SmartSymbols^tm

Stock traders use a term “market melt-down” when stock market takes a decisive plunge. The alternative of this is “melt-up”, which happens when stocks prices skyrocket in a short period of time. Melt-ups happen when a collection of unexpected good news is released in a short period of time, producing panic among the traders who fear that they need to buy stocks in anticipation of a really big move up. In other words - it’s a snowball effect of good news that in turn produce an anticipation of good news.

The beautiful thing about Permission Marketing approach is that it is a complete win for all involved - it’s a bull’s eye of marketing. It simply works the way marketing supposed to work - it’s a question of efficiency; and efficient things tend to win over time. It works for marketers because they provide information they want, it works for consumers because they get the information they are actually looking for. It also works for product makers, because they don’t need to spend money chasing dead leads - direct connection to the target market that is actually interested in the product being marketed. Win/win/win combinations like these tend to create a snowball effect of positives because when everyone wins - everyone wants to continue this mutually beneficial relationship.

But there is a technical difficulty.

The difficulty is communication: product marketers want to know what customers are really interested in (hence the utilization of focus groups), and customers want to tell product makers what they would like to see and hear about the product - is it specs, is it colors, is it how other customers use the product?

So, how does SmartSymbols fit into this picture? One of the benefits of SmartSymbols is that it actually facilitates a two-way conversation between product consumers and product marketers. It’s simple: as shoppers are investigating and researching a product via SmartSymbols, they are effectively telling marketers what they are really interested in, just by spending time on this particular area of interest (read more here). Knowing what people want is critical information, knowing what captures customer’s curiosity could be just that tipping point that could produce the snowball effect of positives.

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NYC BigApps - SmartSymbols

This morning we have submitted our entry for the NYC BigApps Competition; you can also get to the entry directly here.

The premise of the competition is simple: use data provided by NYC DataMine (government data feeds) and use it the best way you can.  Naturally, we felt that SmartSymbols would be a good fit.

We used a DataMine data sets to for 3 examples:

1.  The NYC Public Library

2.  Department of Transportation

3.  Map demo with a  Library symbol set

It was somewhat surprising how much interesting data produced by the City of NY produces which is essentially hidden from the locals and the visitors: from tree locations to exhibitions at the library to traffic reports, to low bridge information.  Hopefully we will be able to bring this information out in a visible and easy-to-access way.

In addition, we combined a number of data feeds from the city with the usual set of web buzz - Twitter, blogs, etc. - the usual set of information we add to the symbol set.

There is a number of interesting apps participating in the contest, take a look when you get a chance.

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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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In “How to Build Twitter-worth”, I wrote about the process, the details of using a specific permission-based broadcasting technology - Twitter. The questions and the comments that article provoked however, are mostly related to a larger question - what’s the underlying, technology-agnostic approach?

New Venues for Old Wisdom
Twitter and Facebook, as well as other permission-based broadcasting systems, allow us to utilize the wisdom of super-networkers and communicators more efficiently. I am talking about the likes of Dale Carnegie, and Cicero, while using the laconic approach that, luckily for us, is forced upon us. Why luckily? One - because short entries (emails, blog-posts, whatever) are more likely to be read; and two - it forces us to (at least to some degree) craft our messages before broadcasting them.

Image Source: Wikipedia: Dale Carnegie

OK, What Does it Mean?
As Robert MacNamara told us - “You Can’t Change Human Nature“. In other words, if you learn how to work with human nature, that knowledge is timeless. Which, in turn, means that we can make our knowledge of human nature (as limited as it is) more important and having more impact if we improve the efficiency of that utilization. Translation - leverage technology to utilize timeless knowledge more efficiently.

Image Source: Wikipedia: Cicero

Before Twitter-like systems existed and were widely adopted, we were limited in how we could engage other people and practice what past and contemporary sages have taught us. In other words, there are only so many cocktail parties and sales meetings you can go to. New broadcasting technology allows us to practice their teachings every day, in 15-minute intervals.

Finally
I think at the fundamental level Carnegie taught us to take real, sincere interest in people we are dealing with. Being sincere and truly interested will make us communicate with people in a way they want us to - with respect and appreciation. Maybe that will make us tweet less about us and what we want, and more about them, and what they are interested in.

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“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
-Steve Jobs

In the past product makers and marketers could selectively show product information of their choosing. It took an effort for potential customers to find more information - reviews, tests, and other relevant info. Now, all information is available instantly through hyper-accessible channels; consequently there is very little effort needed on the customer’s behalf to find out all there is to know about the product, whether they are shopping online or at the actual store.
(NOTE: Illustrations below have been adapted from the “Secret of the Conversion Funnel“.)

What Does this Mean?
New type of advertising is here, it’s called research and transparency. You have to present all information about your products that you know of, show what social networking buzz our products generate, provide 3rd-party reviews and “how-to” visual guides on product usage and, very important!, keep this information up-to-date.

Click to enlarge

Is This a Must or a Nice-to-have?
I think it is a must, and here is why: if we don’t provide all the research and transparency information right there, on our site, then others will. That presents one big problem - if there is some OTHER place where our customers need to check or get a second opinion, they will leave OUR site. In other words, we will have the mother of all e-commerce problems: b-a-a-a-d conversion funnel (more on that here: http://bit.ly/6pNos).

Click to enlarge

What’s more, in the world where thousands of content creators (bloggers, twitterers, etc.) compete for people’s attention, as soon as they find something “unofficial” about your product, it will be posted everywhere, instantly. Why? Because it is a story. It may not be a big story, but it is a story nevertheless, and when “monetizing the eyeballs” any story is worth money, which means people will do it.

The Good News
The wonderfully good news is that both the information and technology are available (sorry, had to plug SmartSymbols here). And if you use this correctly, then you will be ahead of the game and maybe even become a “go-to” site for the product relevant information. Not to mention, people will buy more of your products. After all: more engagement = more customers = more conversions.

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Seeing and Observing
One of the most important things that Sherlock Holmes taught us is that seeing and observing are two different things.

Our goal however far more challenging: not only do we need to make all our customers as observant as Sherlock Holmes, we also need to make them understand the entire “case” quickly, in 1-3 minutes if possible.

How can we do that? A good start is taking an approach that is 180 degrees opposite of the one taken by Mr. Holmes’ foes: we have to make things clear, so the customers do not need to have special powers in order to figure out what is the story behind the product. The case should be opened, and closed quickly.

The beauty of this approach is that we actually do not need to tell the entire case right then and there, we just need to give visitors enough confidence so they know that additional details are available for the asking, right then and there.

When we present our product and its story clearly, our potential customer will feel like Sherlock, without spending time trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, i.e. without being a Sherlock. It is, in fact, our job to be a Sherlock and weave the entire product picture into a coherent and logical story.

The way things look, just seeing a product soon will not be enough. To stay competitive, we will need to give our customers enough clear info in a concise format, allowing them to come, glance and observe what we are trying to tell them.

Why am I talking about this?
Why do I dwell on this once again? Because of my fascination with conveying key information through visualization. Pictures allow a reader to zero-in on a specific area of a product or service quicker, because we can reduce complex and multi-dimensional message to a visual representation of the essentials that can be absorbed at a glance. Now, I realize that this is not entirely true - observer of a picture is more likely to notice only the part of the picture that make sense - but that is precisely the point: the more simple messages we can pack into a smallest amount of real estate that can be observed quickly, the more likely we are to give our reader information that is relevant to his or her needs.

The good news is that as soon the relevant information is noticed - we have established a rapport with a potential customer. And as soon as we established this connection, we are communicating, which is different from pitching.

The key is to have the depth behind the original “hook” (if we don’t - it’s bait-and-switch, and a customer is gone), but the depth can be facilitated and given to a customer when the it is asked for, which is the very foundation of permission marketing.

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