OTT Advertising Explained
Over-the-top advertising for attorneys, or OTT ads, is the latest tactic being used to reach consumers. OTT adverts are essentially targeted TV advertisements that are aired to a mass audience. They are seen on major television networks such as ABC, Netflix, HBO, and CBS.
Just because they are television ads does not mean they are only appropriate for certain kinds of businesses. Advertising with an online television company, or OTT advertising, is now available for attorneys.
Online television makes watching commercials, news, and free movies easy for consumers through their subscription services. Now attorneys can reach out to potential clients and target audiences too.
This guide will be structured to give you an overview of OTT advertising, including its advantages and disadvantages, tips on how to use it effectively, and why lawyers should use this kind of advertising. So, let’s start with a brief overview.
What are OTT Ads?
Over-the-top (OTT) is a term that refers to the delivery of TV/video content over the internet. To access content, viewers do not need to subscribe to a traditional cable or satellite provider. A cord-cutter is someone who switches from a pay-TV subscription (cable, satellite, or DirectTV) to an internet-based streaming service like Hulu or Netflix.
With content so easily accessible across devices, it’s no surprise that consumers are abandoning their cable providers. High-quality video content is now available on all connected devices, including:
- Mobile devices like cell phones and tablets
- The personal computer
- Smart TVs/Connected Televisions
- Streaming gadgets (Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire)
So, trimming the cord entails cutting the ads as well, right? Wrong. An increasing number of companies use OTT ads to reach their target audiences in unique and creative ways.
So, what exactly is OTT advertising?
The act of purchasing ad space on streaming video services is referred to as OTT Advertising. Consumers are exposed to these internet-based video advertisements while actively viewing video content on connected devices. It’s similar to TV advertising, but it’s purchased programmatically or through streaming media platforms. Depending on the target demographic, OTT advertising is an essential component of a modern integrated media buy. OTT ads are excellent for increasing reach and frequency.
Discover: Why Has Streaming TV Advertising Become Trendy?
The Benefits of OTT Advertising
There are numerous reasons to consider launching OTT advertisements for your law practice.
Demographic targeting
OTT advertising enables you to target audiences based on dozens of variables, such as geolocation, demographics, and interests.
High Completion Rates for Video Advertising:
Consumers will view your ads! Because consumers cannot skip your commercials on video, unlike on traditional television, your video ads often have a completion and viewability rate of 96%! Contrast that with traditional television, where the majority of viewers ignore advertising.
Retargeting
Connect with your audience on many devices! For instance, someone may view your advertisement while watching Netflix on their desktop, but you may still retarget them later on their iPhone. Or serve advertising to people who have previously visited your website and are now watching shows via a streaming provider.
Take the lead in the market.
Utilize an advertising medium that is not yet (yet!) overrun by competing legal firms.
Synergy in marketing campaigns
OTT advertisements are not merely a branding or consumer awareness move. They can be used in conjunction with other forms of digital advertising to significantly increase the success of your overall marketing effort.
Lower entry barrier than traditional tv ad
Unlike traditional television advertising, OTT advertising enables you to attempt to broadcast commercials for your legal business without incurring the massive expenditure requirements associated with traditional television advertising.
Head of brand awareness
By running streaming television advertisements, you can help your firm establish a brand identity in your market, ensuring that when someone requires legal assistance, your law firm is what comes to mind first, which also generates ROI (Return of Investment)
Disadvantages of OTT Advertising
While the streaming environment may appear to be a single channel, it is fragmented across devices, channels, platforms, and publishers.
OTT advertisements do not simply “appear”; they are supplied via a variety of OTT channels. With significant rivalry among content distributors and developers of CTV devices, OTT advertising does have several drawbacks, including the following:
Transparency
The majority of brands gain access to OTT advertising via a reseller or an aggregator. Utilizing a reseller can make it more difficult to determine whether an advertisement is running on a premium channel or a less popular part.
Measurement
Before OTT advertisements are distributed over television, attribution is difficult to track. Tracking clicks and traffic is more complicated than it is with other digital media. Working with an agency that specializes in OTT advertising may help you completely assess the impact of your OTT commercials.
Planning and Targeting of Media
While purchasing an OTT advertisement is straightforward, comprehending how your OTT ads fit into your bigger media and digital efforts demands a more strategic approach.
Numerous platforms and data suppliers are unable to correlate cookies and media ad IDs with IP addresses, thus limiting the scope of audience targeting.
Why should lawyers use OTT Advertising?
OTT stands for “over the top.” It refers to digital advertising that is so over the top, so wildly offensive, so outrageous that it will likely get the attention of internet users who would otherwise never pay attention to your advertising.
Your typical lawyer advertising campaign consists of billboards, newspaper ads, broadcasts, and direct mail. OTT advertising is the stuff you stuff in between the billboards, between the newspaper ads, between the broadcasts, and between the direct mail.
The idea behind OTT advertising is that unless your advertising is outrageous, no one will read it. But if it is outrageous, people will read it and won’t forget what it was about. Outrageous advertising is memorable.
OTT advertising causes people to pay attention. It grabs their attention and keeps them thinking about it long after they have forgotten what they read. So, even if the outrageousness doesn’t persuade them, it will make them remember you. That, in turn, will potentially be able to give them your firm.
How to use OTT Advertising?
So, where do you begin if you’re ready to jump into the realm of OTT advertising for your legal career?
Here are our basic steps for getting started:
Step 1: Establish Your Objectives
You want to create a precise list of the types of people you want to contact and the outcomes you desire from your ad campaigns. Is there a maximum number of clients? Are you looking to boost the number of visitors to your website?
Answering these questions will assist you in determining the core creative components of your video ad, selecting the advertising platform on which to publish it, and monitoring key performance metrics throughout your ad campaign.
Prior to even conceiving an ad concept, having clearly defined goals is critical for uniting your team.
Step 2: Generate Content
After outlining your objectives, the following step is to develop the advertisement itself.
While you may do this step on your own, we recommend hiring a professional team to create your advertising content. Depending on the creative firm you select, they can assist you with everything from strategy to video content creation to distribution of your advertisement, among other things.
You’ll benefit from their expertise and talents, and you’ll be able to collaborate on developing a successful concept that will attract your target clients.
Step 3: Compare Providers
Numerous platforms provide OTT advertising opportunities. You’ll want to compare advertising platforms and choose which one works best for you.
You may buy advertising straight from platforms such as YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu, among others. Each platform caters to a particular audience; thus, the platform you choose is determined by the demographics of the audience you’re attempting to reach.
This is another area in which you may profit from collaborating with a video marketing agency, particularly if this is your first time experimenting with OTT advertising.
They’ll have the experience necessary to identify the finest platforms and providers, and they’ll also typically have relationships that can expedite the process.
Step 4: Keep an eye on Your Results
Once you’ve chosen your platforms, you’ll want to leverage their analytics to track your ad’s performance and determine whether it’s reaching and engaging your target audience.
Utilize this data to fine-tune your content and strategy until you have the ideal advertisement that generates clicks that convert a viewer to a client.
While you can conduct your own research, hire a company, and monitor your ad’s performance, this can be a time-consuming process.
As such, you always have the choice of contacting a law firm marketing and advertising agency to assist you in getting your advertising strategy off the ground and operating without adding extra effort to your schedule.
How To Determine If OTT Is Effective
With broadcast television, it was difficult to determine whether your advertisement was effective. You never knew who was keeping an eye on what. That is no longer the case. You have a line of sight at the user level with OTT. You can quickly determine the effectiveness of each advertisement.
Collect baseline data before launching your OTT marketing campaign. How effective are your current marketing channels? For instance, you should define a baseline for your website’s site visits, click-through rates, conversion rates, and impressions. While running your OTT advertising, monitor these KPIs regularly – perhaps every 2 weeks, then 30, 60, and 90 days.
Additionally, you can separate your visitors into non-overlapping, random groups and run audience split testing. One group is designated as the test group, while the other is designated as the control group. In this manner, you may compare your commercials against a control ad, such as a public service message.
OTT can be a highly effective channel. Adjust your plan as you have a better understanding of your audience.
The beauty of OTT is that you’ll have real-time data at your fingertips, allowing you to respond fast when necessary. OTT enables you to increase brand awareness, recruit new consumers, increase conversions, and strengthen customer relationships with your business.
The key takeaway is that connecting with your firm’s target market via podcast advertising is a unique and effective tool.
For attorneys, they can be an effective way to reach your target audience and create awareness of the services that you offer.
Advantage Attorney Marketing has extensive experience in delivering podcasts for law firms, so if podcast advertising is something that you are considering for your marketing efforts, contact our company to discover how we can help you in fulfilling your goals through our product or service. From content-marketing, podcast production to sequencing to graphic design and strategic planning, we’ll get you where you want to go.
