SmartSymbols^tm

Matt Fellows from BostInnovation wrote a great article about SmartSymbols.

It really is a nice summary about SmartSymbols (thank you Matt), but what is interesting is that it is nice summary from a different perspective.

Take the article’s tag line for example: “Finally, all of your product research in one place”. Well, yes, thank you! That is exactly the problem SmartSymbols was designed to solve for the shopper.
From the “sales guy” perspective, Matt points out that “the sales team gets to cram all of the positive content about your product in one easy-to-digest place, complete with a “buy” button for instant conversion. ” The is also, as they say, gets straight to the crux of the issue.


Of course, it is great to have a positive review written by someone who grasps the magnitude of the problem and the importance of the solution. The side benefit, however, is another perspective that may make us look at our own product from a different angle. Perhaps a clearer one.

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What are the most efficient ways of improving the impact of your SmartSymbols? Here are 5 fundamental ways of SmartSymbols work for you more efficiently and give you the information about what people are really interested in, directly from their behavior while they look at your product.

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1. Put SmartSymbols into all your online properties
It’s very easy to do (click “Share”, select the format you want, then copy & paste the snippet on the right) and there are two reasons for that: buzz and analytics.
Buzz: every time a symbol set is added to a web property (a web page or a blog) it generates more buzz: people will explore the symbol set and will share it with others.
Analytics: every instance of SmartSymbols will produce a set of analytics (see more here). By comparing traffic from different installations of SmartSymbols sets you will be able to create your next step in the marketing campaign.

Aggregate and Distribute - Click to Enlarge

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3. Use SmartSymbols Analytics
Analytics will tell you (more here) what people are actually interested in a straight-forward and blunt way : what readers actually spend time on - what they read, which video clips they watch (you have video clips, right?) and so on. This is more than just analytics - this is marketing data that can be used in many ways, such as creating campaigns.

Icon Usage Chart - Click to Enlarge

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2. Share symbol sets consistently with others
Let people - blogger, journalists, your fans and followers - embed your SmartSymbols into their web pages and blog entries. This will benefit them as well - readers and visitors are more likely to explore something interactive and visual, which is a clear advantage of plain text. Every time you talk to a blogger or a reporter - offer your symbol set. It’s very easy to do - just copy & paste a code snippet under the “Share” button.
Click on the diagram below to see code snippet locations.

Sharing SmartSymbols - Click to Enlarge

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5. Use icons creatively
Sky is the limit here - you will run out of content before SmartSymbols runs out of space. Things you did not have space to tell before - you can now. And it will not take much space! For example - show pictures of places where your book is taking place, show some illustrations that a book has, or show a map of where your product is being used. (See more here: Secret of the Compass Icon)

Show Where Product is Used - Click to Enlarge

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4. Try different campaigns
For example - put “Social Networking” icon in the first place, then a week later swap places with “Reviews” icon, or try different content within the icons. Also, consider what other icons you would like to try - maybe different aspects of the product connect with your customers better than others. All these combinations will help you figure what works best.

Different Icon Combinations - Click to Enlarge

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On Wednesday, December 9th, at 6:00 MassInnovation is throwing a party for MA innovators.  A number of cool companies will present there.

MassInnovation Throws us a Party

Here is the list:

• Smart Symbols
• Blank Label
• Socrato
• HEET

Yup, we are there, and we are hope to you there too.

Here are the directions: http://massinnovationnights.com/event-rsvp/google-map

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“Sweet Poison: Why Sugar Makes Us Fat” is a book by Australian author David Gillespie.  The book is an interesting research into how sugar contributes to the wight problem, as well as to the overall health problem.  David has done a lot of research and has been interviewed by many news organization on the subject.  He has Facebook fan pages, Twitter followers and up-to-date blog.

We are fortunate that David chose to use SmartSymbols for book promotion on his blog: http://www.raisin-hell.com/, he uses the vertical version of SmartSymbols because it fits neatly into the sidebar of his blog platform.

An interesting side-story has emerged while we were working with David’s book information. It turns out that it is not easy to buy his book in the US, but at least we can benefit from some of his research if we listen to his interviews and read people’s comments on various social networks - SmartSymbols presents this information in one place in an easy-to-find way. “Sweet Poison” also a has personal side to it, but I don’t want to spoil it here. Check out David’s blog and his book site, and of course - explore SmartSymbols to learn more about “Sweet Poison”.

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Great article on CNBC.com today about consumer behavior prior to product purchasing (great article name too): “Study Reveals What’s Really Going on in Aisle Six“. The article talks about different aspects of what makes consumer make the final buying decision, but it also has this very interesting quote: “[m]ore than three-quarters of the shoppers took time to do research before heading to the store, typically an hour or more”. In other words, it confirms, once again, the fact that people do a lot of research before buying a product, whether that is happening online or at a brick-and-mortar store.

The question is, why is that after doing all the research in front of the computer, consumers often time end up driving to the store and buying the product there? I would venture to say that they need to look at a product in person, look at other products and compare, use the coupons, i.e. - interact with it and get the complete story.


This is exactly what we have been saying all along (see references below) - give people ability to interact with your product online, and they are a lot more likely to buy your product. Since the shipping is getting cheaper and faster (Amazon, L.L. Bean, even Nordstrom now), the only barrier to buying online is the lack of research and discount coupons. But put this online, next to the product - and you got another converted customer.

Blog post references, with illustrations:
“Secret of the Conversion Funnel”
“New Advertising = Research + Transparency”
“I Came, I Glanced, I Observed - Just Like Sherlock Holmes!”

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