Long Tail 101
October 9th, 2005
If you haven’t already run across the phrase “the long tail,” stay tuned: You will, just as sure as you bump into “permission marketing” and “tipping point” in the course of your business week.
What’s the long tail? It’s all about the countless micromarkets out there — niches that the Internet makes more accessible than ever before, that have made companies like Amazon and Netflix what they are. Here’s a good introduction to what the long tail is all about.
Takeaway for marketers: Sneering at the niches is no longer a viable marketing strategy.
October 12th, 2005 at 10:31 pm
Am I the only one who finds the term “The Long Tail” to be the exact opposite of what the market has “become?”
Really, there’s always been a diverse, fractured market. Most advertisers and marketers have simply ignored them.
I think that there’s actually a growing “tall head” of folks that are easily influenced by integrated cultural and marketing efforts, and simply choose to move to the front because they could care less.
In other words, most folks are in the tail, and always have been. As soon as a product closer to their desires has reached them, they’ve reached for it. And there’s this strange group that, now being faced with choices, has given up what is local or easy or more their style, and is reaching for the simple.
I dunno — I see microbreweries popping up everywhere, and still more folks reaching for Bud Lite and Miller Lite.
I’m just asking. Deep down, I think the market is as rich as a thick soup, and it’s simply swirling and moving as it always has. I wonder, though, for every current, there *has* to be an undercurrent. Maybe there are folks in Portland, Maine who always drank Gritty McDuff’s (the local brewery) who are now drinking Bud Lite because the local packies have better outreach to distributors they hadn’t have in the past?