Can TV Grow Your Business?

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something shows up in your mailbox that proves you wrong.

Yesterday, as I was going through the mail, I found a letter from DirecTV, a satellite TV provider. I was intrigued because the letter was not addressed to me as a consumer, but rather to me as a business owner.

So I opened the letter and gave it a quick read.

The letter makes a lot of eyebrow-raising claims. For instance: “Bring in more customers by entertaining them while they wait, shop or work out with the best variety of sports, shows and up-to-the-minute news.”

Hmmm… I guess that’s possible. I personally avoid any auto shop that has a TV that dominates the waiting room. Inevitably there’s some banal talk show blaring and I have to suffer through it as I try my best to read.

In reality, TV in a waiting room is like tyranny on a small scale. All the patients are subjected to watching or hearing what one person has decided to watch. Is that a reason for me to come to your business? No way!

I’d rather some books or a stack of magazines I can thumb through — everybody gets to choose their own “channel” without bothering anybody else.

One thing’s for sure: You don’t choose a doctor based on the quality of the television programming in the waiting room!

Still, given that most people are addicted to television, I guess having satellite TV in a waiting room could give you a small transient advantage. DirecTV offers this fact as proof: “90% of business subscribers believe DirecTV increases their business.”

Yeah, and lots of people believe things that aren’t actually true. You must be running a pretty shoddy business if TV programming brings more customers in. (One possible exception: health clubs.)

But let’s move on to a separate claim — the most ludicrous claim I’ve probably ever encountered in advertising.

In this particular mailing, there is a buck slip with six so-called “facts” for how DirecTV improves a business.

Fact #6 is the one that just kills me: “Employees are more productive when they have a constant connection to current events.”

Wait a second. Am I reading that correctly — that employees are more productive when they’re constantly connected to a television?!

If improving employee productivity were really that easy, our GDP should be growing by double digits every quarter. Just watch more TV — and watch those numbers climb!

It’s clear to me that whoever wrote the copy for this promo is not an entrepreneur and has never run a business in his or her life. Heck, the copywriter doesn’t even understand what business is about.

Here are some tips for the marketing folks at DirecTV:

First, stop the B.S. Employees don’t work harder when they’re watching TV.

Second, how’s about you actually put some effort into a little thing called list selection.

I can think of three groups of business owners who might be interested in getting DirecTV for their businesses: doctors who have waiting rooms; auto shops that have waiting rooms; and high-end health clubs that want to differentiate from low-end fitness centers.

Write the promo for one type of business — and then send it to just those businesses. I work from my home and have no employees. What need do I have for TV programming in my study?

None. Nada. Zip.

But I guess DirecTV doesn’t know that because they used the shotgun approach to send out a ridiculous sales piece to a whole bunch of business owners — because all businesses will get more customers with better TV programming!

Lesson: Direct mail that is not targeted properly and is not based in reality is doomed to fail. Be wise.

-Ryan M. Healy

Tagged as: business growth, directv, tv, waiting rooms