How Local Retailers Can Leverage OTT

With over-the-top, or OTT, advertising, local retailers can effectively compete with the major players in their industry while catering to local communities and their target customers. OTT for local businesses revolves around the placement of ads within the interface and content used for over-the-top devices and platforms.

With cable-cord cutting movements taking the world by storm, OTT advertising captures modern audiences who choose to stream rather than maintain pay-TV subscriptions. According to eMarketer research, traditional TV audiences are expected to decline to less than 296 million this year – or nearly 3 million viewers fewer than 2015.

As a local retailer, you can tap into the power of OTT by focusing a portion of your advertising efforts to this growing marketing channel. With only a small percentage of OTT advertising coming from local sources, as revealed by Adweek, there are ample opportunities for local retailers to get on-board and achieve great success. Here are a few ways local retailers can leverage OTT advertising to reach their marketing goals.

Reach a Broader Audience

Similar to traditional TV advertisements, OTT ads are typically displayed full-screen and are viewed by a large group rather than a single person – as found in mobile ad environments. This also limits viewers’ ability to minimize or skip ads, as they lack access to proper controls.

Also, OTT audiences tend to be much more diverse, and not limited to certain demographics like many other platforms. And with OTT, ads can be targeted at the household level, which can optimize your reach and frequency and allow you to reach a broader audience than ever before.

Take an Integrated Approach

Local retailers can also use OTT advertising to boost their visibility across multiple advertising channels. To create an integrated marketing strategy, you can align your marketing creative and run your ad campaigns across OTT, radio and digital platforms simultaneously. When used together, each channel can boost the effectiveness of the others to create a more cohesive – and effective – marketing campaign. This approach can also help promote and reinforce your brand message to increase awareness, recall and customer action.

Run Targeted Ads

OTT advertising offers many ways to reach your target audience using precise ad targeting capabilities. Unlike TV advertising, OTT can use geolocation, demographic data and device information to reach specific customers. For example, you can target your ads at the household level reach and engage local customers, encouraging them to visit your store and make a purchase. Advanced targeting increases the quality of your leads and helps boost your conversion rates, potentially increasing your marketing return on investment (ROI).

Gain Audience Insights

Over-the-top platforms provide an exceptional range of audience insights through their advanced analytics systems. These systems give local advertisers access to real-time video analytics that indicate how your audience engages with your ads. Metrics you can track include churn, content performance and viewer engagement. When you can better understand your audience preferences and behaviors, you can tailor your ads to bring in more local customers to your retail locations.

Leveraging OTT as a Valuable Tool for Your Marketing Program

OTT for local retailers opens the doors for improved lead quality and conversion rates through precisely targeted ads. To get the most out of your OTT advertising strategy, consider the different ways you can use this channel to achieve and measure your success. When you take the time to create and follow an effective OTT marketing plan, your ads can attract more local customers with minimal effort on your part.