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The Cluetrain Manifesto and Conversation Marketing: More About Not Shouting at Customers

Posted by Bob Warfield on September 12, 2007

Dan Farber has a great post on the Cluetrain Manifesto.  The manifesto was published 8 years ago and likens markets to conversations.   It contains 95 theses worth considering about how to conduct marketing as a conversation.  Examples include:

  • The purpose of conversation is to create and improve understanding, not for one party to “deliver messages” to the other. That would be rude.
  • People in productive conversation don’t repeat what they’re saying over and over. They learn from each other and move topics forward.
  • Conversational marketing is carried out by human beings, writing and speaking in their own voices, for themselves—not just for their employers.

    • All excellent advice, and all aimed at moving beyond the traditional marketing mechanism of “Shouting at Customers.”  If you’re having a hard time thinking about how to approach Web 2.0 marketing in terms of messaging, try reading through the Cluetrain Manifesto and imagining one of these conversations about your product.  In terms of media, consider my Web 2.0 Personality Spaces approach.  I recently wrote about how entities as disparate as Dell and Fred Thompson are putting together strategies that embrace a number of Personality Styles.

    Who wouldn’t rather have a dialog with a customer than shout at them?

    Related Articles:

    Scott Cook on having a conversation with your customers

    This entry was posted on September 12, 2007 at 2:53 pm and is filed under business, Marketing, strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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