Five considerations: Rule #2

2. At the start, aim for the long tail.

What do we mean by the long tail? This is a business development concept very germane to marketing in the evolutionary phase known as Web 2.0. In short, we’re learning that while your top handful of customers might generate an impressive share of revenues relative to your investment in them (e.g. marketing dollars, production capacity, prospecting efforts), the remaining “universe” of potential customers usually represents a potential sales volume which outweighs the top customers in terms of gross sales. The “long tail” is the tapered-off end of the sales curve.

The marketer’s job is to reach this voluminous group of customers with the same–or better–level of efficiency. How is this accomplished?

• well-designed web site
• diverse network of inbound and outbound links from your site
• search engine optimization (SEO) for high rankings in Google
• strong local search presence (read this article on small business local search by Christine Churchill)
• targeted pay-per-click advertising campaign

(Read this excellent article by Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson which illuminates the fundamentals of long tail marketing.)

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    This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2007 @ 5:04 pm on the category Link building, Local search, Pay-per-click advertising, SEM, SEO, Website design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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