Verizon could be the latest to enter the fray in the well-populated streaming media services market. This summer, the telecommunications giant has potential plans to launch a new Netflix competitor. But there’s a problem: according to Derek O’Donnell, senior research analyst at Gartner, the average limit for subscriptions to online streaming services is three, and between Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, that leaves little room for another behemoth.
So how do streaming media services compete? The instinctive answer: get more data on your customers. But that’s not quite sufficient.
“There’s no one on the planet that has more data than the streaming services other than Google and Apple,” says Dan Rayburn, a consultant and speaker on the streaming video business. Essentially, Netflix and friends are already drowning in the same quantity of data as one another. “They obviously all know what their customers are watching and then use that data on the content they feature. It’s not like one has more data than the other.”
For streaming media services, finding a competitive advantage when they have the same data as their competitors means getting creative with that data—and using it to make smart decisions that will benefit their bottom line. While there are many ways to do this, here are a few top tips. For those looking to get an idea of how the market might change, though, and give themselves an edge, be sure to check out Outsmart your Video Competition with Watson white paper as well.