CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT
The custom solution by NovemBit for Me and My Golf has been featured in Vimeo customer spotlight. It helped increase video plays by 27% and reduced transition time by 80% for over 2200 videos with 590K monthly views.
Read the entire article on Vimeo.
Challenge
Like many creators, Me and My Golf built its foundational community and content strategy on YouTube. While it serves as a valuable channel to broaden its reach and offer high-level educational content, viewers needed more nuanced and tailored content to truly improve their skills.
“We realized that in order to truly support our members, YouTube wouldn’t be enough,” says Neil Dawson, Founder and Commercial Director. “To improve a nuanced skill, like your swing, it’s important to follow specific and incremental changes to maximize results.” To that end, the team created a subscription service at MeAndMyGolf.com, where members are taken on a learning journey created just for them.
Subscribers from YouTube quickly flocked to the subscription offering, but with that growth came costly expenses. “As our library of content grew, our previous provider was becoming cost prohibitive,” he adds. “We started to look for alternatives that could solve our current challenges, and provide enough flexibility to support us through continued growth
Solution
After exploring multiple options, Neil and the team landed on Vimeo as the best solution for their needs. “In addition to being a trusted video platform, Vimeo provides many features we were looking for, like live streaming and automatic closed captions,” he says. What’s more, Me and My Golf leveraged Vimeo’s powerful API, a toolset that offers deeper customization and integration, to further refine and improve the user experience.
“Our tailored content is delivered through video playlists. Initially, switching between videos took upwards of five seconds — an eternity in the world of UX,” says Neil. In collaboration with their development partner, NovemBit, Me and My Golf used Vimeo’s API to reduce this transition time by 80%, to nearly one second through three key initiatives:
- Optimizing the player to transition videos within the same instance. In layman’s terms, this improvement conserved browser resources and made switching between videos notably faster.
- Reducing clicks to streamline user experience. “We realized that users had to click twice to transition between videos,” says Neil. “Considering the value of every click, we implemented Vimeo’s autoplay sitewide, enabling videos to begin playing instantly upon clicking the thumbnail.”
- Smoothing out visual transitions between videos. Using the API, the team preloaded video thumbnails into the player area during the switch between videos, creating an impression of an instantaneous shift.
All in all, Vimeo’s API has been a powerful tool in providing Me and My Golf’s subscribers with a top-notch experience. “We initially utilized it to migrate several thousand videos to Vimeo, and since then we continue to rely on it to extract crucial data such as video thumbnails, captions, and download URLs,” says Neil.
“These elements are integral to the functionality of our system, including our website and mobile applications, and ultimately enrich the overall user experience on our platform.”
Outcome
Since implementing Vimeo as the sole video solution on MeAndMyGolf.com in 2021, the team has seen a substantial 27% increase in video plays per desktop user, suggesting their customers are consuming more content, leader to greater satisfaction and, subsequently, retention.
“Even the highest quality content may be overlooked if its technical delivery is suboptimal,” says Neil. “These improvements we’ve made with help from Vimeo — brought about by enhancing the speed of video switches — directly correlates to the increased value that our customers are now experiencing.”