Navigating Digital Platforms
As arts organizations navigate monetizing (or not) their digital content, one key choice is the platforms they use to host their content. While platform providers emphasize special features of their platform, what matters most is specific to your organization. We offer nine standard considerations one arts organization used when deciding between platforms for digital content in a saturated market.
To help arts organizations get a sense of the landscape of digital platforms, determine the parameters that are most relevant to their needs and priorities, and navigate one-on-one conversations with vendors, we suggest using the standard set of 9 considerations ABA has outlined as follows:
Technology Integration: How can this platform be integrated with a ticketing system and/or CRM?
Tickets: What control does the platform offer over ticketing structure and prices?
Customer Data: What type of customer data is captured, and how is it shared?
Support: Does the vendor offer technical consultative services?
Customization: Is this a white-label platform? How easy is it to modify content appearance, formatting, branding, and so on?
Content Flexibility: Can this platform be used for live and/or asynchronous content? Is it appropriate for performances and/or bonus content? Does it impose any limits on geography or time zones? Does it help to create an experience for the customer?
Ease of Use: What steps will audience members have to take to use this platform on the front end, and what will the learning curve be like for staff on the back end? Can it be integrated with an existing website?
Price: How transparent is the platform’s pricing? What limits come with a given package? What is included, and what costs extra?
Unions: For organizations based in the U.S., what impact does the union dynamic have on the feasibility of the platform, if any?
Teams may find it helpful to hold a team discussion using these considerations as a starting guide to surface previously unknown requirements and encourage healthy debate. Then, the team should create a list of ‘must have’ and ‘nice to have’ attributes, as well as ‘must not haves’.
When talking to platform vendors, use the team’s requirements list to ensure all your questions are answered and avoid letting the vendor steer the conversation to focus on their strengths. This will enable an apples-to-apples comparison between vendors, making it easier to differentiate between them when you revisit those conversations to choose the platform that makes the most sense for your organization.
You may find it helpful to make use of the following reference for a high-level overview of several video streaming platforms to have an idea of what to expect in conversations with vendors. Here, you’ll see two broader categories of platforms we have delineated: (1) those that enable organizations to put content on a third-party site, and (2) those that leverage technology to host content natively, on your organization’s own site. The latter may be particularly appealing to organizations with strong technical capabilities, or staff able to devote time to learning a new platform — per the Ease of Use consideration above.
To help members take advantage of opportunities in the fast-moving space of digital monetization, ABA is also offering a virtual research summit combining the best of our research with peer-to-peer discussions of key issues in the digital landscape, including further discussions about and with vendors. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to info@advisoryarts.com with any questions about ABA’s digital monetization research or how to get the most out of our upcoming virtual summit.