While we have started to grasp a basic understanding of the dynamics of long-tail search (and Internet topology in general), we continue to pretend that search behavior is predictable. The long-tail of search represents a unique opportunity to tap into niche markets for PR purposes, but it is far from a predictable science.
PR Guy (Todd Defren) draws an excellent conclusion about niche audiences - following a very good overview of the origins of long-tail understanding.
But this is the lesson of the Long Tail: they are ALL important! Every single itty-bitty one of ‘em. You can influence a hundred “Influencers� who can in turn influence millions of consumers.
A deeper appreciation for the long-tail can be found at The Long Tail (an FAQ on the subject); the introduction (Long Tail 101) is comprehensive and eye-opening. Another perspective worthy of refelction is Steven Johnson’s The Urban Long Tail which helps us understand some of the conditions that may cause discrete markets-of-dozens to flourish.
Armed with an understanding of long-tail benefits and the potential to reach audiences that matter, we can see that the types of queries that are likely to produce results are mostly unique. Joe Krause makes this very clear with real data –
“The most interesting statistic however, was that while the top 10 searches were thousands of times more popular than the average search, these top-10 searches represented only 3% of our total volume. 97% of our traffic came from the “long tailâ€? – queries asked a little over once a day.” — Joe Krause (co-founder of Excite)
Having recognized that the nature of search (and access to niche audiences) has shifted, why do PR agencies continue to optimize for predictable terms and phrases (i.e., the short-tail)?
Challenge: If you were a PR executive at 3M Corporation and someone said - “We have to tap the long tail of niche markets that use products like Post-it Software Notes(tm)“, how would you approach that problem?
Note: Post-It Software Notes(tm) are [themselves] a PR diamond-in-the-rough. More on this in a future challenge.
6 comments
9/11/2005 at 9:50 pm
ashley
I think the concept of the long-tail is such a good idea. I found the statistics not just surprising, but eye-opening. Marketing toward the niche consumers is becoming increasingly important. People will begin to embrace their individuality once they are given a choice. If we are not given a choice we are slaves to what is being shoved before us. The niche consumer is continually searching for their specific wants.
If this were not true, than E-bay would not have had the success it has. My favorite E-bay commercial is one where a guy is selling his lime green hatchback online and as he does then it cuts to another guy in lime green clothes, lime green room, who is green with envy for the car. It’s a great commercial because it is targeted to get the attention of the people who have specific wants, or the broader spectrum of niche audiences. E-bay gives these consumers a chance to find exactly the items they need. Lime green hatchbacks are not “flying off the shelves,� but E-bay proves that there is practically a buyer for everything. E-bay thrives off of the long-tail.
One of the reasons E-bay is so successful is because it is an online store. I think most PR agencies, and most other companies for that matter, do not target to the long-tail consumer because there would not be enough “shelf space� in a store. A physical store would have to carry hundreds of various items to sell to a limited number of consumers in the area. Specialty stores usually don’t make it very long in most towns because efficiency becomes complicated. It is easier to focus on the big money makers that can be mass ordered, but the long-tail would be just as profitable.
9/12/2005 at 12:40 am
BillFrench
Ashley -
E-bay thrives off of the long-tail.
Exactly. Wanna get rich - find a market segment that hasn’t discovered the benefits of marketing to the long tail.
Closer to home - how will the PR industry be disrupted as technologies make it easier to tap into the long tail?
bf
9/12/2005 at 11:29 am
Justin
It’s really hard to try and wrap your mind around just how many people can be effected by the “long-tail.” As someone who is thinking about starting a business, I’m very intested to learn more about how the I can use the long-tail to attract customers and, essentially, be used as a free marketing tool.
9/12/2005 at 3:15 pm
BillFrench
Justin:
“I’m very intested to learn more about how the I can use the long-tail to attract customers and, essentially, be used as a free marketing tool.
“
Few people understand that there are unintended consequences of blogs - they reach deep into the abyss of the long tail because people tend to write blog entires from a problem-domain perspective, whereas, marketing prose is tyically written from a solution-domain view point. Here’s an example…
If you were writing a blog post about how you solved your migraine headaches with liquid vitamin C, you would phrase the blog post title in a very different way than you would as a marketing expert. Since you are writing from a problem domain, you are more likely to use terms and phrases that other people with migraines would relate (or resonate) with. The same is true for search - people with problems looking for solutions use a vernacular that is distinct from the way products are typically marketed. The difference is likely to be recognized as the long tail - thousands of migrain sufferers each looking for information using mostly unique (and frequently long) queries - most of which are completely unpredictable.
So, the takeaway is simple - to reach long tail you have to publish content in ways that meet completely different objectives.
9/12/2005 at 5:05 pm
Erin
Well, I stand corrected! I originally wasn’t a huge fan of sites like Amazon that use the “people who bought X also bought Y” and other suggestive techniques. My opinion was that consumers would only be exposed to products they would have selected anyway, creating an echo chamber. But reading the articles detailing Long Tail, I realize there’s a whole other way to look at that! Apparently, those features that I previously disliked actually help people steer away from the mainstream and strengthen their individuality. (I love being proven wrong! So I’m delighted by this new perspective!)
I also agree that embracing the Long Tail will prove to be a valuable marketing tool. The numbers certainly support that.
With regard to the Post-It challenge, I just quickly visited Technorati.com and searched several different phrases: office productivity, inter-office communication, office management, business, business solutions, etc. With each search, the site brought up a list of blog posts and articles pertaining to the key words/subject matter. My thought was people who are talking about things like office productivity might be interested in the professional version of the Post-It software, which allows users to send and post the electronic sticky-notes throughout a LAN. That could be very handy to help an office run smoothly. SO … people promoting the Post-It software could become familiar with those other blogs and sites, start commenting, spreading the word about the software … get the ball rolling that way.
11/8/2005 at 4:35 pm
Jess
Thanks for the informative post. I was especially intrigued by the section explaining that top 10 searches only account for three percent of the total volume. Although I did not realize it was a studied phenomenon, I have encountered the long-tail in surveys for the University Program Council, a student-run organization that plans student activities for Auburn University. Every year, we survey the incoming freshman during orientation on what they would like to see on campus, ranging from music to cultural activities. So every year, we look at the results of the survey on musical tastes, and every year we get the same top genre: rock.
When I was asked about how I was going to decide what type of band to bring to the next Tiger Nights, I didn’t really want to conduct another survey simply to receive the same result. I didn’t want to bring a rock band because that’s what the majority of students liked, mainly because the majority wasn’t that overwhelming. Instead of booking one major rock band, I think our organization could benefit more from booking smaller bands that appeal to the individual subgroups of music, possibly one punk, one indie, and one pop artist.
Your post made me realize that the top choice is not the only choice when it comes to choosing artists to bring to the student body.