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COMMENT AND OPINION | Darren Taylor


DARREN TAYLOR OPINION


Searle and Taylor’s MD tells how he invested in expert guidance, great photos and more in-depth content to help his website engage more with his customers


Views, reviews, blogs and vlogs


My really quite rubbish video had been inserted into an otherwise very good digital article about induction hobs written by a


staff journalist for the Telegraph online. It now had nearly 350,000 views


hose of you who regularly read my column (hello, mum) may recall that I once used to have a website that I thought was passable, but it wasn’t the digital shop window I needed it to be. A few years ago, I bit the bullet and invested in some fantastic images using one of the industry’s best photographers and I hired a digital agency and a web copywriter to turn my not very good website into something that I am really proud of. I now fi nd it indispensable for my day-to-day business and client presentations. My website is always a work in progress and it is continually updated. I still work with the same copywriter and the digital agency sorts out all the technical aspects and they upload new information I provide every month. They also advise me as to what is ‘hot’ in the website world and, for over a year, I have been posting blogs about various subjects, as this apparently helps to boost my search engine optimisation. Recently, they talked to me about posting vlogs, video versions of my blogs that can be featured both on the website and also on my company’s YouTube channel. They say this attracts a large number of viewers and will bring visitors to my website. Great. Actually, I know this to be true. I had pretty much blanked out the following episode of my life until recently, but about seven years ago I made a rather clunky, and frankly not very good, video (pictured) that was shot in my showroom, where I very confi dently presented the benefi ts of cooking with an induction hob. Although, as retailers, we are all very familiar with induction cooking, many of my clients were still unaware of this witchcraft and found it diffi cult to understand the many benefi ts. In the video, I have dark brown hair, not grey as it is now, and I am wearing glasses – I don’t any more, as I had my mince pies lasered. All in, I look quite awkward, like Harry Potter’s older, but extremely enthusiastic, cousin, in this very amateurish video featuring some strange camera angles.


T I manage to explain induction quite well, but because Get reviews


The above leads me on nicely to the subject of online reviews. If we are all to make the most of the interweb, then we all have to get positive online reviews. Back in the day, these were testimonial letters from happy customers that we used to put in a lovely book entitled “Dear Searle & Taylor…”, which we would proudly show to new clients. These days,


20


happy customers rarely show their appreciation in letter form, but seem happy to ping over an e-mail. However, research indicates that unless you get Google reviews, you are really missing out. I admit that I am not great at asking for them, but I am trying to change this aspect of my marketing.


So, what happens if someone leaves you a bad review? Of the few reviews I have received, one was from someone who had never


I am completely winging the script, I make a couple of schoolboy errors about the technology. This video was then posted on YouTube and I forgot all


about it and got on with my daily life. Four years ago, I happened upon it, while I was looking for something else on my Google account and was a bit surprised to see that the video had more than 17,000 views. That was totally amazing to me – 17,000 people had watched me on screen. I started to dream about employing an agent, having my own TV show, being on Graham Norton and potentially going on Strictly. I then carried on selling kitchens and the dream drifted away.


A couple of months ago, the dream drifted back, partly


as a nightmare. Unbeknown to me, my really quite rubbish video had been inserted into an otherwise very good digital article about induction hobs written by a staff journalist for the Telegraph online. It now had nearly 350,000 views and counting. There were some messages beneath the video, mainly positive, to say that I had stopped an argument about what type of hob it was, or that I had taught someone how to switch it on – you need a pan on the hob for it to work as we all know. There were also some comments from some clever nerds highlighting what I had said wrong about the technology. Thanks for that, whoever you are. Of the 350,000 views, 106 people didn’t like my demonstration. I’m surprised it’s not a lot more, but I now know what it feels like for an actor who gets 10 good reviews and one bad one – it’s the bad one that counts! It is clear to me if you can get the right message across, shooting a vlog is well worth doing. I am going to post some more on my website, but this time they will be done with a professional video producer, a well-written and rehearsed script and will be properly edited. I hope that will make a difference to my future TV opportunities.


had a kitchen made by me and had never even visited my showroom. Instead, they had called up trying to book a table thinking we were a restaurant and were apparently shouted at by a member of my staff. No, they weren’t. I was there. This person left a bad score about a business they knew nothing about. Annoying, but that’s life. I have nosed at other premium kitchen businesses to see the range of good and terrible reviews


they have received – some deserved, if true, but others not, in my view. So we all need to ensure, as an industry, that we provide a great, consistent service where we receive many more good reviews to counter any bad ones. And fi nally, it’s that time of year, so to everyone in our lovely industry, have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Let’s hope that 2020 brings us a more enjoyable year of fun and success.


kbbreview · December 2019


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