Here's my keys to having this idea work.

Key 1: Announcements should be sent to everyone, but the marketing mob will be allowed to choose which things to support and which things to not support (especially in the case of digg)

Key 2: There needs to be some sort of financial incentive for those people that help promote the product, news item, etc. Essentially RPs or GPs will be given out to those participating. Proceeds from marketing CH projects will be shared among the marketers.

Key 3: Marketers should be allowed to share their true feelings about any announcement. Even if someone writes negative about a CH business, then that product is receiving a valuable source of feedback that can be used to improve their product lines. Plus, there is always the saying, Any publicity is good publicity. In most cases I think people participating in this "mob" will be professionals and at worst case will give constructive criticism. Someone who's angry and hateful about a business will post that information regardless of whether they're part of the "mob" or not.

Yes, not everyone's blog post, etc is worth the same value. I think you'd start with a base value for each marketing item and then increase the reward according to how much traffic was generated from a certain person’s outstanding marketing effort.

TG, I like the motivation but how do you maintain the credibility and integrity of the system?

How do you stop it from becoming just like a great big link exchange, with no independent assessment of whether the stuff being marketed is actually good?

Or is the whole point simply to generate a big noise?

I'll hold off scoring to give the idea time to develop a bit. Perhaps I am missing the point.

Cheers,

jill

Perhaps individual marketers should be set up with satellite websites that are relevant to their line of business. For example I would get psychology.cambrianhouse.com and posted on that site would be tagged content from CH that was relevant to professionals in my area. I could blog on that satellite website about what is happening in CH and how it could benefit my industry. It might be a really nice way to take advantage of the tagging system that has been implemented.

I put up my hand to manage psychology.cambrianhouse.com

Jill,
The biggest key is to generate a big noise. However, I think there is an important factor that the diversity of this crowd could create a big noise while also providing a long term impact on things like search engines, number or links and type of links.

More to your point, it's up to the owner of that marketing asset if they are willing to post a link or other ad on their site. They have to determine if the link is right for their asset and if it is beneficial to their audience.

I think overtime we will be able to build a number of more defined methodologies for tracking people's ability to market an idea. I'd love to get to the point where all rewards are determined by the results of that marketing effort. However, I see there still being some nominal reward for even the minor support.

Possibly things like digg or viewing a YouTube video would only get GPs since they are simple items that most people would do regardless of pay. This type of incentive system also means that more people will maintain their integrity if they think it is worth digging. People could then use the GPS to "buy" marketing from the marketing mob or translate into RPs in the marketing mob once a certain threshold is met.

I think the payment mechanisms definitely need some work so that everyone is benefiting fairly, but I wanted to start the project so we could start gathering a collection of marketers, brainstorming revenue dispersement methods and deciding a value for various marketing items.

I'd like to start gathering marketing profiles and brainstorming the best way to share the revenue on the wiki http://www.cambrianh...ketingmob/WikiStart/

I'd love to have anyone's help as a marketer or on developing the correct business model for it.

I realize the incentive issue is a fairly prominent one, but at the same time I think effective collaboration & reporting could really add value to this concept. It also helps out with the point Jill made about maintaining integrity. If every member of the Marketing Mob reports their contributions, and if a "final" report is put together after a marketing campaign ends, that would allow anyone considering using MM to look at a track record. Even someone designated to "summarize" a campaign for the sake of clarity for those looking to use the service would be beneficial. A "marketing manager" of the group, because we've all heard stories of a Digg story ruining a company's reputation. It would also provide one point of contact for the client.

With regards to the revenue model, my two cents would be to treat the business like a "Marketing 2.0" company. Cambrian House is a great place to focus initially and play through some of the kinks, but I believe for this to be a viable business you have to be available to any business ASAP. A company called Anomaly secured the rights for the Virgin Atlantic campaign, and instead of a traditional marketing campaign they literally took charge with interior design of the jets and other approaches "outside the realms of traditional marketing". They charged an upfront fee, but they also took a stake in the company itself. What I'm getting at is, maybe the company can offer it's product/service at a discounted rate to the MM.

As it stands, are there any "total solution" marketing companies out there that provide strictly online marketing, and have a good reputation of doing so? Of course someone can approach Gawker Media and get an advertisement across multiple blogs, but that isn't anywhere close to a complete solution.

Great idea, word of mouth is the most powerful way to advertise and this is a practical way to harness this power.

Im glad to see you finally formally turning this idea into an "idea"

bparsons,
Excellent comments and ideas. I think that the idea of a marketing manager for a certain marketing campaign would be great. Would definitely increase the integrity of the system and increase the marketing mob's services and professionalism.

My only reason for focusing on the CH businesses is because it is an easy way to build a marketing mob and has a platform for collaboration. I would definitely not want to limit the marketing to CH businesses in any way shape or form. I loved your example and can definitely see how this marketing mob could work with businesses outside of CH. In fact, I believe that CH will be the perfect community to handle this type of marketing. I'll look at revising the idea description to be more inclusive. If only I wasn't limited on words.

woot marketing mob!

Hi Tech Guy!

I dont blog, I dont have a website but I can email and chat so often. Can I participate meaningfully in this marketing scheme? What if I do it via word of mouth, say, convincing my contacts to buy and download a CH product or service, can I earn for this?

LoveTech,
If you have an interest in this area then I think there's a place for you. You might not make as much as someone who has a website with a ton of traffic. However, your ability to do word of mouth, your feedback on marketing projects, and just helping to promote other material the marketing mob is promoting could be valuable to the mob.

Hi TechGuy
What dopes a mob do? It is simply mobbing... just another spamming scheme...
Sorry I don't like it.

Well thought.. do u have any plans in starting it

Matthias,
You're not understanding how the marketing mob works. It could be that my description is off. However, it's not another spamming scheme. It's people using their various marketing resources to promote other CH projects. If you read the keys, we will require full disclosure of payments made and people will have their discretion to write whatever they want to promote or review a business. That's not what I call spam.

This is really a business to organize and manage the marketing assets of CH so that we can negotiate better pricing and quickly facilitate the marketing of a business so that each business doesn't have to do it themselves.

Rizal,
I absolutely have plans on starting it. In fact, I already have http://www.cambrianh...s/view/marketingmob/ Today I started negotiations with the first business interested in using the marketing mob to market their product. We're going forward as fast as we reasonably can go.

dont really understand. are we the marketing mob? how many will we be ? how will the payment be split?

Its and interesting idea. We woudl need to think about how we could comply with emerging best practice e.g. the Womma ethics codes etc.

http://www.womma.org/ethics/

Couple of other possibilities:
Logos
Badges
Widgets

Hello techguy,

I hope you are not offended easily. I think this idea is unetherical.

- Kempton

P.S. I am no big fan of womma ( http://www.womma.org ) either but that's a different story. Jeff Jarvis has a few posts about womma his negative view of womma.

Hey Kempton,
I have thick skin and enjoy honesty. I'm not sure what you exactly think is unethical. We are asking people to promote something on their marketing resources for pay. We don't force people to do anything. We allow them to post whatever they want to say.

I should also clarify the Digg/Reddit part. There will be no reward for supporting a Digg or Reddit. People can participate if they like the story/product/business, but there will be no reward for it. You can read more of my thoughts on the subject in the MM forum: http://www.cambrianh...pen-discussion/1172/

I'd be happy to talk about other concerns you may have about this being unethical.

The goal is to really centralize the marketing resources of CH so that a business doesn't have to try to organize those resources and manage payment to them on their own. Having these marketing resources organized and mobilized can add tremendous value to all of CH's businesses.

P.S. I don't know as much as I'd like about WOMMA, but what I've heard hasn't made me a big fan either. However, I do believe in acting ethically.

Hi techguy,

I love your throughness plus prompt and gentle reply in face of my first negative comment. Again, my objection is with respect to the idea itself, nothing against you.

The ethics question comes from the following. Unless the marketing mob's "Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Forums, Email Lists, Other webpage advertising, Digg, YouTube Views, Craigs List " are very clearly stated as and paid for (thus tainted opinions), the mob's actions will be totally unethical if they hide the fact that they are paid.

With respect to Word of Mouth Marketing Association, Jeff Jarvis has some choice words for it. And I think there are some relevant concepts and controversies that is part of the flaw of this idea.

http://www.buzzmachi.../your-advice-please/
Quoting my own Oct 2006 comment,
"I did read your ?corrupting blogs? post when you first posted it. And I felt robbed by those &*%^! bloggers that didn?t clearly marked their views as paid-views."

http://www.buzzmachi...09/word-of-my-mouth/
Quoting Jeff,
"You cannot buy our word of mouth. It?s ours. You cannot buy buzz. You have to earn it. The only way to get either is to create a good product or service and to treat your customers with respect by listening to and being open and honest with them."

Finally, forgive me for indulging myself by using a Warren Buffett quote to end my discussion about this, in my humble opinion, bad and unethical marketing mob idea.

?I want employees to ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear on the front page of their local paper the next day, be read by their spouses, children, and friends ? If they follow this test, they will not fear my other message to them: Lose money for my firm and I will be understanding; lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.?

I am not naive enough to think forums and blog comments, and diggs, etc. are not being bought and sold. At the same time, I don't want to see CH to have any business in such an enterprise.

Cheers,
Kempton

P.S. Warning: Readers beware. I may sound more ethical than I really am. (smile)

Thanks Kempton.

I agree that full disclosure will be a requirement. I think that's mentioned a couple times in my comments above. I'll see about integrating it in the few characters I have available in the description of the idea.

Generic services for CH is a great idea. There will be a lot of millage in it for those involved.

Assessing whether marketing has been successful is difficult though. One accurate way to evalute would be coupon sales, e.g. 5% of if you use this code with all the mobs advertisements.

Hi John,

Good to see full disclosure will be a requirement. At least I will see they are paid ads and will treat them accordingly.

Kempton

Always impressed with your creative flow John! This is a brilliant idea and I'm sure that it would be quite fun to do.

I like E115's "coupon" concept.

This is a really neat idea. Business is war and if there's a way to get the word out - take it.

Looks like the great winner here.

Marketing Mob. That even sounds powerful. I think it is a brilliant idea and would be a giant asset to the business world. Looks like this will most defintely win.

I am reading this at the point where there are two contestants to look at.

At the risk of sounding so much like a grinch, I have the same general concerns as Kempton. How to ensure integrity in the system. I have this lingering negative feeling that the marketing mob's recommendations in favour of products will be devalued as soon as it becomes apparent that the individual recommendations in blogs etc. are part of an organized group thing and not the spontaneous outpouring of enthusiasm from random individuals.

I respect TechGuy, but I just don't have a warm and happy feeling about this. It may be a commercial success but it doesn't ring a bell with me, sorry.

But I am negative on BOTH ideas today, I'm afraid ;-(

and btw if I have totally missed the point, just say so and I will go back and read the whole thing again very carefully!

Jill,
Thanks for your comments. However, I think there are some things you're not considering. Not all of the promotions will have to be rah rah for the idea. Some of them might be a means of giving feedback for the idea with the side benefit of promotion (ie. reviews by bloggers). Other times it could just be someone with a website that uses the advertising on their website to promote a new product. They may not recommend it one way or another. It could just be advertising on their site in return for a stake in that company.

The other thing to consider is that in order for this to work we need to have a large and diversified mob of marketing assets so that it's not always the same people saying good things about the marketing mob clients. If you have a 1000 people in the marketing mob and only accept 100 per promotion(these are round numbers), then you are going to see how it would be a diversified promotion for each company.

Also, remember that we'll be requiring full disclosure of promotions so that people that read it will know up front any compensation that person may be receiving. Will that stop some people from clicking? Sure. However, people still seem to click on Google Ads even though it says it's an ad.

In the end I think that this could really be defined as effective organization of marketing resources so that each CH business (or other online business) doesn't have to reinvent the marketing wheel each time. We'll do that work for them at lower cost and more effective.

I think the number of CH projects interested in the service is validation that this idea is satisfying an incredible need.

One of the keys to success - an essential key - is a leader with a clear and compelling vision.

I like the way TG has spelled out the benefits of diversity here.

So long as this mob remains diverse, both in the range of opinions and in the mode of delivery of the marketing service (e.g. blogging, hosting ads), then I can see it working.

My opinion of the idea has gone up. With consistent leadership and by holding to the diversity strategy, this could be a winner.

Thx TG for clarifying.

Why is this unlike a glorified version of PayPerPost.com or TheComotionGroup.com? PayPerPost bloggers are getting slammed by Google via a removal of their page rank: http://www.techcrunc...t-slammed-by-google/

The Commotion Group also has its fair share of hatred as well: http://www.techcrunc...d-many-viral-videos/

I'm not saying this isn't a good idea but what keeps Google from doing the same thing to Marketing Mob members as they did with PayPerPost?

Maybe it should be treated as a Marketing company that contracts it's workforce. Just another marketing company, not a spam group.

No fake or rigged reviews. Just send an 'Ad Contractor modified' promotional, based on core marketing guidelines for each product.

Like: Ad guy, here is the product flyer. Modify it according to your style. But keep it within this products marketing guidelines. Then promote it as you see fit We'll pay you when we see your results.

All within the general ethical guidlines of course.

So, it's just ad/marketing company doing it's job for a client.

Am I on the right track?

Where are you at on this one?

Hello i just wanted to know how well this idea is going at the moment as it sounds great and something i'm maybe interested in the furture,

Do you have an update/ blog or website?

ok

Is this business active?

Brilliant! Are you now a going concern?

Kenny Beck
http://www.superstarcase.org