properties.
Fortunately, content walls can play a crucial role in helping you grow your audience through SEO (search engine optimization). Content walls give users significant content about a single topic from several perspectives. Search engines, including Google, increasingly value authoritative websites that authoritatively present content when determining rankings.
In other words, content walls can drive more organic visitors to your site!
3. Gain more control over your content
Once you publish a new article, post, or video on the Internet, it can spread wildfire. Alas, there’s a downside to the ease of spreading information. It’s far too easy for unscrupulous people and companies to copy and monetize YOUR content without permission. That means lost revenue and online visitors for your publication.
Content walls offer one solution to the challenge of online plagiarism. Content walls make it easy for publishers to control how their content is displayed to readers. For example, you can make it more difficult for people to copy and paste content and spread it without your knowledge or consent.
From an editorial point of view, increased control is helpful in another way. You can tailor the audience’s experience based on your expertise. You can present trigger warnings, background information, and more information to make your content more meaningful.
4. Generate more paying subscribers
Did you know that the New York Times has about 8 million paid digital subscribers? Those subscribers are helpful for the company to thrive in the digital age.
It’s no longer enough to generate millions of page views and attract online visitors to your website. You also need to convert those visitors into subscribers. Limiting some of your best content walls to paying subscribers only will make signing up for a paid subscription much more valuable.
5. Understand your audience more deeply
There’s an art and science behind creating a successful publishing experience. In many cases, publishers do not fully understand what their audiences value.
Content walls can help you understand your audience better in two ways.
Content Wall engagement
You’ll get this benefit when you create several content walls over time. Pay attention to how your audience interacts with each content wall you create. Which videos or images do they like? See which content drives people to share your content wall on social media. These insights will help you see the themes and approaches your audience likes the most.
With these insights in hand, you can create content that immediately connects with your audience in the future.
Gain more insights with your customer data platform
Content walls are mighty because they give people a reason to visit your website and interact with it deeply. If you install a customer data platform, you’ll be able to quickly understand the exact profile of your most engaged viewers. That means you can more accurately target your marketing efforts in the future.
6. Hit your marketing metrics goals
Most publishers have demanding marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) to meet each month. You might be focused on:
Monthly unique visitors
Increasing your clickthrough rate (CTR)
Growing your email list
A content wall can help you hit all of these goals more quickly. As website visitors see the quality of your content wall, they are more likely to like and trust your brand over time. That means more people giving you the benefit of the doubt when you offer a new call to action (e.g., sign up for our next live chat event). A content wall also adds to your sense of community – it’s something remarkable to share with other people.
Demonstrating that your publication is pulling in a large and growing audience also means that your advertising revenue will keep growing.
What types of content work best in a content wall?
When you first get started with a content wall, getting overwhelmed is easy. There are many different kinds of content you could feature – articles, e-books, how-to guides, videos, embedded social feeds, links to webinars, podcasts, etc.
How exactly do you craft an engaging content wall for your audience with so many types of content to choose from? There are a few guiding principles we recommend.
Start with a theme
Choosing a the right idea is the first and most crucial step in the content wall planning process.
If your company is hosting a major conference, the Content Wall could focus on that event. A publisher might choose to create a content wall around a major news event like an election.
It’s essential to select a theme your audience is already interested in and one that fits your company’s goals. If you have too many content wall ideas, choose an idea where you already have a significant body of in-house content to draw on.
Create a foundation of in-house content
Your organization’s content is an excellent foundation for a content wall. Let’s say your theme is cybersecurity innovation. Pick a few articles, videos, and other posts on cybersecurity that have performed well in the past year on your website and put those on your content wall.
Enrich your Content Wall with third-party sources
Your next opportunity is to go out and find the best third-party content relevant to your theme. Start with publications that are already well respected by your audience. For example, a business-themed content wall might draw on the Wall St Journal and Harvard Business Review.
It is best to present short quotes from third-party sources and link back to the source. You don’t want your content wall to cause any copyright infringement headaches!
Add user generated content
Pulling in a few social media posts from current customers is an intelligent way to show appreciation for your customers. Ask permission before copying somebody’s else content and putting it on your content wall.
Consider relevant ads
Publishers, take note! You can include relevant ads on your content walls. These ads should be relevant to the content wall. For example, your staff might have created a special report about the future of cryptocurrency recently. Your content wall is about blockchain or cryptocurrency topics, including a few ads for the particular report makes sense.
Keep in mind that the best content walls are customer-centric by nature. Therefore, advertising and self-promoting content should be kept to a minimum. Ultimately, a content wall or content hub is a way of growing awareness and trust in your brand.
Content Wall Examples
What if you’re still not quite sure what a content wall is? Look at these examples in different niches and discuss them with your team as you plan your content wall.
The SportsNet content wall effectively connects their core coverage – sports – to Black History Month. Notice how the publisher presents each part of their content wall with a small photo, headline and copy. This is a great example of a content wall that combines content from the publisher and social media updates.
The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) recently used a social wall to boost awareness of their annual conference. The PPA Festival approach primarily focused on Twitter. Featuring updates from social media is a good approach when your audience is actively engaged and posting about your event.
Content wall core features
A good idea for your content wall is the spark that will drive engagement. However, a robust content management platform is essential to keeping your content wall organized. As you consider the different content walls on the market, look for these critical features.
Get more SEO traffic with keywords
The best content wall platforms are designed with SEO goals in mind. Look for a platform that supports your organic traffic growth goals.
Customize the look and feel of your content wall
The content wall should match the colors and design of the rest of your online presence. It is crucial to select a content wall that lets you control its visual appearance so that you can offer a compelling appearance.
Flexibility to add new content walls
Your content wall should make it easy to publish new content walls (or update existing ones) easily.
Create and send content wall updates
Your users might get busy and forget to come back to your website to see your latest content wall. Choose a platform that lets your users subscribe to receive new updates by email to keep your audience engaged.
Add recommendations to explore other content
Deeply exploring a content wall might not interest all of your audience. Therefore, your content wall should make it possible to add suggestions to other content on your website like ebooks, webinars, videos, interviews, and other content.
Make social sharing easy
The best content wall apps do not rely exclusively on SEO to attract new visitors: they also support social media sharing. Look for an app that includes easy sharing with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
If you’re unsure which content wall platform to use, why not try Arena’s Live Blog?
If you’re looking for a way to help clients improve engagement, increase sales, enhance customer support, and more, consider adding a live chat tool. Live chats tools are easy to set up, and they offer several benefits to both companies and customers. This guide was created to help digital agencies understand how live chat websites can benefit their clients.
What is Live Chat?
Live chat is a messaging technology that lets users interact with your company and other users via a website chat widget. One study by Software Advice Inc. predicts that more than 85% of businesses will offer live chat by 2022.
Live chats can be initiated by the company or the user, and company responses can be automated or answered by staff members. Digital agencies can create a live chat website for their clients to engage their audience and improve customer service.
How Digital Agencies can use Live Chat
By creating a chat website, digital agencies can improve engagement, enhance customer service, increase profits, and understand their audience.
Improve Engagement
Digital agencies can create a live chat website that encourages users to interact with each other and the company. By giving users more ways and incentives to participate in conversations, they are more likely to stay on your clients’ websites. A website chat widget can be added to both a chat website or a live broadcast.
For example, adding a group live chat during a live sporting broadcast encourages users to share their opinions and interact with each other on your chat. You can also incentivize users to comment by offering prizes, coupons, and product discounts. Fashion brands, like Vans, offer live music streaming DJ sets, aided by Live Chat in their website, to attract and retain users.
Agencies can add a dedicated Q&A that lets users ask relevant questions. Companies can add live chat polls to encourage user feedback and gain valuable insights on their preferences. They can also add call-to-action buttons that include pictures and product descriptions to maximize conversion.
If improving engagement through group live chat, conversion cards, and Q&As sounds right for you, consider adding a tool like Arena Live Chat. Arena Live Chat is a comprehensive live chat tool that has provided customers with a 28% increase in subscription conversion, 40% reduction in marketing spend, and 64% increase in user engagement.
For maximum results, pair Arena Live Chat with its Live Blog solution. A live blog can share instant updates on relevant events and can be used to encourage user interaction via live chat.
Enhance Customer Service
Many website chat widgets specialize in customer service. By building a live chat website for clients, you can ensure their customers are well informed about their products and services. One study shows that live chat has the highest customer satisfaction level at 73%, followed by 61% for email support and 44% for phone support.
Live chat increases the speed and efficiency of customer support. For example, an AI-powered chatbot can instantly respond to customer questions by sending push links, product information, and website navigation help. You can also let users chat with a staff member and allow agents to take the chatbot’s place.
Increase Profits
Live chat can increase your client’s profits by boosting sales and reducing expenses.
Without live chat, customers typically need to fill out a form to be later contacted via phone or email. With live chat, customers can connect to company sales teams instantly.
Agents and chatbots can quickly handle objections and streamline the checkout process via live chat. They can provide free resources like tip sheets, PDF guides, and videos to inform customers. They can also address last-minute concerns on checkout pages.
With phone support, agents can only attend to one customer at a time. Live chat agents can multi-task by having three or more chat windows open at once. This allows them to provide more support in less time.
Understand Your Audience
When paired with a customer data platform (CDP) or customer relationship management (CRM) tool, live chat is an effective way to understand your audience without questioning them directly.
Companies can look through user chat histories to identify pain points, interests, and engagement levels. From there, they can create a customer profile that shows which chat rooms users engage in, how much revenue they’ve generated, and new products they may be interested in.
Some advanced tools can analyze user conversations to determine their views and feelings on certain products and brands. This allows company agents to have personalized interactions with customers based on these viewpoints. Consider connecting Arena CDP to your live chat to better understand customer behavior.
You can also take a direct approach when gathering customer information. By including questions like “How many employees does your company have?” in your live chat script, you can better understand the customer and connect them to the appropriate agent.
Conclusion
Digital agencies can use this guide to determine how to use live chat to help their clients. Live chat tools like Arena Live Chat can be set up to allow users and companies to quickly interact with each other.
Live chat improves engagement on websites and live events, and support agents can use it to enhance customer service. Live chat also increases profits by boosting sales and reducing support costs. These tools can also be paired with CDPs and CRMs to better understand audiences and create user profiles.
Live shopping experiences are a growing retail trend. It’s an innovative way to combine entertainment with shopping. Retail Insider reports that footwear company Aldo created a live shopping experience in 2021 with an average viewing time of 12 minutes by featuring a guest stylist and an entertainer. In China, live shopping is a national pastime – two-thirds of Chinese consumers have bought products through a live stream in 2020.
The Missing Ingredient In Live Shopping
The opportunity to deliver significant revenue in a short time makes live shopping appealing. Designing an appealing event takes more than inviting a celebrity guest. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes for a moment. They are probably joining the live shopping experience on their phone or computer. There’s a good chance that they are a bit distracted by other activities. Making your event more appealing is one way to encourage consumers to pay attention.
The missing ingredient in live shopping is interaction and support. If you miss these capabilities, your live shopping experience is likely to underperform. You stand a good chance of losing sales because customers couldn’t quickly get answers to their questions. Your audience will probably be less loyal if there is no way to interact with other shoppers during the event.
Three Ways Live Chat Makes Live Shopping Events Better
Adding live chat to your live shopping event can grow sales in a few ways.
Before The Live Shopping Event
Before the event, shoppers might have questions about how to access the event. Make it easy for consumers to ask those questions and get signed up. This type of pre-event support is significant when you first start to offer live shopping events. As your audience becomes more familiar with your company’s approach to these events, pre-event live chat may become less significant.
Consumers will have plenty of questions about products, shopping, pricing, and more during the event. Providing fast answers to those questions through live chat will help you to boost sales. To avoid keeping customers waiting, add multiple support people to your live chat.
Providing accurate, highly detailed product information to customers during the live chat session may help to reduce returns. According to a 2019 survey, 27% of consumers return online purchases because the product was not as described. By addressing questions upfront about your product, you can reduce returns and increase customer satisfaction.
After The Live Shopping Event
After the event, offering live chat as a customer support channel is a smart idea. Customers may ask for tracking codes for shipping, change their shipping address, or other topics. Answering these topics quickly through live chat can help to reassure customers.
Integrating Live Chat For Live Shopping Step By Step
Adding live chat to your live shopping event is easy when you follow these steps.
1. Review the live shopping event goals
Most live shopping events have a specific theme or focus. For example, a clothing company might have seasonal sales (e.g., summer clothes or a back-to-school sale). If your live shopping event includes special promotions like time-limited discounts (e.g., get 20% when you place your order during the live shopping event), your team must understand the details of the promotion.
2. Draft a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document
A sizeable live shopping event may have hundreds or thousands of attendees. At this scale, there is a high risk that your customer support team will make mistakes. Fortunately, there is a way you can make mistakes less likely. Create a frequently asked questions (FAQ) document for your team to reference. Using this document means your support team will offer consistent answers.
To create your FAQ document, consider the following:
What are the most common questions your customers currently ask by chat, email, and social media?
What are the typical shipping costs and timelines? Remember that shipping timeframes are different during the holiday season. Reminding customers of this fact can reduce disappointment.
Where can customers find product photos and other detailed information?
Are there discount codes or special links related to the live shopping event? Make a list of these references so your team can answer these questions accurately.
Make a list of troubleshooting tips to help customers who might have problems during your live event. For example, you might recommend a specific web browser like Chrome. Ask your IT team to contribute additional technical support insights.
3. Select and install a live chat platform
Your next step is to choose a live chat platform for your event. Arena Live Chat is an excellent choice because it can be installed in minutes and runs directly on your website. It also has built-in moderation tools so you can keep the conversation family-friendly.
4. Schedule a practice using the live chat platform
Running a live shopping event for the first time? In that situation, consider scheduling a practice event with your employees a day or two before the main event. During the practice session, assign some employees to act as customers and some to act as support. This will help people understand the customer experience and become more familiar with your live chat tool.
5. Run the live shopping event with live chat
With your preparation in place, it is time to launch the live shopping event. Ask your support team to join the event a few minutes before the event opens to the public. As the event starts, invite customers to ask questions to your support team if they have any problems. Now your presenters can focus on delivering the live shopping experience instead of answering support questions.
Try Live Chat For Free
Live chat is a powerful way to make your live shopping events more profitable. How many more sales can you achieve by adding live chat? There’s only one way to find out for sure. Sign up for Arena Live Chat, add it to your website, and run a live shopping experience. It takes less than five minutes to install on most websites.
Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) stand as game-changers, setting the stage for strategic ad buying and selling. As an influencer in this space, navigating the intricacies of DSPs becomes not just advisable, but essential.
What is a Demand-Side Platform (DSP)?
A demand-side platform is a way for marketers to find ad space that fits their needs. It is called “demand-side” because marketers need advertising space from hundreds or even thousands of publishers to reach their goals at a fair price. A supply-side tool, on the other hand, is focused on meeting the needs of publishers who sell ad space.
How Does a DSP Work?
A Glimpse into DSP Varieties
While all DSPs aim to serve advertisers with suitable digital properties and high-quality inventories, the nuances that set them apart are crucial. Broadly, DSPs fall into two main categories:
Self-Serve DSPs
Ideal for those wishing to allocate a moderate budget, the self-serve DSP demands mastery over its intricacies. While it may proffer advanced advertising tech to streamline bidding strategies, its navigation necessitates dedicated time and understanding. Typically, revenue generation for this DSP model stems from marking up the advertising prices.
Full-Serve DSPs
Tailored for marketers yearning for premier inventory and insightful reporting tools, full-serve DSPs provide a holistic experience. With the guidance of advertising connoisseurs, they identify the precise audience and offer connections with esteemed publishers. The pricing, while more intricate, incorporates both service fees and costs per ad placement.
Spotlight on Prominent DSPs
A few renowned DSPs currently favored by brands and advertising agencies encompass:
Diversifying DSP subscriptions can be astute, given the differing advertising prospects and pricing models they offer. Leveraging multiple DSPs can not only economize digital marketing campaigns but potentially trim down the cost per click (CPC) by integrating less renowned publishers.
Benefits of Using a DSP
Visualize an intent to captivate affluent working women, aged 30-50, within the U.S. The vast digital landscape can be overwhelming. Yet, a DSP acts as a consolidated marketplace of advertising avenues, enabling effortless placements across varied platforms.
Choosing DSPs can amplify advertising reach, significantly diminishing over-reliance on mammoth entities like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. For perspective, as of 2021, these three giants absorbed 64% of U.S. digital advertising revenue. Yet, the remaining 36% still represents an enormous slice of the advertising pie, challenging to access without DSPs.
Choosing the Right DSP for Your Business
A quintessential DSP facilitates uncomplicated inventory procurement for myriad ads – from videos to search ads and even mobile apps. But what sets an outstanding DSP apart?
Ad Creative Diversity: Recognizing the platform’s specialization, whether it’s video-centric or display ad-focused, is pivotal.
Analytical Integration: Seamless synergy with preferred analytical tools can obviate manual data transfers, simplifying performance evaluations.
Publisher Blacklisting: Maintaining brand sanctity by sidestepping contentious publishers is essential. This feature can preclude any inadvertent placements on controversial sites.
Real-time Reports: Instantaneous, precise analytics accessed directly via the DSP interface is indispensable for informed decision-making.
Expansive Publisher Network: Continuous publisher engagement and retention reflect a DSP’s expertise.
The Synergy of CDP and DSP
To truly understand why modern marketers increasingly lean on Customer Data Platforms (CDP), place yourself in an advertiser’s shoes. An advertiser’s quintessential challenge is to optimize results within a defined budget. In this quest, granular data becomes their North Star.
A sophisticated CDP, like Arena Personas, augments your advertising strategy. By collecting rich audience data, publishers can cater to diverse advertiser needs, be it age-centric or interest-driven. With improved data quality, direct deals or DSP placements become more profitable and efficient.
Why Arena Stands Out
Embarking on the digital advertising journey without the right tools can be akin to navigating the vast seas without a compass. As you decipher the realm of DSPs, integrating tools like Arena’s live blogs can be the catalyst propelling you towards your marketing aspirations.
To grow your digital advertising revenue, you need to have a CDP. Find out how Arena Personas levels up your CDP and help you gain an edge in today’s marketing landscape.
Engage, experience, and elevate your strategies with Arena. Witness first-hand how seamless integrations and live blogging can redefine your marketing outcomes and help reach those pivotal goals.
Forging new connections with potential employees through digital channels may be more challenging than in-person events. However, it is more than possible when you use proven event formats.
Online event ideas for hiring are increasingly important due to the state of the job market. Reuters reported that US job openings were near a record high. There were 1.8 open jobs for every unemployed person in January. In this environment, employers need to think creatively about ways to attract talent.
Transform Your Online Recruitment Strategies
Ever since COVID-19, with the forced move to remote work, the hiring landscape has also changed drastically. In-person recruitment and interviewing have opened space for online recruitment strategies, which allowed recruitment managers to spread their reach and open doors for candidates all over the world.
Sure, on-site recruitment events continue, but there are several benefits for both candidates and recruiters. Besides the aforementioned larger candidate pool, online hiring events and career fairs help companies save time and money, facilitating candidate follow-up and gathering important feedback for future events.
Let’s take a look at 6 great online event ideas for hiring and enhancing your online recruitment strategies.
1. Sponsor A Virtual Hackathon Online Event
Technical professionals like software engineers and web developers are in high demand. These technical experts receive countless LinkedIn messages from recruiters and managers every month. Competing directly against other recruiters is not your only option – that’s where hackathons come in.
A hackathon is typically a one or two-day event where participants create an app or software to solve a problem. The short time frame and camaraderie have made these events popular. To make the event more compelling, offer support from subject matter experts in your company to provide data and advice to participants.
You can either run your hackathon event or sponsor an existing event. For instance, you could join companies like IBM, Salesforce, Amazon, and KPMG, previously sponsored hackathon events.
Grabbing a coffee with an experienced professional is one of the best ways to create a connection. The downside to these informal interactions is that they can be challenging to scale up. Organizing a virtual coffee chat event, on the other hand, is an excellent way to bring together a small group of 5-10 people.
There are two popular ways to structure a virtual coffee chat: structured and unstructured.
Structured Coffee Chat
A structured coffee chat requires more planning effort. You will invite specific employees to speak with potential hires and support the matchmaking process with this approach. This guided approach is an excellent idea if you have sufficient time to plan it.
Unstructured Coffee Chat
An unstructured coffee chat format works well when you add this to another online event. For example, you might have a virtual panel discussion of employees sharing their experiences about working at the company. Following the panel, you might invite attendees to arrange one-on-one coffee chats.
To make your virtual coffee chat more memorable, consider sending coffee gift cards to participants in advance. Sending a $10 gift card to each attendee is a cost-effective way to encourage people to remember to attend your event.
Boeing and Princeton University are using a virtual coffee chat event to help students discuss career opportunities at the aerospace firm. Note how Princeton presents the event as an informal way for students to learn more about Boeing. Virtual coffee chats are an excellent informal way to spark interest in your company.
3. Virtual Meet and Greet With CEO And Executives Online Event
Is your leadership team passionate about recruiting new employees? If the answer is yes, then shine a spotlight on your leaders by hosting a virtual meet-and-greet event. This event format is particularly compelling in larger organizations where junior employees are less likely to have opportunities to meet senior executives.
The Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio offered a virtual meet & greet event with Chris Gessner, President, and CEO of the hospital. The one-hour virtual event was offered three times: once at 12pm and twice at 6 pm. Offering virtual events at different times makes it easier to connect with more candidates.
4. Sponsor A Virtual Business Competition
Are you looking to build relationships with students? Sponsoring a virtual business competition is one way to go. AT&T, Intuit, Marriott, and Walgreens partner with DECA, a Virginia organization that runs competitions for high school and college students.
The DECA approach to running a virtual business challenge is helpful to review if you want to plan your virtual competition. DECA offers competitions focused on different themes such as finance, hotel management, restaurants, fashion, retail, sports, and personal finance. Giving participants a clearly defined problem to solve is a great way to spot high-potential employees.
5. Diversity and Inclusion Online Recruiting Events
Diversity and inclusion in hiring is a significant priority for human resources leaders. Traditional recruiting events and methods have underperformed when attracting more diverse applicants. That’s why it is important to leverage virtual events aimed at crucial groups.
Recent research from Handshake shows that virtual events can play an essential role in sharing opportunities:
Our study finds that women, students of color, and neurodiverse students find virtual career events and interviews to be less anxiety-inducing, easier to balance, and more accessible when compared to meeting with prospective employers in person.
Chipotle, Verizon, and Kimberly-Clark executives recently came together in a virtual event to celebrate International Women’s Day. The virtual career development event allowed attendees to connect with highly successful female executives and learn how to advance their careers.
6. Virtual Office Tours To Attract New Employees
Many employees are curious to see your offices to understand your organization’s culture. A LinkedIn survey of 14,000 professionals found that office visits are the number one way job candidates prefer to learn about a company’s culture. Offering a virtual office visit is one way to make your organization more relatable to potential hires.
There are a few ways you can plan a virtual office visit. The real-time approach offers authenticity and interaction, such as having an employee explore your office with a phone or tablet. To make your virtual office tour more engaging, take time to create a virtual event script.
What To Do After You Choose Your Online Hiring Event
Selecting an online hiring event format is the first step of the planning process. You also need to think through the technology, content, and interactive elements of the experience to engage applicants. To help you plan your online hiring event, use Arena’s free ebook to improve your live events.
Knowing the top trends in digital marketing in 2022 is critical to hitting your goals. New opportunities are vitally important, whether you are looking to increase audience growth, engagement, leads, or conversions.
Achieving early success on newer marketing platforms often leads to big wins. In the early days of Facebook, it was easy to get significant amounts of organic traffic. In paid advertising, clicks from Google were almost shockingly inexpensive in the 2000s. To give yourself the best chance of winning this year, review these marketing trends and determine which impacts your goals.
The Top 7 Trends in Digital Marketing in 2022
1) TikTok Is Here To Stay
Since 2020, TikTok has exploded in popularity to more than 1 billion monthly active users as of September 2021. Those numbers put the platform in the same league as Facebook (2.9 billion monthly active users) and YouTube (2.3 billion monthly active users). Some digital marketing experts dismissed TikTok for a while because of the platform’s limited features and youthful demographics.
TikTok is changing, and major brands are achieving big wins. For example, e.l.f cosmetics has achieved over 1 billion views through their #EyesLipsFace campaign. The first step is to create an account for your brand and start to follow a few accounts.
2) YouTube Advertising Is Booming
YouTube, one of the most popular video-sharing sites globally, is getting better and better for advertisers. The video site earned tens of billions in revenue in 2021, far ahead of other social networks.
There are multiple ways to execute YouTube’s growth. You can use the platform’s extensive menu of advertising options, including skippable and non-skipped videos. Also, you can work directly with Youtubers to sponsor videos.
3) Seize Early Adopter Advantage In The Metaverse
In the fall of 2021, many digital marketers became excited about the potential of metaverse when Facebook embraced the concept by renaming itself. Since that time, some of the enthusiasm has faded away.
For digital marketers with a long-term view, investing heavily in the metaverse this year can pay off for years. In contrast to social media platforms, metaverse technologies are relatively immature. The easiest way to get started is by adding a metaverse element to your online events.
For those not yet convinced about the value of the metaverse, consider a few numbers. In 2021, Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook) invested $10 billion into metaverse efforts, according to the New York Times. There are also more than 300 active metaverse startups working on the technology. Spend some time in metaverse games and virtual reality this year to familiarize yourself with the technology and its potential.
4) Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
Over the past few years, NFTs have boomed in popularity reaching $21 billion in 2021. An industry forecast recently estimated that the global NFT market will grow to more than $80 billion by 2016. A significant amount of recent NFT activity is driven by low-interest rates and speculation. While NFT growth may slow as the hype cools down, the category presents a major opportunity for digital marketing,
By creating and issuing NFTS, brands have the opportunity to create new excitement. For example, Fortune created a NFT based on a magazine cover in 2021. Instead of spending heavily on traditional swag for conferences, it might just be the time to create NFTs to promote your online events.
5) First and zero party data
If you’ve been following recent moves by Apple and Google, you already know that traditional Internet marketing cookies are declining in value. The end of the marketing cookie means that marketers need to find new ways to understand their audiences. The old way of running retargeting campaigns on Facebook and Google are not going to produce the same results any longer.
The solution is to focus on first part and zero party data. First party data is data you collect directly from your audience. To collect that data, you need to give customers a reason to keep visiting your website like offering exciting content and online events is the first step to growing your audience. Once you have your audience on your website, you need a way to systematically understand them. That’s where using a customer data platform can make a vital difference. With Arena CDP, you can easily determine which content, online events and actions customers take on the road to making a purchase.
Once you have your foundation of first party data, you can start to gather more zero party data. The classic example of zero party data is a customer purchase intent like color or size of a product they are most interested in buying.
6) Live Shopping
Live Shopping remains a growing marketing opportunity for retailers and ecommerce brands. From a base of $21 billion in 2021, this opportunity is slated to grow to $35 billion by 2024 according to Statista.
The current approach to live shopping carries risks however. Today, the most popular platforms for live shopping events are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Amazon Live. Relying exclusively on these platforms means your audience might get easily distracted by other content and notifications. Further, your ability to gather additional data for your customer data platform from third party websites is limited.
We forecast that more and more brands will shift their attention to creating their own live shopping events on their own sites. To ride this trend, use Arena Live Chat to power your live shopping event.
7) Diversity and inclusion initiatives
Digital marketers are increasingly expected to respond quickly to our society’s social justice, diversity and inclusion expectations. According to Deloitte research, 35% of buyers in the 18-25 year old audience often notice representative advertising at the time of purchase. The research found a similar pattern in travel, household equipment and banking industries.
However, don’t underestimate your customers – they can see through shallow efforts at inclusivity. Token efforts to fulfill diversity may even backfire and undermine your marketing objectives.
Instead, your goal must be to authentically embrace diversity in your marketing efforts. At a minimum, review your use of images and videos. Next, look at your reviews, testimonials and customer stories. It’s entirely possible that your brand has a significant blindspot like failing to include women.
The Marketing Channel To Invest In This Year
Live digital events are cost effective and convenient for your audience. At the same time, many marketers are still learning how to design and launch successful online events. To help you succeed in the online event world, check out free report on 2022 Virtual Events Trends.
Choosing between several video streaming platforms isn’t always that clear, specially when you are not familiarized with the existing options out there. This decision can profoundly influence user experience, engagement, and potential revenue streams. This article dives deep into two popular contenders in the video streaming arena: Vimeo OTT and Uscreen, exploring key aspects that can guide businesses in making an informed selection.
Let’s dissect Vimeo OTT and Uscreen on six key fronts:
1) Branding Consistency
Vimeo OTT: Offers an integrated experience. It provides not only the streaming service but also the tools to design mobile and smart TV apps aligned with your brand aesthetics.
Uscreen: While it allows you to produce branded apps, the onus falls on your team to manage the entire app development lifecycle.
2) Monetization Strategy
Vimeo OTT: Provides a flexible revenue model, catering to advertising, direct sales, subscriptions, and registrations. Additionally, it gives total control over subscriber data, aiding in decision-making.
Uscreen: Offers a range of monetization strategies such as royalties and in-app purchases. However, its advertising support remains ambiguous.
3) Playback Versatility
Vimeo OTT: Boasts extensive compatibility, supporting iOS, Android, intelligent TV platforms, and even the Xbox ecosystem.
Uscreen: Offers compatibility with platforms like Chromecast and Apple Airplay, yet its reach isn’t as expansive as Vimeo.
4) Industry Tenure
Vimeo OTT: With a legacy since 2004, Vimeo has been a trusted companion for streamers across various genres.
Uscreen: Launched in 2015, Uscreen, while competent, doesn’t share the same historical depth.
5) User Testimonials
Vimeo OTT: G2 ratings highlight its user-friendliness and support quality, although some users desire better pricing options.
Uscreen: Users laud its ease of use and exemplary customer service but do yearn for improved analytics and customization.
6) Integration Capabilities
Vimeo OTT: Exhibits a vast integration landscape, spanning Google Drive to Zoom, facilitating streamlined operations.
Uscreen: Prioritizes analytics and e-commerce with integrations like Google Tag Manager and Mailchimp, but appears limited in video distribution.
See our post, which highlights ten different Vimeo OTT examples for more details.
Amplifying Vimeo with Arena’s Touch
Our verdict tilts towards Vimeo OTT for contemporary video streaming requirements. Yet, regardless of platform selection, to genuinely enhance audience engagement, embedding interactivity is crucial.
Arena’s capabilities seamlessly marry with Vimeo OTT, infusing live chat and live blogs, enriching the passive video experience. With the introduction of Arena Personas, you can also deep dive into your audience’s behaviors and preferences, ensuring your streaming content is not just viewed but experienced.
For those steering their company’s digital footprint, understanding these nuances and integrating tools like Arena’s live blogs can be the game-changer in achieving your marketing objectives. Dive deeper, make informed choices, and watch your virtual engagement landscape transform.
What if you’re not sure what’s working in your video streaming? There’s no need to guess anymore. Use Arena Personas to understand what interactions and content drive your audience to engage, convert and buy.
While Vimeo OTT is a solid video streaming service, it may not be the best option in all circumstances. That’s why it’s important to be aware of Vimeo’s OTT rivals. Learn how to reach your audience with video streaming using this comprehensive tutorial. You may test out the functionality of most OTT video platforms with a free trial period.
1) Dacast
A platform that shines for those prioritizing setup simplicity and cross-platform playability.
Advantages: Celebrated for its user-friendly setup and top-notch support. Offers secure video hosting and an adaptable HTML5 video player.
Disadvantages: Encoding limitations for larger streams and some API glitches.
Pricing: Starts at $39/month. A 30-day free trial is available.
2) Kaltura Video Cloud
A hub for higher education video streaming, Kaltura is also a haven for media brands looking to dive into OTT.
Advantages: Features like automatic transcription and video editing set it apart.
Disadvantages: A steeper learning curve and some iPad compatibility issues have been noted.
Pricing: Quote-based, but they offer free trials for varied functionalities.
3) Uscreen
A platform designed for monetization through live streaming, mobile apps, and more.
Advantages: Stands out for its intuitive interface and commendable support.
Disadvantages: Some users found its analytics and customization a tad restrictive.
Pricing: Starts at $79/month + $0.50/subscriber. A 14-day free trial is available.
4) Telebreeze
Crafted for media and broadcast brands, it offers rich media management capabilities.
Advantages: User-friendliness, support, and easy setup earn it praise.
Disadvantages: Playback delays and mobile app challenges have been flagged.
Pricing: Quote-based, complemented by a 30-day money-back assurance.
5) Ventuno
A platform known for versatile streaming options, from mobile to TV apps.
Advantages: Acclaimed for its stellar customer service and streamlined interface.
Disadvantages: Some reservations about payment and playlist configurations.
Pricing: Plans start at $299/month, with discounts for annual commitments.
6) Contus VPlayed
A self-hosted OTT platform catering to diverse streaming needs, from live video to audio.
Advantages: Customizable video players, affordability, and diverse monetization avenues.
Disadvantages: Some concerns over its analytics and tracking prowess.
Pricing: Details are undisclosed.
7) IBM Video Cloud
Tailored for large-scale enterprises, offering extensive integration and robust security measures.
Advantages: Seamless integration with platforms like Facebook, Twitter, SAP, and Salesforce.
Disadvantages: Monetization leans on third parties, potentially raising reliability queries.
Pricing: Plans range between $99 to $999/month.
Supercharging Your OTT Experience
Selecting the optimal OTT video platform isn’t just about broadcasting; it’s about curating experiences. As you weigh storage, encoding, and viewer support, remember that the future of video is interactive. Arena’s Live Chat bridges the gap between content and community, fostering loyalty and engagement.
