Making The Freemium Model Work for Your Video Academy
“Freemium”—a blend of “free” and “premium”—has become the leading business model for internet start-ups and smartphone app developers. It can also revolutionize how users engage with your video academy.
Adopting The Freemium Business Model
I understand that giving away your hard-earned knowledge and expertise for free might seem discouraging. Fortunately, freemium doesn’t mean giving it all away for free.
Freemium has already become the dominant business model among internet start-ups and smartphone app developers for a reason. The basic idea is to provide users with some features or content for free, while offering richer functionality or more content for a subscription fee. The goal is to quickly grow your subscriber base.
It’s time to start adopting this model for online video academies, rather than solely offering pay-per-live training or pay-per-training course models. As subscription is the most common business model associated with freemium, I will focus on it.
What I have outlined is a four-step guide on how to build your video academy based on the freemium business model. However, before we dive into the steps, take a moment to evaluate these freemium model examples from the content business. This should help you see where you fit in. It might also be helpful to look at iMPACT, a freemium video academy.
Why the Freemium Model Excels for Digital Products and Online Content
In the media industry’s freemium services, subscribers typically enjoy better quality (e.g., HD vs. SD video), an ad-free experience (e.g., Spotify), access to more content per month (e.g., newspapers’ paywalls), or exclusive premium content (e.g., stock market tips and analysis).
You might wonder how this applies to a video academy. Let me give you some ideas on the content and how to structure it. Since we’re working based on the freemium model, we need both free and premium content, which could be divided like this:
Free Plan:
- Free webinars: These are designed to attract users to register and learn about your video academy. Topics can be more general or “common knowledge” that, while valuable, may not be the highest value.
- Free video courses: Shorter videos on more common topics.
- Free bulletins or comments: Brief updates on hot topics in your industry.
Subscriber Benefits:
- Premium webinars: Covering the topics you know best, including current affairs, market studies, or interviews with key industry figures.
- Longer video courses: Providing more in-depth coverage of complex subjects.
- More video courses: Expanding the range of content available to subscribers.
- In-depth analysis: Detailed insights on industry-specific topics.
- Enhanced features: Tools to help subscribers better consume and engage with the content.
Alternatively, you could limit free users to 10 videos per month and allow subscribers to add, for example, 3 full video courses to their content library each month. This approach helps their own video library grow over time, making your academy more valuable and harder to abandon. Another example could be a stand-up show video service where the freemium model offers only 5-minute short clips, but subscribers can watch full shows. Why not create two versions of your training content: a short version for free users and a premium version that includes all the important details?
Mastering the Freemium Model: Five Key Steps
1. Define Your Free Offering
Step one involves defining your free offering. Free content serves as a marketing investment aimed at enticing people to register for your service. If you’re not achieving this goal, consider reevaluating your free offering. Conversely, if you’re attracting registrations but struggling with subscriptions, could your free offering be too generous? Perhaps reducing the number of free videos per month from 10 to 5 could be beneficial?
Employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than read a text (Source: Forrester Research)
Adapting and refining your free offering helps you discover the optimal balance for your audience. Collect data from various sources consistently to inform these decisions.
2. User Experience is The Key to Success
Step two emphasizes user experience (UX). Both the user interface (UI) and content structure play crucial roles in enhancing UX and should be meticulously designed. Time is often a constraint for users, making it essential for them to locate relevant content quickly.
Reducing search time enhances user satisfaction. A cumbersome UI may hinder users from finding desired content promptly, leading them to abandon the service. One metric worth monitoring is the click-to-watch time.
To enhance UX, design the entire user journey—from onboarding through conversion to ongoing usage and personalized content. Navigation and content structure are key components, while branding and overall aesthetics also influence how users perceive your video academy. For further insights into OTT UI/UX considerations, you can explore this blog.
In summary, UI/UX significantly impacts the success of your video academy!
3. Minimize Registration Barriers
Step three focuses on minimizing barriers for potential users to register for your video academy.
Simplify the registration process as much as possible. Consider the minimum information required from each registered user. Asking for credit card information during registration may deter many users, even if you assure them it won’t be billed. For B2B video academies, collecting just an email for marketing qualified leads may suffice initially, with additional company and detailed contact information gathered later in the registration process.
I recommend including call-to-actions on every page to encourage users to register with their email address initially. You can then collect additional information gradually through follow-up emails during the registration process.
4. Convert, Convert, Convert
Step four focuses on devising strategies to convert free users into subscribers.
On average, conversion rates for freemium services range between 2% to 5%, though outliers like Spotify achieved a remarkable 46% in 2019. Job-related training websites also show high conversion rates, around 18.4%, as reported by SmartInsights. Even small improvements in conversion rates can significantly impact your total revenue.
It’s crucial to fine-tune your offering and clearly communicate the benefits of your premium services without giving away too much for free. Ensure there’s a compelling message and sufficient rationale for users to convert. Highlight the benefits and value with concrete numbers, and keep the comparison between free and premium packages straightforward.
Offering free trials of your premium services or providing substantial discounts can help you determine the price sensitivity of your free users. In the video business, free trials typically span 14 days, and they’re effective—Recurly‘s study found that, on average, 68.8% of trial users in B2B services convert.
Furthermore, consider exploring transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) to increase total revenue. TVOD allows users to purchase single access to your content, making it easier for them to test your service without a long-term commitment.
53% of people want to see more videos in the future
5. Embrace Your Subscribers
Step five, the final step, is retention. Once you have successfully converted users into subscribers, your focus should be on retaining them. It’s more cost-effective to retain existing users than to acquire new ones. The key advice is to continually enhance your premium offerings, ensuring there’s a clear distinction between free and premium content. Committing to innovation is crucial.
In a video academy, content is paramount. Consistently produce engaging content and actively communicate this to both your free and premium users to maintain their interest and satisfaction.
For educational videos, especially, it’s crucial to keep in mind that experts agree on shorter durations—typically between one and four minutes. According to Debbie Williams, Vice President of Content Development for BizLibrary, this brevity “allows employees to fit training into their daily routines, enhancing their ability to quickly develop skills and generate innovative ideas.” This guideline is particularly important for complex topics, which should be divided into multiple videos.
When designing and narrating these videos, clarity and simplicity are key. Minimize sound effects and avoid distracting visuals. Use text sparingly and ensure it’s of a reasonable size, limiting the amount displayed at any one time.
Beyond creating new content, consider additional features that enhance user experience, such as “continue watching on different devices,” “save trainings for offline use,” integrations with e-learning platforms, and the inclusion of exams or tests. These elements can significantly enrich the learning experience and improve engagement with your educational video content.
A Bright Future Ahead
These five steps serve as the cornerstone for establishing your freemium video academy. While there are many other considerations—from marketing strategies to content production and overall business management—the steps outlined above provide a solid starting point specifically for freemium video academies.
The adoption of freemium models in video academies is set to expand significantly in the coming years.
Consumers are increasingly embracing OTT (Over-The-Top) services. According to Forbes, 55% of Americans subscribe to Netflix, where over 1 billion hours of video are watched weekly, and 52% use Amazon Prime Video. The OTT market continues to grow steadily, driven by the widespread adoption of viewing video content on personal devices. This trend is expected to influence the B2B video market as well, where content often carries higher value and price points.
The rapid popularity growth of the freemium model in technology and content sectors, coupled with user familiarity, makes it a compelling option for video academies. I foresee a promising future for this business model within the video space in the long term. I’d love to hear your experiences and insights at [email protected].
For additional material we have provided you the following documents for download
Icareus Enterprise Video Solutions
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