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.

Medical Office TV – Where Waiting Presents an Opportunity

It’s Relevant has been working with urgent cares, dentists, and medical offices across the country in order to improve patient experience by doing more with the TVs in their waiting rooms. When it comes to medical offices there aren’t a lot of television options for waiting rooms, and any practice that strives to put patients first will often invest in a waiting area TV service of some kind.

Choosing the Right Service.

Medical lobby TVs should never settle for basic cable. Between the dwell time of patients, and the amount of people that come in and out of the office on any given day, there’s a lot of opportunities to expose them to your brand, services, and reasons for them to come back – none of which is taken advantage of when cable is in the picture. Digital sinage software like It’s Relevant TV gives you the freedom to customize the TV in your waiting room, and is the ideal service when trying to make your waiting room more inviting.

Why the TV?

TVs are a great way to engage with people because you don’t have to tell someone to look at the screen for them to notice what’s on. With TVs being as prevalent as they are, people are used to watching them. Televisions are familiar and catch the eye better than posters, banners, or signs ever could.

Patients wait in waiting rooms. Hence the namesake. They wait to be seen and the wait can be a long one. During that time, if there is a TV present in the room then it’s fair game to assume that someone is going to look at it at some point. This is your prime opportunity. As they watch and you have their attention, you can be messaging to them.

What’s on the TV?

In the case of waiting rooms, the TVs we have seen are most often tuned to the news or some light programming with the patients’ comfort in mind. In practice this is a good gesture. However, in an age of rising technology, there exists an alternative. You can still offer patients comfort, but bring more for your practice at the same time.

It’s Relevant TV offers more than cable.

Cable is great for use at home. The programming that airs on television is intended for the comfort of living rooms where people sit down with the vested interest of watching TV. With the exception of the news, the average runtime of content on TV ranges from 30-60 minutes with an engaging plot or storyline. People in waiting rooms aren’t there to watch these shows. It doesn’t fit with the structure of a waiting room, whereas It’s Relevant’s TV’s short-form content is designed with the brief waiting period of patients in mind. IRTV provides short-form shows that are engaging and informative. They are the sort of thing you can walk away from with something interesting to talk about.

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.

The “Set It and Forget It” of Business Television

“SET IT AND FORGET IT!”

-A 90’s Studio Audience

Who could ever forget that line? If you watched any infomercials during the 90’s, then chances are you’ve heard of the inventor, salespersona, and founder of Ronco; Ron Popeil. Now if you haven’t watched the video and left to get a mouth-watering rotisserie chicken by this point, let’s take a closer look at that famous slogan.

Set It and Forget It.

The idea of “Set it and Forget it” was a major selling point of the Showtime Rotisserie. We’re all busy people, and the less effort we have to put in to get things done the better. Plain and simple; why would someone slave over the hassle of making a chicken when you had a tool to manage the hard parts for you? Especially when you need to focus other things.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with managing something yourself. If you enjoy doing the hard work, power to you; however if you’re a business owner, time is money.

It’s Relevant TV provides a “set it and forget it” service for your business TV. The custom channel runs on its own and pulls tailored content from a vast media library for viewers to enjoy. It lets you be busy elsewhere doing the things you need to get done. No more paying for cable and worrying about what to put on; the quick segments and broad categories are catered to appeal to a wide audience, and ensures that fewer people are disappointed by what they’re seeing.

But Wait, There’s More!

It’s Relevant does more than put original content on your TV, there’s a whole list of other features that come with it. From sharing and deals you’re offering people, to promoting your social media for all to see; it works for you. You’re in control.

With IRTV, you literally set it and forget it.
Interested? You can call toll-free: 1-855-ITS-RELE
or visit: http://www.itsrelevant.com for more information.

“Cut the S**T ” – Don’t Expose Your Visitors to Profanity & Inappropriate Content

Profanity, graphic imagery, and other questionable content is present just about everywhere you look. It’s in the news, your favorite TV shows and movies, and &#@% it if it isn’t in this sentence.

But not in your Family-Friendly Business, Right?

Profanity and other such explicit materials are, for the most part, censored on network TV. This is thanks to FCC regulations. But all networks, especially the cable ones, are starting to push the boundaries a bit. And as they do, you run a greater risk of showing things that may turn off your customers.

IRTV Vlog – Friday January 12, 2018:

When you’re eating out at a family restaurant, or waiting to see a doctor, or even getting your car serviced. In all of those instances, there’s almost always a TV hanging in sight. And rightly so, because what’s more comforting and familiar than television? Turn it on, tune to the news, and your visitors see this…

Profanity on CNN — CNN – July 10, 2017 – 4:52 PM ET (Captions were NOT turned on. The displayed text is part of the broadcast)

Now after a warranted spit-take you might ask yourself, “how did this happen?” – It’s the afternoon and not only are bad words being spoken, but they are also being written on the screen.

Jake Tapper, the CNN anchor and host of this segment did warn viewers saying “We have to warn you some of the language you are about to hear is explicit and might be disturbing…” But what can your customers do? Tell the kids to “look away” or just leave the room entirely? It’s 4:52PM in the afternoon and they are stuck, watching something you never intended for them to see.

Then, more recently on the morning of August 4th, we caught this one live on the air at 8:52AM. A guest known for using the F word, uses the F word and the network admits that it could have been avoided:

A Realization for Business Owners

The important realization: you don’t have control over what appears on your TV. As business owners you can only have so much power over what’s shown on your screen. Sure enough, you can choose which channel is playing, but have no control over the programming within. Without control or the assurance that what’s going to come on is family friendly, you run the risk of exposing your customers, clients, and anyone else who visits your business to things you might not want them to see or associate your brand with. Like…

Profanity on Business TV — CNN – July 10, 2017 – 4:52 PM ET

It’s unlikely that any respectable business owner would willingly show a story with such strong expletives, or profane content to his or her visitors – but that’s the risk of running cable television in your business. You don’t know what’s going to come on.

Cable TV Alternative for Businesses

It’s Relevant TV is the cable alternative for businesses. It gives you control over what plays on your TV. It’s a service designed for your business televisions. Our vast living-library of television content is risk-free, filtered, and family friendly – you don’t have to worry about people being exposed to anything you don’t want them to see. Even the daily news that’s delivered is done so without the blood/guts/gore that we see more and more on network TV. You control what content your visitors see based on which categories you choose – all while educating them on services you offer and getting them engaged with your social media.

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.

YouTube Advertisements Result in Bad Brand Exposure

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”

Why are name brands like AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle, Starbucks, Verizon, and Walmart running away from YouTube? This isn’t a joke with a rhetorical answer like “to get to the other side,” it’s a serious question. These brands, and more, have recently pulled their advertising dollars from the world’s largest online video platform.

YouTube. That endless sea of news, music videos, TV clips, and shameless original content you’ve come to know and love. If you’ve watched anything on YouTube in the last 10 years, then chances are you’ve been slapped with that scrolling yellow bar signifying how long you have until you can actually watch your video. You can thank advertisers for the wait.

If you’ve got a product you’re looking to advertise, it only makes sense to put it where people are going to see it. People at home watch the TV, so you’ve got television ads. People spend a long time driving on the highway, so you see big billboards and hear ads on the radio. And then you have people spending countless hours online – so of course you can put it there. A no-brainer, right? What could possibly go wrong? A lot in fact, as we’ve seen in the news over the past week.

What happens when that ad of yours winds up in front of a video you didn’t expect? Normally, you might pick and choose which videos you want your ad to run on because you’re trying to reach out to the sorts of people who watch that content and might be interested in what you’re selling. But the marvel that technology and “interest targeting” have created just might throw you a curve ball.

YouTube Ads put your brand’s image at risk.

There’s a lot of content out there. A lot. Too much for any one person to sit down and meticulously sift through, especially when a computer can do it for you based on data that’s been collected. Youtube is a prime example of a company that relies upon technology to sort through the 400 hours of video uploaded to it every minute. But no human being is actually watching all of the videos for quality control. That’s when this happens:

“…T-Mobile ads on videos about abortion, Minecraft banners on videos about snorting cocaine and pre-roll ads for Novartis heart medication running on clips titled “Feminism is cancer…”

That was an excerpt taken from an article posted on The Guardian regarding the recent rise in advertisements being pulled off YouTube – having taken them no longer than fifteen minutes of browsing videos to find what they did. And if you’re an advertiser, you likely see the big problem here.

Who could have foreseen your ad for a new car being featured on a video too explicit for me to mention without losing my job. Or your ad for a new seasonal sandwich deal being played before a video featuring the 10 Most Disgusting Foods People Eat. You get the idea. You didn’t intend on your ad being associated with the lewd or otherwise unfavorable content it was bundled with. It doesn’t matter if your product has nothing to do with the associated content, or if you’re not endorsing the following message whatsoever – a connection is being made by the viewers that you don’t have control over.

Here is a video about the issue from CBS, ironically found on Youtube:

It’s Relevant TV gets your video ads to the right people while removing the risk.

It’s Relevant TV removes the chance of your ad being shown before a lewd or inappropriate video by having only family-friendly videos on the platform. To avoid the risks associated with machine filtering, It’s Relevant TV adds and approves videos 100% manually. A real human being sees each and every video before it goes out on the It’s Relevant TV network.

The FCC protected you from associating your brand with extremely bad content on television for years, by not allowing certain types of content to be broadcast at all. But the same can’t be said for the internet. Anyone can post anything on YouTube and before illegal/inappropriate/controversial videos have a chance to be flagged and taken down, an advertiser’s message can be seen connected to them.

Take your video advertisements to a safer place. Get in touch with It’s Relevant TV for more information. The rates are comparable to YouTube, while putting ads on screen in public places.

Using Netflix & DVDs in Your Business: Don’t Put Yourself at Risk

There it is – did you read it? You probably saw it, but did you really read what it says? Me neither. At least not after years and years of seeing it, or a similar message at the beginning of every movie I’ve ever watched.

Well, in case you still haven’t read it, it says:

“Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes, or video disc.”

So what does this mean exactly? In short, it means that if you own something like a DVD of a movie, or a CD, you can’t legally burn copies of that disc and sell them to people, or even hand them out for free. Nor are you allowed to show that movie or play that album for the general public without the expressed consent to do so. If you’re looking for a something you can play instead, take a look at It’s Relevant TV.

You might be wondering where the line is drawn, and it’s a fair question. Just like when you get a driver’s license that allows you to drive a car, when you buy anything like a DVD you’re buying the license to watch or listen to that media privately.

Now before you go taking a hammer to your home theater, it’s important to note that while those licenses are private, it doesn’t exclude friends and family from enjoying them as well – the means to actually traffic and enforce that would simply be ridiculous. So long as your viewing is limited to personal and non-commercial use, you’re not in violation of the Terms & Conditions.

Is it Legal for Me to Show Netflix in My Business?

In short: No.
But this is an easy question to clarify by looking at Netflix’s terms of service:

“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.”

This is a prime example of how companies lay out licensing agreements. Does this mean you can’t show Finding Nemo in your waiting room? Unfortunately, you can’t. The difference between throwing the movie into your DVD player at home, and the TV at your office – is that one is at home (personal), and the other is a business (public). It’s the same reason you can’t buy a Taylor Swift CD and play her songs outside your store to attract customers. You can try, but it’s illegal, and it’s not good when you get caught. Companies take this sort of thing very seriously.

But Were DVDs or Netflix a Good Idea in the First Place?

When your visitors are at your location do they really want to watch a movie? Not really. They’re there for a reason and don’t want to be around long. People want to watch the TV as a distraction while they wait, but can’t be invested in a long-form program or movie.

The average time spent in a waiting room varies from business to business. Dentist offices come in at 5 to 10 minutes, whereas you could be waiting up to 20 minutes at a doctor’s office. Even if you could play the movies you wanted, a typical feature-length flick usually runs over or just under two hours. So unless you’re waiting over an hour for your car to be serviced, you’d only catch 1/12th or 1/6th of the movie – starting from who-knows-where.

The sort of programming that runs in a lobby should compliment the length of time people are going to be waiting there, with the notion that they’re not going to be fully invested in whatever’s on the screen.

So What Can You Play Instead?

It’s Relevant TV features a network of original content spanning across a vast selection of categories. And unlike a DVD or Netflix, all of the content is licensed for public display. From kid’s entertainment to the national news, the programs are on average two and a half minutes long – long enough to hold someone’s attention in a waiting room and feel as though they left entertained or informed.

Dentist Offices: Playing the Waiting Game

“The waiting, is the hardest part…”

-Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

You don’t need to appreciate classic rock to agree that waiting rooms take their toll on more than just time. We’ve all been there, the rows of padded chairs with wooden armrests, the piles of magazines, the TV, and the plant in the corner that may or may not be plastic. It’s these elements, and more, that make up the traditionally dull waiting room experience we know so well.

But does it have to be dull?

Sure enough, plenty of businesses and offices work hard figuring out how to make a waiting room more inviting, and put forth a lot of effort into improving their lobbies for their clients. But no matter where you go, whenever you end up having to wait for more than a few minutes you’ll likely see a TV.

And there’s a reason for that. TVs are an effective distraction. TVs draw people’s attention, and they’re a familiar element that we’re used to looking at on a daily basis – providing a quiet atmosphere with the comfort and white noise of what’s on. While televisions are great in that respect, there are many reasons that cable and satellite TV are not the best options for your office.

When you’re waiting to be seen by someone, you aren’t necessarily invested in a long program when you’re expecting to miss some, or most of it, as soon as you’re called away. And in the case of having the TV turned to any one station or giving visitors control over the remote, with a waiting room full of people it’s impossible to cater to them all and it’s likely that someone is going to get alienated.

So what’s a business owner to do about that?

It’s Relevant TV for Dentists and It’s Relevant TV for Medical Offices work to address those issues and more. Each custom TV network airs original content pulled from a vast library of categories tailored specifically for the practice it’s in. The segments run for two and a half minutes on average – meaning they’re brief enough to cater to an audience with limited focus, and the categories are varied enough that everyone is bound to see something that interests them on some level.

IRTV compliments an atmosphere in which people are looking for a distraction and aren’t there to be entertained. Going beyond aired content, the service can also be used to reach out to those people in waiting. Posts, photos, and even videos from your social media can be uploaded and played for visitors to see.

Whether you’re introducing your staff, highlighting local events, or even showcasing other services your business provides; it’s worth taking a look at: It’s Relevant TV.

Dental Education Through TV: Brushing Up on Hygiene

“Brush your teeth twice a day, for two minutes. Once in the morning, and again before bedtime. And don’t forget to floss…”

– Every Dentist & Mother

The words every kid grows up hearing a thousand times. The very same words people often seem to forget despite the constant reminders. How is it that kids, and even some adults, throw oral hygiene out the window and neglect this most basic routine?

It all comes down to delivery. Good oral hygiene starts at home, and extends to the dentist’s office. From parents passing on good habits to their kids to dentists educating them on proper dental care. But how do you do it? How do you get the message across and stress the importance of taking care of your teeth? Aside from the words we all know, dentists use a number of aids to educate patients.

Post-visit, your dentist might sit with you one-on-one and go over the proper ways to brush your teeth. They might ask what kind of toothbrush, or brand of toothpaste you’re using, if you’re flossing, etc; maybe they even pull out that big pair of plastic teeth. Some dentists even hand out brochures on dental care or have them available in the lobby for all to see. And in this age of technology, you might even find blogs written by the dentists you visit.

But how effective is that in the long run?
Are patients seeing your content?

Reaching the patients is the key

Without being able to reach patients effectively you can’t pass on whatever it is you’re trying to say. It’s Relevant TV provides a unique and alternative solution to this problem…

Offices, waiting rooms, and even operatories, are often equipped with a television. Dentists’ TVs are usually tuned into something like the news, weather, or a talk show for white noise or casual comfort. In short, a custom Dental TV can run those same kinds of programs for less than it costs to run basic cable – and do more for your practice at the same time. With It’s Relevant, you can not only air those key channels, you can run original content you yourself produced and show it to the world.

Have a video introducing your doctors, or staff? A lovely office tour of the practice featured on your website? You could have that aired on your waiting room’s television – as well as any promotions or events you want to share with your patients. Connect with them, and present a more welcoming experience through a dental television network.

So going back to oral hygiene and getting the message across, how is TV a better platform for this? The answer is pretty straightforward, people watch TV. They watch it, and they pay attention to it – sometimes moreso than face to face.

TV has a lasting impact

Speaking from my own personal experiences, I recall a time years ago when I was young and my mother was bringing me to a new dentist. And in her motherly attempt to relieve me of anxiety, she casually mentioned that the dentist I was going to see “Has a TV in his office, so you can watch it during the visit.”

The comfort and distraction that the TV provided turned an otherwise dreadful experience into something less so, which is precisely why it was there in the first place, and are often found in waiting rooms and operatories today.

As a kid, or even an adult, that period of time in which you are at the dentist, you are always looking for something to take your mind off of what’s going on. The patient is invested, and focused – and can be entertained and informed with the programs you choose to put on the TV.

If you’d like to create a better environment for your patients, and connect with them more, it can be as simple as changing the channel on your TV. Schedule a free consultation with one of our TV experts to help reach your goals. You can call 203-588-0994 or email: sales{at}itsrelevant.com to set up a conversation.