The Cluetrain Manifesto: The end of business as Usual, Chapter 4

Library Reference: none

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Cluetrain-Manifesto-End-Business-Usual/dp/0738204315

Learning Expectations:

            Based on Chapter 4, I expect to learn how marketing should be the same as the ones in the past. I also expect to learn how conversing with the clients can give me more than profits but friendship as well.

Review:

            Marketing started out to be a place where people traded items or products in exchange for other items or money. They didn’t just trade products; they also traded information with each other. Conversing with each other, making friends, partners, and the like are just some of the things people did in the market in the past. Sellers did everything they could to cope up with the demands of the customers. They were people who made their products personally just because it is a hobby or for some their lifestyle. Fishermen selling fishes, Smiths selling finely crafted materials out of metal, Farmers selling vegetables, Hunters selling meat and other animal parts, Weavers selling homemade woven clothing, and the list goes on and on. People finalized their deals with a firm handshake looking eye to eye and talking personally. They converse with each other to initiate a trade and end it with a conversation. After a trade, both sellers and customers don’t just leave with the things they have traded but also the information they have with each other

An endless cycle of customers wanting and needing products for their use are always supplied by sellers who constantly supply the products with their own strength and knowledge for the endless thirst of customer wants and needs. This cycle has been going ever since market has arrived and is still active until now. This is due to the endless wants and needs of people living in this planet. They just can’t get enough of things and always wants to have more. Due to this behavior the way people make the products have been changed in a big way. People nowadays had made industries to cope up with the insatiable hunger for products of the consumers. These industries are basically a group of people in a huge establishment who thinks and makes way for the consumers to get what they want and need. They work fast and in huge numbers for faster production for the consumers or customers which they call mass marketing. They produce the products or goods then deliver it to some other establishments or sell them themselves to gain money faster and also huge in numbers. That is why a lot of people are drawn to this kind of marketing. Fast and mass production of products results to fast and mass gain of profits.

Unfortunately, people who are drawn into this kind of marketing have lost the ability to communicate or converse with their consumers or customers like the past people used to do. Communicating and conversing with the consumers or customers are essential because not only they gain money from trading but they also gain knowledge with all of the things happening around them. Overall wisdom is a great asset and advantage for a producer because it will give them the flexibility to move around and think of a lot of ways on how to approach their customers or consumers much effectively and efficiently than others.

The marketing today is getting more advanced as we speak. The era of the internet is posing a threat to the industrial era because the internet has something that the industries have neglected, and that is communication or conversation. A lot of things can be done through the internet not only can people buy online, they can also communicate once again to the person who they will buy the product from. Conversing to someone who you will buy to, changes your perception towards that person. Trust and respect are gained by the producers or sellers from the consumers or customers. The reputation of the marketers is gauged to the extent that the markets would easily buy the products which are sold. People can also argue, comment, suggest, and the like to other persons who are interested on the particular item or good. They can say something to the product for others to be informed about it. This knowledge and information gives other buyers the intelligence to know what to do before buying the product. They wouldn’t only just buy quickly something not knowing what he can do before buying it; they can know a lot of information before buying it.

People can find a connection to others through communication in the internet. The words coming from other peoples voices gives others relief because they are knowledgeable about something. They have the upper hand over something giving them the edge towards other people. This advantage gives people the benefit they deserve towards marketing because of gaining information from others.

That is why marketing should evolve to something much different. The effectiveness of both the industries and the internet should be merging to form a much effective and efficient way of marketing. The unison of both of this ways of marketing can really change the world in whole new level.

Lessons Learned:

            I have learned how people on the past do their marketing which is through conversation, talking personally and settling a trade with a firm handshake. People went out of their houses and talked to others who have a lifestyle or profession and traded with each other. The market place was a place for conversation and communication between people who wanted to hear the voices of those who will they buy something from.

            I also have learned that the internet changed how people converse with each other and how it changed the marketing world. People from long distances between each other is made possible to communicate and converse and through this they bought from each other and traded a lot of stuffs with the insurance that what they bought will be of quality.