Are you guilty of Dreaded Symbol Overload?

[Elmer Hurlstone]

I love Australians. They have such a way with language.

A while ago one of my friends from down under commented that the WSO Forum was beginning to look like a "dog's breakfast". I suspect this was not a complimentary remark.

The comment was made regarding the use by some to attract attention to posts by using many, many, many symbols in an attempt to stand out and draw attention to their particular offering or post.

I have no idea if this actually works. I suspect it doesn't.

This forum is about marketing. Much of marketing is about writing. Writing content to, not surprisingly, attention getting, grabbing, drawing headlines.

Post topic titles are nothing more and certainly nothing less than headlines! Their total objective is to get a prospect to read the post. Period.

Once that goal is achieved the content has to do the rest.

Some of us employ the Law of Inverse Proportion regarding symbols:

The more symbols the less clicking!

Just a little something to think about...

Elmer

[Michael Oksa]

Elmer,

This subject was broached a few month's back, and at the time I would have voted (if this were a democracy) for the symbols to stay. Recently I have had a change of heart.

It makes the WSO section look cheap - MAYBE there IS a correlation between the complaints of cheap WSOs and the plethora of symbols. Not that they are directly related, but it sets up a certain set of expectations, and frankly, the symbols look cheap.

If I may be so bold, in relation to symbols that part of the board should be renamed the Warrior Vomitorium and WSO could stand for We've Spewed Out.

This isn't my choice to make, just sharing my opinion on the matter.

All the best,
Michael

[Jeremy Morgan]

I agree the symbols look tacky and cheap, but it is quite tough to stand out with just text. I guess someone could experiment and create a thread that simple says "click this" it would probably get a lot of response!

[Kevin Riley]

Looking over the listings in the WSO, I have to first take medication to avoid seasickness from all the swirling of symbols. However, all this regurgitated canine breakfast does do one thing: It makes good headlines stand out even more.

Here's one that grabbed my eye right away by Keith Purkiss:

"You Can Practically Steal All My eBay Secrets For Only $1 (VERY LIMITED OFFER)"

That's a headline. It needs no dancing babies. It grabs your attention and spells out the benefits.

Something like "$$$$$$$---> MAKE MONEY <----$$$$$$$" doesn't. It's elicits the response, "Yeah! Isn't that what all WSOs are about? WHERE'S THE BEEF?"

[Amy Bass]

It would be much better if the symbols were gone.

[Anna Johnson]

Okay, guilty as charged i.e. for the dog's breakfast comment (not for the symbols!).

Honestly, all those symbols look just awful. And now that so many people are using them, I doubt they are really helping people to stand out. I suspect, however, that others are feeling obliged to also use them for fear of their WSO getting lost, which has just created a vicious cycle where the end result is... a forum that looks like a dog's breakfast and posts using symbols looking tacky, tacky, tacky.

Maybe I'm not representative - and I suspect I'm not - but the more someone uses symbols the more I'm inclined NOT to buy from them. I guess at a subconscious level my thinking is: if you're so good, why are you putting all that stuff in your subject line?

Maybe Kevin is right and now the offers with text only and a strong subject line are now standing out... or maybe I am dead wrong and marketers using symbols have found that they do pull in more sales by using them... but I would personally like to see a return to the days when symbols were not allowed in the WSO forum.

It seems to work for the main forum, why not the WSO forum?

[Dan C. Rinnert]

♨ ☂ ☃

What symbols?

♂ ◎ ♀

[Jeremy Kelsall]

The symbols work...

I don't use them as much as I once did...I used them when it was cool

But, after testing both ways, we always got more views when using symbols - even excessively.

While I'm sure there are some that don't like them, you can't argue with results. It is certainly within your rights to boycott any offers that do utilize them, but from my experience you will be in the minority.

[zerofill]

Yeah...this subject has been brought up a lot about how some will not buy from a WSO with symbols in the title...actually...They work...But like jeremy said we rarely use em anymore...maybe a few $$$ signs.

Frankly to be honest...If the symbols stop them from buying...SWEET!...That means I have one less person that is so anal about everything, and probably won't learn anything from us because of complete analysis paralysis and stubborness that it saves us from wasting our valuable time trying to teach them.

But lets face it even if the person doesn't buy at first...if your not selling trash...and the word gets around that you don't sell trash. They are coming back to buy no matter if you have 4 pages of symbols.

[Elmer Hurlstone]

Interesting range of comments.

Some for, some against.

As always, testing supplies the answer. If they work use them.

One possibility is that, knowing a specific marketer's reputation, people click and buy in spite of symbols.

Most of us read words, not symbols. Why give up valuable space which could be used to proclaim a benefit to a randomly chosen graphic?

Just wondering...

Elmer

[Keith_Purkiss]

The symbols look a bit like a crashed Sinclair ZX81 game

I've never used them so don't know if they work or not.
I tend to avoid reading the WSOs who's titles make claims about earning large amounts of money.
I read anything with 'free' or '$1' in

[Jared Alberghini]

I said this the last time this discussion was brought up...

At this point, since most everyone is using symbols in their WSO titles, doesn't it make sense if you want to stand out in the WSO forum, you should NOT use symbols?

Just a thought, haven't tested or anything, but it just makes sense to me.

.jrd

[elishahong]

Hey Elmer, been a while since we talked.

Maybe there should be a new WSO rule for this matter. Sometimes restrictions invoke creativity. Like creative ad writing on for Google Adwords. You can not use the exclamation sign like twice I believe. Imagine an ad looking like !!!!!BUY THIS!!!!!! LOL

haha