If we took all the movie buffs of the world, grouped them according to favorite movies, and made a graph of the head-count starting from largest to smallest numbers, we would end up with a line gently sloping down from the box-office smashes to contemporary silent movies about puppets and on into obscurity. However, as the line continues, it lingers indefinitely along the horizontal axis. This lingering section is known as “The Long Tail.”
Chris Anderson, an editor at Wired Magazine, coined the term in an October 2004 article and is currently in the process of writing a book on the subject. Although Anderson’s original focus was on the mass retailing of books and music, The Long Tail is still a model that can be aptly applied to many different sectors of e-commerce, such as search marketing from an advertiser’s angle. This universal characteristic, in turn, suggests that The Long Tail also describes the utility of the Internet itself.
Anderson’s reasonable take is that the big stores we visit off line (in real life) make their money selling the big names and can’t afford to devote shelf space to the obscure. The tabletops that Stephen King’s offerings sit on, down to the square inches even, is essentially rented; so, too, is the space taken by post-modern anthologies of South American poetry. However brilliant these works may be, they remain mostly undisturbed until the chance occurrence of purchase. There may be room for one shelved copy for browsing value, but expect no five-foot high stacks near the registers. That’s where the stores make their money.
Let’s size it down to re-illustrate the retailer’s burden. Imagine that your friend is the manager of a small package store and his establishment sells only the routine selection of beers – like Budweiser, Coors, and Miller. Yet you know from countless late nights at Otto’s Brew Haus that he adores the little known Spaten Ale and has even come to blows over his brand’s honor. Although it’s a strong personal preference for your pal he’ll still concede that with limited refrigeration space, Spaten Ale will remain a specialty offering of Otto’s. (Free tip: if this hits close to home, find new friends.)
There’s an old saying in television advertising: “about half the advertising money we spend works, but we don’t know which half”. Technology has a funny way of crushing yesterday’s idioms. The advent of trackable media, like video on demand, has entered television’s mix and gives a free-spending ad exec fits. Their ads can be more accurately traced! The model for a widely flung net thrown with best guesses is crumbling under the demands of ROI. (That’s “return on investment”) The T.V. execs call these quantifying technologies new media. On the Internet, we simply call it search.
A co-founder of Excite.com, Joe Kraus, remembers his search engine’s inability to capitalize on the potential search value on his blog, Bnoopy.com. He mentions that in 2000 about 97% of queries were considered unique. In contrast, according to Long Tail, that 97% would be largely ignored. The real advertising effort was expended on trying to corral some love from that 3% of high volume search destinations, with little emphasis on the quality of those searches. This scenario has since been corrected by major search engines and that 97% is now well targeted gold. In fact, numbers indicate that total searches were up 15% in October from last June! Overture, Google: nice going, you may take another bow.
The Long Tail is not just for the big guys. In fact, all these unique searches represent a real opportunity for those who aren’t Amazon or Ebay to get in the game. For starters, niche advertisers bring with them an expertise and knowledge in their specific fields that their customer-base will identify with almost immediately. This would mean niche specific jargon and terminology, which quite advantageously, also means low bidding and, often, unique keywords. Those previously mentioned 97% of unique searches will lead straight to their rightful advertisers. And by rightful, I mean, knowledgeable and ready for business. Direct search advertising clients at ICMediaDirect.com benefit directly from these relationships with their customer-bases; as niche players they greet interested customers online without having to pitch. Search has already cut that song-and-dance out. Intelligent advertisers and budding entrepreneurs will concentrate their own efforts on bolstering and building their own online presence, using search in order to cost-effectively target and reach their customers. Search reverses conventional marketing while performing an amazing trick - it identifies the obscure movie buff in all of us. Welcome to The Long Tail.
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