Loop TV is a digital signage company that specializes in music. Some businesses have turned to Loop TV for their digital signage needs because Loop offers them a free way to keep their guests, customers or patients entertained.
But if you run a business, you know that what’s free isn’t always what’s best for your company – and that just because you’re not paying for something with cash doesn’t mean you’re not paying for it in other ways.
Let’s take a look at what is Loop TV, what it has to offer and how those offerings, well, pale in comparison to UPshow. “Of course you’d say you’re better,” you’re thinking. Stick with us.
We're confident you'll agree by the end of this blog post.
What you need to know about Loop TV for home and business
- Is Loop TV really free?
- How does Loop TV work and what’s the real Loop TV cost?
- The limitations in terms of Loop TV channels and the Loop media player
- How UPshow goes beyond those limitations
- Step-by-step instructions for getting started with UPshow
Why Loop TV for business or other free streaming TV services for business aren't the best option
How much does Loop TV cost? Well, it won’t cost you anything right now but it will cost you something later. In fact, Loop TV has quickly built a name for itself because it offers free entertainment for businesses.
All that a company needs to do to get started is order a Loop media player, install it and they’re good to go. Then they can begin keeping their customers entertained without paying a dime.
While only paying for a Loop Media Player does sound like an attractive option, in theory, companies often find that it doesn’t quite live up to their expectations. Here’s why.
Is Loop TV really free? The Loop TV pricing model revealed
You’re probably familiar with the marketing adage: if something is free, you’re the product. So, is Loop TV really free? Remember: Loop TV is a business, not a charity. They offer free services because they’re making money elsewhere — in this case, on ads.
While ads are a common revenue strategy, you’re required to run premium ads roughly every 10 minutes when you use Loop. That comes out to a massive 5-6 commercial breaks for every hour of content.
For perspective, this will likely leave you showing more ads than standard TV shows, which typically include about 14-17 minutes of ads for every hour of content.
The bottom line is that if you’re not paying for the content on your TVs, your customers will. They do so by sitting through more ads, which means more time on content they may not be interested in, and less time on content custom-designed to engage, entertain or educate. his is exactly why Loop TV for business may not be the best idea. In fact, even loop TV for home would get old really fast. After all, nobody really wants to sit through so many ads.
Loop TV channels, music videos and other content selection is limited
Loop TV channels are pretty limited. There are, including:
- Loop TV music videos
- Loop TV extreme sports
- Loop TV lifestyle
- Loop TV trending internet videos
You won’t get access to local sports, premium entertainment channels or interactive content that your guests may care more about than what’s included in Loop TV’s basic lineup.
It means that you likely won’t be able to keep your guests entertained for as long as you would with a more comprehensive service – especially since other companies’ ads will interrupt this already-limited content every 10 minutes.
You miss out on a valuable marketing opportunity with Loop Media Inc
On-premise marketing is an excellent way to improve your relationships with existing customers and upsell people who are already in your establishment.
But if you use Loop TV, you’re missing out on the best opportunity that you have for on-premise marketing. That’s because Loop forces you to show dozens and dozens of ads for other companies.
Instead of advertising for other companies — or even competitors — use that ad time to promote your company’s special offers, products, services and more. Of course, we’re a little biased, but UPshow is the best customer engagement platform — and we’ll tell you why.
What makes UPshow different from Loop media player?
UPshow makes it easier to take full advantage of the power of on-premise entertainment through personalized content, advertisements and a wide range of entertainment options. Here’s how we do it:
Run your own advertisements instead of Loop TV ads
This is maybe the biggest advantage of choosing a Loop TV alternative. Instead of showing ads for other companies every 10 minutes, you can advertise:
- Your business’ products or services
- Partnerships with other companies
- Special deals
- Upcoming events
- Anything else you want, since you’re in control of your ads
Another beneficial aspect of this benefit is getting to choose when your ads run in addition to what they include.
With UPshow, you won’t have to interrupt your guests’ viewing experience to meet an ad quota for another company.
Instead, you can take advantage of the natural lulls in live content to advertise your brand without bringing down the vibe.
Choose from more than 500 channels specifically curated with TVs for business in mind
You also get many more entertainment options to choose from when you go with UPshow. We give businesses access to over 500 channels, including local favorites like live sports, local news broadcasts and even interactive content like trivia and sports betting.
When you have more channels to choose from, it’s much easier to find those that your customers will love.
Content creation made easy
With UPshow, you can do more than simply entertain your customers. We talked a bit about how UPshow lets you run your own advertisements. That’s great — if you have the time to make those ads.
That’s why UPshow integrates seamlessly with Canva, giving you access to the Canva Pro toolset and a robust library of premade templates. Simply select the template that works best for you or use Canva’s best-in-class design tools to create stunning ads without ever leaving UPshow’s platform.
Track and measure customer engagement
Creating eye-catching content to run alongside your entertainment is a start, but there’s no point in running content if you can’t measure its performance. That’s why UPshow comes with an onboard QR code creation tool.
Use QR codes to allow customer engagement at the moment of highest intent. For example, invite customers to scan a QR code to download your app and provide a coupon as a thank you, or use the QR code to add a future event to customers’ calendars.
Then, later, you can log into the UPshow manager to see how your campaign performed.
We don’t want to come on too strong, but Loop TV doesn’t offer any form of analytics, and a marketing tool without analytics capabilities is a marketing tool that doesn’t provide value.
Adjust campaigns to drive action
Not seeing the performance you want for a given campaign? UPshow’s onboard, drag-and-drop playlist-building tool makes it easy to run the right campaigns for the right audiences at the right time. Editing your playlists lets you run a given promotion more frequently to boost engagement — or pull it down entirely if it’s underperforming.
Plus, playlists offer a quick and simple means to insert limited-time offers that tie into special events. While Loop TV offers flexible scheduling (we’ll be fair where fairness is warranted), they don’t provide multi-screen zoning for TVs.
What’s that mean? It means that you can showcase your best offers and most important messages all throughout the day across your TVs. More specifically, multi-screen zoning enables a static panel alongside the other content on your screens. Because it’s always visible to customers, there are more opportunities for them to take the actions you want them to take.
Customer experience starts with employee engagement
UPshow is the first on-premise marketing platform that doesn’t just engage your customers. We make it possible for you to engage one of your most important audiences: your employees.
UPshow SHIFT integrates with several point-of-sale systems, allowing you to display the KPIs that matter most to your business and keep your employees motivated. Plus, you can use UPshow SHIFT to recognize your best performers, call out birthdays and job anniversaries and lower the lead time on training.
If you want a holistic customer experience and employee engagement platform, there’s only one reasonable choice: UPshow.
Employee Engagement With UPshow
How to start entertaining your customers with UPshow
Do you think UPshow is the right solution for your company’s entertainment goals? If so, we’re happy to have you. Here’s what getting started looks like:
Step 1: Install the right screens
First up, if you don’t have the right screens in your business already, then you should begin by installing them. The optimal types of screens and locations for them will depend on your layout and goals.
For example, installing TVs throughout your waiting area will be very important if you run a healthcare clinic. But if you run a bar, then placing TVs in your highest-traffic areas at angles that guests can see without craning their necks will likely matter most.
One last thing you might consider is installing some touchscreen TVs or tablets in your business. With these, you can keep your guests entertained while also opening up a ton of new ways for them to interact with your company.
For example, you could use touchscreens to let customers:
- Check themselves in for appointments
- Place their own orders
- Answer their own questions
- Play engaging games like trivia
Step 2: Connect UPshow to those screens
Once you’ve decided on the screens you’re going to use and have installed them, it’s time to connect UPshow. Doing this is simple. You’ll just need to use one of our dedicated media players.
But don’t worry. We’ll send you everything you need to do this when you sign up. Plus, the connection process is very straightforward.
Step 3: Start playing content
Once you’ve got UPshow hooked up to your on-premise screens, you can begin playing content immediately.
You can leave the screens on a channel that you know your customers love, or you can opt to set up a dynamic channel-changing rotation that adjusts the content shown on your screens based on the time of day.
With UPshow, the power is truly in your hands to entertain your customers in whatever ways you want. You can even alternate between live streaming video content and games.
Step 4: Use UPshow to create and share promotions in-between content
Now you’re ready to begin using UPshow to create and share ads for your business, which will show in-between the content you play.
The process for doing this is quick and intuitive. There are two options:
First, you can create your ads from scratch using UPshow’s built-in design functionality. We give you all of the tools you need to create ads:
- High-resolution images
- Animations
- QR codes
- Videos
But you don’t have to go through the entire design process each time you want to create a new ad screen. You can also just use one of UPshow’s many pre-built templates.
These templates are a great way to quickly highlight new products, special deals or any other limited-time offerings that you want to make sure your guests know about as soon as possible.
UPshow is the ideal Loop TV alternative
Now that you understand what Loop TV is, let’s be open with each other as we wrap up this piece: those of us here at UPshow think we have a pretty great platform. We love our product, and we want you to love our product, too. But we’ll be honest with you where it counts.
If all you want is a digital signage solution with robust access to music, then Loop TV is the platform for you.
But if you want a customer experience platform that drives action and increases revenue while also allowing you to reach your employees? Then you want to upgrade to a service like UPshow.
With UPshow, you get:
- More entertainment channels
- Greater customization
- Content creation with Canva
- Robust analytics tools
- No ads (except your own)
- More opportunities for on-premise marketing
