Once again the crew from MOTOTV will be on the show floor at The Running Event in Austin, TX, this month to document all the excitement and highlights of the three most important days on the run specialty calendar. Running Insight caught up with Mary Winter Reed, brand account director at MOTOTV (mototvnetwork.com) to get a look inside the process and what MOTOTV can bring to the floor at run specialty shops.

Running Insight: First, how about an “elevator pitch” of who MOTOTV is and what you do.

Mary Winter Reed: We’re a group of avid adventure, fitness and power-sports fanatics with marketing, creative and ad agency backgrounds. We saw a gap in the purchase funnel across retailers and solved it by “Educating and Entertaining” customers at the point-of-sale. Our Custom In-Store Digital Signage Networks help retailers sell more products by playing video content from the brands that the stores carry so they have consistent messaging from research to purchase, all while increasing basket size. 

Anything else?

We don’t just sell you some hardware and walk away. We actively manage the content for you and continually refresh brand and lifestyle videos. We also provide a ton of built-in tools that let stores customize their own video or photo content, tie in their social media, type in messaging and really customize it to their store. We like to say “We help MOTO-vate the Sale.”

Very clever, but you can leave the puns to us. With that in mind, what type of product/service does MOTOTV provide to run specialty retailers?

MOTOTV gives specialty run retailers a customizable platform to constantly be advertising at the point-of-sale. Our active video network draws attention to their products, events and sales messages. And because the content is constantly updated, it keeps the store atmosphere alive with current content and reinforces customer confidence. When customers are excited and confident, they’re ready to buy more. 

So what is your sales pitch to our readers  to get involved with MOTOTV?

Try us for free! Do you have a blank TV in your store that you only turn on for an occasional race? Simply plug in our media player, connect it to WiFi and put that precious wall space to use. We inform, educate and entertain. 

Sounds simple.

We know people come to specialty run stores for the excellent and individualized service. And sometimes that service comes with a wait — whether they’re waiting their turn or waiting while you go grab shoes from the back. Our active network helps reduce that perceived wait time while also keeping your customers engaged. Instead of distracting them with a TV show or old races, you can keep them in buying mode by showing them the latest videos from the brands you carry and keeping them informed on everything happening at your store. 

And the brands like it?

It’s a win for the brands you carry since MOTOTV delivers that consistent tone and brand promise right to your customers, right where they’re ready to buy. 

What is the benefit for retailers to have MOTOTV in their stores?

Increased sales to start with because an educated customer is your best customer. You always want the shopping experience to be positive and we believe MOTOTV helps by keeping customers engaged. We have also noticed, because we are constantly playing fresh content from the brands the stores sell, that employees get an education as well. 

What is the investment in time to get started?

Because we actively manage all of the content, your time investment is minimal. You simply plug our proprietary Media Player into your TV and get it online. From there you can either set it and forget it, or you can use our super simple dashboard to make all of the customizable updates you’d like. You can also select or de-select brands in the dashboard so that the content on your screens is only for the brands you carry in store. 

And the cost?

Between the Media Player and the subscription, it’s as little as $39.99 to get started. We are offering a TRE Show Special with huge discounts on the monthly subscription and a 60-Day Free Trial when you sign up at the show. The cost of the subscription covers content management, customer support, promo library, custom tools and backend technology to keep the network active. 

What success stories have you had in run specialty?

Run specialty stores have loved MOTOTV because they get all of that brand content, with the ability to feature what makes their own stores special and unique. We’ve seen that our Menu Board is a best seller because stores like to use the Menu feature as a message board to easily put up store events, run club info, etc. You can even post times from the last race. We have revamped it to better fit that purpose for specialty run. 

What would an ideal MOTOTV set-up be in a store — hardware, content, positioning, etc.? 

Customers are trained to look for screens in their shopping experience as it grounds them to the experience and reinforces their previous browsing or research. We like to recommend 55-inch, or bigger, screen to pull them away from their phones. It should be somewhere highly visible where there may be some downtime, like the shoe fitting area or a high-traffic wall. We do sell commercial grade LG monitors that our software can even power on and off based on store hours. But we also look great on low-price consumer grade TVs. 

What are your plans for The Running Event this year?

We have come up with an incredible introductory price for TRE. Just $39.99 to get started with MOTOTV and start educating your customers on everything a retailer sells. Also, we’re working to connect more closely with more running brands so they understand the impact our screens have in-store. We can run playback reports and brands are astounded at how many times their videos will play per day in a store. 

Finally, what are MOTOTV’s goals for the remainder of 2024 and into 2025?

We believe the speciality running store vertical is the next to break out and use in-store digital signage to its fullest potential. There is so much to inform a walk-in customer on, whether it be a store’s latest running event to sign up for, the newest shoe available or latest running news to keep your customer in the running frame of mind. As we have done with other verticals, we would eventually like to partner with brands to create additional custom solutions, including touch screens, to motivate the sales process. 

OK, we’ll see you in Austin.

You certainly will. We will be the ones with the big camera.