Now here is some interesting research that has been carried out by bi-fold door specialists Origin:
Almost two-thirds of people searching for what is known in the trade as a ‘bi-fold’ door are unaware of its true name, leading to over 34,000 fruitless searches for the product every month.
Research from Origin, the leading UK manufacturer of premium quality aluminium doors, windows and blinds, asked 500 members of the public to look at the attached infographic and name the doors illustrated within. The results showed that just 36% of people described the doors in question as bi-folds.
Other terms used by the public to describe the doors included: concertina, sliding, folding track, accordion and zig zag. There are over 34,000 monthly searches in Google for the other terms for bi-fold doors, meaning that companies may be failing to attract people to their site who are searching for this door but using different names to describe it.
Neil Ginger, CEO and founder of Origin, said: “Looking at the amount of monthly Google searches for terms other than bi-fold and seeing that just 36% of the people surveyed refer to the doors by this term, it’s clear that there is a lot of scope for companies selling the doors direct to the public to include these other words in their online marketing collateral.”
Understanding that the general public may use different terms to describe the same product can mean that companies can attract more people to their website by using these terms on the site.
Jon Colegate, Director of Search at Ignition Search, an internet marketing company and Google Partner, said: “This is really a matter of choosing the correct keywords to describe your product. The keywords and phrases that are present on your site allow people using a search engine like Google to find your company’s website and products.
Despite Google’s recent progress in ‘semantic’ searches — it is still crucial for companies to ‘speak the same language’ as those trawling the internet so potential customers can find you as quickly and easily as possible.”
See the original piece on Origin’s website here
Infographic
Check out this nifty little infographic Origin produced to demonstrate the different answers people gave:
Credit: Origin
Never heard any of my customer call them “accordion” doors. I have however heard them called “concertina” plenty of times. I always like these kinds of studies. It gives us a valuable insight into how people interpret our products and shows us what they think they are called.
Cover your bases online
In all honesty, this research does give us a valuable look at how the public thinks of us, at least in terms of terminology. And if you’re in sales, this is research to take note of.
For example, if a potential client comes in to your showroom to ask to see a particular product, but does not necessarily know what you would call it yourself, then they will call it by another name. This is where this sort of research that Origin has done becomes useful to know. It will let you quickly decipher what the potential new customer is trying to explain, and will let you better communicate better with them. A key factor during the sales process.
But there is another point to this, and that is your online presence. If only 36% of people are calling bi-folding doors by their proper name, 64% of people are potentially searching for bi-folding doors online by another name. If you have focused heavily on SEO and content marketing using the term “bi-folding door”, there is a chance you may only be catching 36% of that valuable traffic. Research like this demonstrates the need to cover all your bases online with various terms being used, to try and capture some of that extra 64%.
I would say that we have a part to play in this as well. If home owners aren’t using terminology correctly, that is at least partly down to us as an industry. Historically famous for not being all that great at getting our product message across, we could be doing a lot better in our marketing to explain the correct terminology to home owners. I think this could even help build a clearer understanding and relationship between ourselves and the public.
Just for the sake of curiosity I would love to see this sort of test done for some of our other products, glazed extensions, orangeries, composite doors for example. At the very least just to build up a picture of how well, or not so well, the public really knows about our products.
Big up to Origin for letting me feature this on DGB today, and be sure to click the link above to check out the original article on their website.
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