I came across this post on the Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog where Yann Gourvennec details the transition from old world marketing techniques to today’s use of a social media marketing campaign. In this post, Yann also sums up 3 conclusions Forrester research VP and Principal Analyst Laura Ramos has in a relevant article: “B2B marketers fail the community marketing test” Here are his points:

1. marketing needs to change in the light of evolving behaviour and rising power of clients (is not only consumers guys, we are talking b2b here!)
2. top-down and patronising, self-centred, at marketing messages and must be adapted to reflect these changes. A new tone of voice must be adopted.
3. current marketers are doing a pretty bad job at tying the knot with their clients and — to put it in the words of the blue train manifesto — engaging in conversations with them.

Have we reinvented marketing with the use of web 2.0 applications? I’ll be posting a follow-up to this when Yann discusses how the web can support community marketing in part two of this 2 part article. Stay tuned!