Book Review: The Long Tail

I very much enjoyed The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. The basic premise of the book is that the Internet has enabled more and more niche products to come into the public view and demand. For example, in the 70's, if you wanted to watch something, you had the ten choices of your local television channel. In the 80s and 90s cable and video rentals gave you more choices. Today you have a nearly limitless choice in what you watch thanks to Netflix and http://youtube.com (on which I have a few videos).

Increasing markets may be available in "niche" areas. Anderson uses the example of "who cares what the top ten hits are?" if I am interested in Latin dance music, I'll want to see the top ten in that market. People who can create and aggregate in demand niches may find new and/or expanding markets.

This is particularly helpful when store space is not a consideration. For example a typical Blockbuster rental store can only hold a few thousand DVDs, but Netflix's warehouses can hold 100,000. So Blockbuster can only afford to put the "blockbusters" in its stores because shelf space is at a premium. But Netflix's storage is considerably cheaper and so it can offer many, many more DVDs (even though they are not blockbusters). These are "the long tail." Increasing evidence shows that there is surprising demand in this long tail area. Back in 2006 when Netflix only had 25,000 DVDs they said that 95% rented at least quarterly. Apple said that every one of its then 1,000,000 tracks had sold at least once, and ecast said that 98% of their tracks sold at least once per quarter. Perhaps Blockbuster cannot afford to stock all the titles, but there is demand for less-poplular titles and people who can figure out a way to distribute them will be able to sell products. The "sweet spot" in this area is when you are selling digital products--storage and delivery are virtually free making it so you can have however large an inventory you want.

The graph of "the long tail" looks like this:



image from this site

Choice, and particularly informed choice often has the effect of increasing demand. Once again the message was given to distribute your content in as many ways as possible because certain people will only want it in certain ways.

The version of the book I read came with a new chapter called "The long tail of marketing." I thought this chapter was intriguing , particularly as far as how someone could apply it in order to increase visibility for their niche products. Ideas included figuring out "who's influential in our space...what/who influences them, how to get Digged, effective blogging, using beta-test invite lists as marketing, the art of begging for links, stunts, contests, and other link bait..." (242).

Anderson also states that "The best way to market to Long Tail consumers is to find out who is influencing them and focus your energies there. That starts with doing less messaging and more listening. Fortunately, the tools for listening have never been better. ALong wiht being the best word-of-mouth medium ever, the Web is also the most measurable one. There are dozens of free tools online that can tell you what people are saying about your brand and which of those people have the most influence" (230). He mentions Technorait filters, Google Alerts, and Google Trends as being ways to get a pulse on who is talking about your "long tail." I searched google trends for the term "scripture study" and was surprised to see that that phrase is most often googled from Salt Lake City, UT. Who knew?

I was intrigued by the use of google alerts, particularly in reference to a comment made by Stephanie on my post about the mind and the brain. Given the incredibly small readership of this humble blog, it seems most likely to me that Stephanie was using google alerts (or something like it) to find references to The Mind and the Brain on the Internet and then direct people reading and writing on this topic to this website. Super clever! (It got me to go there).

If you find people writing about you or your products Anderson suggests that the effective strategy "starts with listening (designate someone to monitor the feeds) and then figuring out when and how to respond. If a blogger praises a company or product, and email of thanks is often very appreciated ("They read my blog!") and can create a lasting evangelist. Criticism is tricker. Again, some sort of response is better than none, in part because it shows the blogger respect, which can go a long way toward defusing a situation. Blog convention is to do things in [232] public, so a response in the commens, where everyone can read it, often pays greated dividends than a private email" (231-232).

In a world where obscurity, not piracy is the biggest problem most products face, these ideas have important implications. Anderson also states, "At best, a Long Tail marketing strategy focused on stimulating word of mouth among influential consumers can just create awareness. If the product is no good, no amount of emailing is going to keep it from being savaged or ignored" (232).

For more information on this book, you could visit http://thelongtail.com/