Upon hearing about the concept of badges, I thought of a basic marketing plan to launch them…

While I acknowledge that this is, apparently, already in play, I had so much fun creating the following simplified plan, I wanted to share it here.

The initial strategy in marketing badges is to identify a niche exemplar market. Identifying a niche exemplar market in which to launch badges would produce several advantages. First, it would allow identifiable success for proponents to share. Advocates of badges could, for example, find a willing business with a large share in the exemplar market that would agree to review applicants with profiles on a given site. The site would feature a searchable database of applicants with individual applicant profiles and prominent lists of badges earned (with the meaning of each when selected with the mouse). Advocates of badges could recruit applicants for the database by advertising that the business would review the database in making identify candidates for positions.

Second, identifying a specific market would allow advocates to focus their efforts and resources on a discrete segment of the market. For example, proponents could focus their efforts on creating badges for computer programmers. Proponents of badges could recruit help, if needed, from the niche market to determine what range of skills exist and which would be most valued by target employers. This would likely increase the quality of the process discussed in the paragraph above.

Third, starting with a niche market would allow advocates to specifically identify a single market more likely to adapt to the badge. For example, computer programmers would be more likely than many other fields to adopt. Programmers are used to adapting to novel ideas, and a tested skill set is vital to employability. Mozilla’s Webmaking 101 http://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-webcraft/sets/webmaking-101/ appears to feature an excellent and user-friendly prototype of such a programmer badge. Rather than forcing a less likely adopter to change, proponents could focus on a group with whom the concept of badges is more likely to succeed.

Assuming businesses in the niche market expressed satisfaction, with the applicants selected from the database, advocates could share the success with media outlets and gain publicity for badges. They could then use the publicity to systematically expand the concept of badges to other markets. While initial efforts would begin with fields more susceptible to adoption, it could move to other markets as successes became evident in initial markets.

In sum, the strategy is to (1) identify a niche exemplar market; (2) launch badges in the niche market; (3) advertise success in the niche market among both potential company adopters and potential applicants; and (4) systematically expand badges to the next niche market(s).

I just wish I could have attended class Friday and more fully discover how this plan compared with what actually occurred.