Netflix For Businesses: Finding A Netflix-Like Service For Commercial Use

Finding a Netflix-like service licensed for commercial use is a challenge that a lot of business owners face. All too often business owners will set up Netflix on their business TV without realizing, or in some cases not caring, that doing so is in violation of Netflix’s Terms & Conditions. The actual cost of licensing a movie or TV show can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars – which is far more than most businesses are able to set aside for their TV budget.

Netflix isn’t licensed for commercial use; so can you show Netflix in public? The short answer is no.

The Draw of Netflix-Like Services

The variety of movies and TV shows available on Netflix, mixed with welcoming atmosphere it generates, simply can’t be beat. So much so that people will break the law in order to play popular movies on their TV and hope no one finds out – it isn’t worth putting your business at risk. Legality aside, it’s not hard to see why a service like Netflix is something business owners gravitate towards. Below is a short list of luxuries people look for in Netflix-like streaming services:

1. Content: Popular movies and TV shows that people recognize or watch at home are familiar, help pass the time when waiting, and reduce anxiety in cases like medical offices. Having thousands of videos to pick from beats putting your own library of content together.

2. Pricing: Not counting Netflix’s rate of $10/month, which is a literal steal and not a rate that includes commercial use, a lot of streaming services and TV display packages are less expensive than the cost of cable – saving business owners money in the long run.

3. Investment: The idea, or hope, of getting a worthwhile return from something that costs money is a sound sentiment. Whether it’s more revenue, more business, or even positive reviews – getting a lot without spending a lot is always nice. Who doesn’t appreciate a good investment?

Movies & Long-Form TV Shows Aren’t the Best for Businesses

Netflix-like streaming services may seem like the ideal thing to throw on a TV, but there’s one fact to consider. By and large, cable, and other TV packages, are designed with a home setting in mind. The shows may be familiar to visitors but people aren’t at a business or office to watch 30+ minutes of a TV show.

It’s Relevant TV is Netflix For Business

It’s Relevant TV is a platform with a lot of advantages. The service, designed with customer retention in mind, gives users control and comes with all the features business owners look for in a TV solution, and more:

1. Content: It’s Relevant TV’s content comes from a library of over half a million videos spread across 40 categories. All of that content is short-form, family-friendly, and changes often giving you more opportunities to engage your visitors.

2. Pricing: It’s Relevant TV is less expensive than what most businesses are already paying for cable or TV displays.

3. Investment: It’s Relevant TV isn’t an expense. Clients that use It’s Relevant end up bringing in more monthly revenue from increased business. The following link leads to an ROI Calculator that shows how much more revenue It’s Relevant TV can help bring in per month: IRTV ROI Calculator.

4. Social Media Followership: It’s Relevant TV is able to link directly with a business’s social media accounts. Recent posts from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can be pulled onto the TV for people to see. Sharing the most recent posts gives visitors more reasons to follow, and encourages them to get more engaged the your brand.

5. Digital Messaging & Informing Visitors: It’s Relevant TV is designed to get visitors informed services they might not have been aware of – educating them on reasons to come back more, and spend more. It’s Relevant features free adspace on the side for business owners to utilize, allowing them to get their messages across while people are engaged with our content.

It’s Relevant combines the TV shows people enjoy watching, but allows for more control and more promotion. Visit: www.itsrelevant.com for more information.

Replace the DVD Player In Your Business

If you’re a business owner with a TV in your business, it goes without saying that at some point in time you sat down to consider what to have playing on it. Whether it’s basic cable, a DVD player or Netflix, an Amazon Firestick, or even a regular old USB drive with pictures and a slideshow, sometimes it’s time to revisit old tech and consider newer alternatives.

People say “Don’t fix what isn’t broken.” And this is true – no one should fritter away money on a whim. But at the same time, there’s a risk in the comfort of long standing familiarity. People who are happy with what they have seldom consider alternatives – less out of alternatives being better and more out of avoiding the hassle of change.

Out With The Old

It’s not unusual to want to get the most mileage out something, but it’s also important to recognize when something is worth revisiting. Even if it isn’t necessarily old. DVD players, services like Netflix, and external devices such as Amazon Firestick and USB Drives have broadened the options for ways you can put things on your TV.

DVD Players Are Outdated For Businesses

DVD players are great – at home. When it comes to DVD players in businesses, two common uses rise to the surface: DVDs, and looping slideshows. Regarding the former, playing a commercially available DVD, like a movie or TV show can result in a heavy fine. The reason is that even though you own the copy of the DVD, you don’t own the license to play it in public. The following article delves deeper into the risks involved when choosing to display content in your business without the rights: “Using Netflix in your Business, Don’t Put your Business at Risk!”

Legality aside, throwing a movie or the latest Disney Pixar flick up on the TV still isn’t that great of a solution. Feature-length movies can be as long as 90-120 minutes – built around characters and storytelling. Unless you’re waiting for a car to be serviced, there are few instances where putting something like a movie on for the enjoyment of visitors is going to be relevant. People don’t have the same focus to devote to a movie in a waiting room, restaurant or retailer as they do at home – and there’s no guarantee that people won’t arrive in the middle of story, or walk in on spoilers of a movie they were waiting to see. It just isn’t a good fit for businesses, and it carries the risk of disappointing visitors.

Movies aren’t the only thing that a DVD player is good for. Business owners who know that it’s illegal to show unlicensed videos, or don’t believe in playing videos in general, lean towards another option when it comes to what’s on their TVs – and that’s custom DVDs.

Custom DVDs & Slideshows Get Old Quick

It’s not uncommon for business owners to put together personal videos or collections of pictures for their TVs. While this alternative is certainly cheaper than basic cable, it isn’t without its flaws.

Custom videos loop constantly. Unless the business owner has a dedicated staff member with a lot of free time on their hands to put together a large library of content, people visiting are likely going to see the same things again and again. This can get boring, and depending on the setting in which people are waiting, the comfort of your visitors can have a large impact on their satisfaction and overall opinion of your business.

DVDs and USBs packed with videos and pictures plugged into your Smart TV lack a crutial level of customization. In order to update or make changes to either of those platforms, the devices need to be manually removed – and in the case of DVDs, new ones need to be made or switched out by hand. This is inconvenient, and in an age of innovative technology, shouldn’t be an option you have to settle for.

Another heavy loss at the cost of using custom DVDs or slideshows is the lack of live intergrations onto your TV. Features such as the local news, weather updates, and even recent posts from social media, aren’t able to be streamed and put where people are going to see it. So what else is there?

It’s Relevant TV is the Next Generation, Here Today

It’s Relevant TV is a custom TV service made for businesses. It gives you access to a vast library of short-form content to be played alongside your own videos to get people interested, and engaged. All of the content is licensed for public display, so you can avoid legal issues of playing commercial DVDs. Everything is divided into set categories for you to pick and choose from to keep the programming “relevant”.

The platform is easy to use and fully customizable – you can easily upload videos and images from your phone or computer straight to your TV. And best of all, it’s always fresh. Without you doing a thing, IRTV constantly changes the programming to keep it all interesting for your visitors.

Do away with the old, and embrace the new. It’s Relevant TV will provide your business with so much more than a DVD player can. IRTV is constantly evolving and provides business owners with the control they desire.

Change can be Hard. But It’s Worth it for Your Business.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but building the new.”

-Socrates

Hesitant to Change Your TV Service? You’re not Alone.

Services like cable and satellite are bought and subscribed to as early as the point of purchasing a TV. From there on out, one’s choice of provider tends to adopt a Set It & Forget It sort of mentality. You’re comfortable with what you have, you don’t ever think to replace it, and you’re “happy“ with it.

But what does “happy” mean here? Are you excited? Does it help your business every day? Or is saying you are “happy” more like a nice way of saying that you’re settling for what you currently have because the alternative is something unfamiliar. Very few business and offices really LOVE or even LIKE the TV service they subscribe to.

Many of our clients hesitated at first to change from away from the TV service they had. Reasons included many false assumptions like needing to schedule an installation, reading long contracts, or having to make phone calls. These can all be avoided.

The single worst feedback we’ve heard is that some business owners don’t care about what’s on their TVs! Even if you don’t care, your customers DO! If you care about them, it’s worth considering what you put in front of them. Our clients find their visitors enjoy the programming more, complain far less, and leave better educated about their business. This can lead to a real return on investment from your TV. On top of the benefits, it’s also quite easy to make the switch. The installation is simple and doesn’t require scheduling an “appointment window”. You can install it yourself in under 5 minutes.

Why Fix what isn’t Broken?

Business owners and office managers should not settle. If there is something that is better and most cost-effective for our businesses we should explore it.

People tend to favor what’s familiar to them, pure and simple. That’s because with familiarity comes a sense of trust, reliance, and security. While there isn’t anything wrong with this, it can leave you blind to alternatives better suited for your needs. It’s less about fixing something that isn’t broken, and more about upgrading to better options.

airplane-open-seats-1

If you were in an airplane, squished in between two people for a flight, and were given the opportunity to sit in a set of seats completely open next to you, would you move? Of course you would! Your seat may not be broken, but it’s just not as comfortable as the open seats will be. The better option is worth taking, and the sooner you make the decision to move the more time you have to enjoy the results of the change.

Fit Your Business with something Made for Business

It’s Relevant TV is a cable alternative that’s designed for the business setting. It compliments the brief time that people are exposed to the TV and is tailored to the casual attention span of your visitors. It’s Relevant’s short-form content is easy to watch. And the diverse library of content gives your business enough categories to choose from, to be relevant to as many people possible.

Why It’s Relevant TV?

With It’s Relevant in the picture, you’re able to explore the ways in which your TV can be used to transform your business. Beyond short-form content that’s family-friendly, IRTV allows you to expose visitors to your social media and educate them about the services you provide. They become interested and engaged, come back more, and spend more on each visit. That’s where It’s Relevant TV excels. It’s built specifically for you, and it’s designed to MAKE your business money.

Generally speaking, when you see something new that you’re interested in, you look into it for more details. You take a closer look in order to see if it’s better or worse than what you currently have, and in the end chose whether or not to replace the old with the new. If you operate a business, office or public space with a TV take a few minutes to explore It’s Relevant TV. You can reach out to the staff for a personalized presentation by calling 855-ITS-RELE or emailing support {at} itsrelevant.com.

iOS 11 Hidden Feature That Will Help Your Business (iPhone/iPad)

With Apple’s release of iOS 11 on Tuesday September 19, 2017 many new features have been introduced to the iPhone and iPad. Most of these features matter mostly to consumers, not to business owners. But there is one feature in particular that businesses should take advantage of.

QR Code Scanning on the iPhone

Apple has made it easier than ever for consumers to scan QR codes while they are out and about. What are QR Codes? They are a lot like barcodes in that they are quick to scan from a compatible device but they are used in much more of an interactive way. QR codes have been used for about a decade now to bring users to web sites while out and about. They are really big in Asia, but never really took off here in the U.S.

What’s different now?

You used to need a dedicated app to scan a QR code on your iPhone. The problem has always been that once you saw a QR codeyou wanted to scan you had to fumble through your apps, find the QR scanning one, wait for it to load and then shoot the code. This long process made it hard to use QR codes in dynamic ways. Now Apple has built the technology into their standard Camera App. The Camera App remains one of the easiest to access apps on the phone, available right from the lock screen.

What are the opportunities for businesses?

Getting customers to access your websites while in your retail locations, or through ads in remote locations are a great way to grow your business. Once users access a link through a QR code, they can fill out a survey, join a loyalty club or even purchase a product that’s not available in the store.

iOS 11 QR Code Scanning App — QR Code Editing Tool inside of It’s Relevant TV

Make the most of this update with It’s Relevant TV

As you’ll see in the video below, It’s Relevant TV has a QR code generator built right into their free iPhone/iPad app. You can design, edit and upload interactive ads right from your phone to all of your business TVs using the service. IRTV puts these QR codes in a place that your customers can see and interact them. Customer awareness will be key to your success.

There is really no quicker way to easily build active links into your business signage. We hope that you’ll take advantage this great technology that is surely to gain usage in the months to come!

If you have questions or want to chat about ways to make this technology work for you, please reach out to us.

Are Your Employees Watching TV At Work? A Better TV For Your Business

Employees watching TV at work is frustrating if you’re a business owner, or you’re in charge of managing a business. If you have TVs in your business, you probably put them there for the benefit of your customers. But have your employees become the primary audience instead? If you fear that this is the case, follow this link and check out the solution we recommend.

Today, TVs are a utility that fewer and fewer businesses are without. A growing number of locations with sit-downs or long expected waits have a TV somewhere within sight. With all of the TVs in businesses, an important question comes to mind; who chooses what’s on?

It shouldn’t be your employees!

Where’s the Remote, and Who is in Control?

This varies from business to business. Example: in a setting like a bar or restaurant, the remote might not be available to customers- whereas in a waiting room, the remote might be there for any visitors to control. However in some cases, an employee is the one in charge of the remote. When an employee decides what to put on the TV, he or she might very well put something on the that they want to watch, instead of something that the customers, or visitors, would rather have on.

The TV is a wonderful distraction for visitors. Unfortunately, it can be just as distracting for employees.

One thing is true; the fact that people want to change the channel at all illustrates that even with thousands of channels out there, it is nearly impossible to pick one that everyone will enjoy.

What’s the Perfect Channel?

People and personality types are as diverse as a bag of M&Ms; you won’t be able to please everyone by putting on a channel that only caters to one or two colors. In order to appeal to the interests of all of your visitors, you need an all-inclusive channel that changes between content types. The greater the diversity in content, the more eyes you can attract to your TV.

What Brings it all Together?

A custom TV channel from It’s Relevant TV. IRTV runs diverse short-form programming designed with businesses in mind. In addition to its vast library of licensed content, the platform features space for businesses to promote additional services or specials that otherwise might go unnoticed.

It’s Relevant is focused on customer retention. The service prioritizes the people who are in your business with the intention of getting them to come back more, and spend more. Unlike cable bills that are flat expenses and give nothing back, IRTV is designed to generate revenue through its engaging features and put money into your pockets.

Are your employees watching TV when they should be working? If they’re in control of the television and you’re not around, there’s a good chance that they are. Allowing it to continue is doing a disservice to your business, and your visitors who want to watch the TV. It’s Relevant TV can help you put meaningful programming on the TV to keep customers engaged, and make you more money.

DIY TV – Customize The TV In Your Business

As technology grows and becomes more innovative, more and more business owners are turning to DIY solutions and beginning to explore new ways of doing things. We live in an age where reaching out and connecting with people is as easy as pressing a button – though just as easily, someone is capable of finding you and following you online or on social media – which when it comes to businesses, can be a potential client or customer’s first impression of your brand.

It’s Never Been More Important to Reach Your Visitors

A business wouldn’t be a business without people coming in and giving you their time and money. That’s why any respectable business will always invest in the comfort and consideration of the people who come to frequent their establishment. The most common means of catering to the comfort of visitors is the Television. TVs hang in the lobbies of medical offices, hospitals have TVs in their waiting areas, and bars and restaurants have them so people can watch as they eat.

Medical Waiting Room TV - Doctors Express Television — Medical Waiting Room TV

With customer comfort being the priority it is, it only makes sense for business owners to invest in ways to make waiting areas more inviting. Those who run something other than basic cable tend to settle on one of a few do-it-yourself alternatives. People try things ranging from stiff looping slideshows, digital signs, and streaming sticks, to playing DVDs. While these options have no regular monetary cost, they provide no real value to your business. Certain solutions may be illegal depending upon what you are showing. (See the article: Using Netflix & DVDs in Your Business).

So what’s the solution?

When homegrown DIY alternatives fall short of providing an ideal the answer is a custom TV network for your business. A network that brings the TV programs in legally and lets you message to your customers at the same time.

With It’s Relevant TV, it’s just easy. It’s Relevant gives you access to a living network, which features short-form family-friendly content designed with business settings in mind. The service allows you to customize your TV, giving you control over which categories play and what visitors see. It’s Relevant can also be used to display posts from social media accounts in real-time. This helps you to further positively promote your brand and get people to follow you online.

Car Dealership TV Systems – The Top 5 Most Important Elements

What do you need to consider when putting a TV service into your car dealership sales department or service department? Car dealership marketing extends beyond billboards and TV commercials. Using the dealership TV is one of the cheapest ways to get your ads seen, while bringing life to your waiting room.

Here are the top 5 elements to a quality TV system for car dealership waiting areas and lobbies:

1. Interesting TV Programming

Customers could be waiting minutes or hours. Regardless of how long they are waiting, you want to provide them with something entertaining or informative to watch. Just having videos about serving their vehicle or commercials about your dealership aren’t going to cut it.

2. Block Out Ads from Your Competitors

The time your customers are waiting for their vehicles to be serviced is the absolute worst moment for them to see an attractive message from a competing dealership. Block out the competition with Competitive Ad Block®. The service automatically blocks any outside car commercials from appearing on the TV. Instead, you get more quality programming and your own promotions for your customers to engage with.

3. Ability to Share Custom Messages

The time your customers spend waiting is an opportunity for you to tell them you care about them. Educate them about your inventory, policies and what sets your dealership apart. They are going to be watching the TVs for at least a portion of the time they wait so it’s a great opportunity to put your own messaging in front of them.

4. Real-Time Social Media

If customers leave without buying you need a gentle way to bring them back. Social media is a great way to connect with repeat customers and prospects alike. Get them interested in your dealership. Showcase your most recent posts on the TV and gently entice them to follow your accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Showcasing multiple accounts is great because it allows them to follow on the platform they use the most.

5. Showcase your Dealership’s Videos and Commercials

You’ve spent time and money making videos, why not get more mileage out of them? So many dealerships produce videos that just end up on YouTube or for a limited time on local cable. You can use these same videos inside your dealership to increase customer awareness of your promotions, inventory, and specials.

What are you using in your dealership today? If it’s Cable or satellite, you are missing a great opportunity to both spread your own messaging and to block out messages from your competition. If it’s a custom solution you may not be showing enough interesting content, and/or might be paying too much for it. See what It’s Relevant TV for Car Dealerships has to offer. For less than most dealerships pay for a basic cable service, It’s Relevant is able to achieve all 5 goals above, with a unique non-looping platform.

You can speak to a TV consultant about dealer TV options by calling toll free: 855-ITS-RELE or by emailing: sales@itsrelevant.com.

Free TV Services: What’s the Real Cost to a Medical Office or Business?

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,”
and there’s no such thing as a free TV service.

Nothing is Free, Including TV

If you’re using a TV service or platform that’s free, sooner or later you’re going to feel the cost of it; even if you didn’t put a single cent down. Even a homemade slideshow, or video that only cost the time it took to make it can bring detriment in the long run. The structure of such a video or slideshow may stand out as unprofessional and tacky; doing more harm than good.

What’s the Cost of TV?

Cost runs a little deeper than money. The initial cost of cable, for example, might be a some-hundred dollar subscription for an inclusive package – but that’s not all there is to it. There are many hidden costs of running cable in your business. The lack of program control, contributing to visitor anxiety or showing competitor ads all can harm your business.

Everything has a cost, but not everything has a strong level of return. Cable is an expense that gives nothing back. Industry-specific TV providers, like the ones often seen in medical offices, benefit pharmaceutical companies while showcasing drug ads and medical information that tends to raise anxiety among patients.

What’s the Alternative?

You can do better than free. Business owners are moving away from paying for TV as a utility, and are instead putting It’s Relevant TV in place to generate revenue from their TVs.

It’s Relevant is an alternative to cable that is less expensive, gives you control over what appears on your TV, and is comprised of short-form content that’s family-friendly and structured with business settings in mind. The service gives you access to a living TV network, not a loop or slideshow, that pulls videos from a vast library of licensed TV programs. It’s interesting and fun.

The IRTV platform generates new revenue by promoting additional services, specials, and events that people might not have been aware of. The service represents a significant return on investment (ROI), and is focused on customer retention – getting customers to spend more, and come back more often. So while there is a monthly subscription cost, the value and benefits far outweigh it.

For a personal look into how It’s Relevant can draw in more business for your business, check out our ROI Calculator and see for yourself how much of a return you can expect from our service.

Amazon Fire Stick: Don’t Risk Sticking Your Business

Technology is Changing TV

Amazon Fire Stick, Chromecast, and Smart TVs are steadily emerging over the horizon, more so now than ever. With access to services like Netflix, Hulu, or HBO Go and devices that allow you to stream those services on your TV, cable is on its way out.

TV has come a long way since the 1920’s, and as we get closer to 2020, looking back on the history of television during the last one hundred years and seeing how far we’ve come is pretty amazing. Today, televisions are just about everywhere you go. Everywhere. And they have been for a while. That’s because TVs are a staple of technology – we use them to reach out to one another, stay informed, and keep ourselves entertained.

If you’re a business owner who caters to crowds, or often has people waiting or sitting for lengthy periods of time, then chances are you’ve got a TV within sight for the exact reasons just listed above. Which is great, the comfort of your customers is key – but in this rapidly advancing world of technology, it’s easy to get carried away when trying to build an inviting waiting room experience.

Between all the technology available to business owners coupled with the drive to maintain customer satisfaction, the ease of putting something up like Netflix powered by an Amazon Fire Stick is second nature. So why wouldn’t you do it? The answer is simple. Because it’s illegal.

NETFLIX TERMS:

The Netflix service and any content viewed through our service are for your personal and non-commercial use only. During your Netflix membership, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, license to access the Netflix service and view Netflix content through the service. Except for the foregoing limited license, no right, title or interest shall be transferred to you. You agree not to use the service for public performances.

Using those services with a “set it and forget it” mentality without regard for the licensing terms and conditions can be dangerous for your business. The people who enforce the rules on media licenses take this very seriously. For more information regarding why you should think twice about setting up services like that in your business, check out this article on using Netflix in your business.

Personal Use is Different than Business Use

In the end, the licensing rights tied with those services only applies to personal use. Setting them up in your business is a no-go. But if you think about it, TVs and plug-ins like Fire Stick and Chromecast were designed with the home setting in mind, not business settings anyway.

So you can’t use a Fire Stick in Your business to deliver any real TV content. Up until recently, this left you with only one real choice: cable TV. And while it’s legal to run cable in a business setting, cable TV isn’t designed for the benefit of your customers and your business. It’s Relevant TV is.

Custom TV from It’s Relevant

It’s Relevant TV bridges the gaps between TV, customer satisfaction, and business messaging using unique digital sinage software – creating a more inviting place for visitors. The service provides businesses with content and control that makes for an all around better TV experience. IRTV creates a custom TV network for each business with access to a vast library of original content divided into a number of categories you can pick and choose from. On top of the TV content with more meaningful controls, your business also gets room to advertise additional services, reach out to customers, and share your latest social media posts. It’s Relevant TV turns your television into a tool for your business.