The ( Long ) Tail That Wags The Dog

Long Tail, infinite capacity, flexible pricing, micro markets(niches )... is it another form of disruptive innovation?
What is disruptive innovation? For one, it is the offering of products and or services at affordable prices with the aim of satisfying unmet needs. This is the white space that marketers covet.

When such service providers establish a toe-hold, invariably entrenched players tend to counter by adding more features, at same or higher prices thus alienating more and more of their customers at the lower tier of the market segment.

As the disrupter becomes more and more proficient, by virtue of economy of scale as more and more customers clamour for the services to the point where it is able to compete with the incumbent with features similiar or better and at more competitive prices.

It has been conventional wisdom to rely on the rule-of-thumb that 80% of one's revenue and or profit is derived from the top 20% of the customer base.

However as savvy players become more adept in managing the economics of competitive strategies, they are able to leverage on technology to deliver products and services at lower and lower costs. Hence products and services that can be digitized, can often be offered at near-zero incremental costs.

Such model in theory can target the remaining 80% of the customer base with impunity. Implementation of such strategies include content aggregation, contextualizing contents etc. As such, virtual communities are sprouting up everywhere, and this phenomenal - known as social networking is taking root albeit at its infancy.

Growth potential is expected to be tremendous. To reach out, one merely requires a web-based platform offering multitude of choices. Search engine optimisers can quickly steer customers to the right sites through filters and tags, and winners are emerging from this category. Supplemented by word-of-mouth marketing - recommendation by "trusted" parties offering different views and perspectives to different market segments yet viewing the same products and services will lead to tipping point.

The future in marketing is to provide measurement as oppose to prediction. As such, the space to to coveted will be provisioning of superior post-filter services. From this one can build healthy communities and viral marketing can gain traction.

For the model to succeed, we need to consider key success factors. Setting up communities of experts should be the starting point. Beyond that, the site should provide access to quality contents. We need to be aware as to what constitues quiality to the customers - they may include addressing interests, being well made, fresh, substantive, compelling etc.

So how do we execute our gameplan?

Interests have to be aligned, there must be incentives to motivate collaborators, careful selection of like-minded personalities who care and are enthused in their areas of work ( passion and gumption ) will go a long way to underpin the venture.

Additionally, the following marketing tips have to be considered in rolling-out your website if you are intending to take the first plunge:
1. One image, one message
This should extend to web site, blog, marketing materials. Make sure it is easy to recall and that it communicates one's key message.
2. Repetition.
It takes at least 6 times for a person to hear, see, or read something before it sticks. So make sure to gain mindshare to achieve strong message recall.
3. Promotion.


When launching a web site, have like-midnded bloggers to write about you. Acquire word clicks on search sites to direct customers to your web site. Consider using StumbleUpon and Reddit to obtain as many pages on your web site as you can "tagged" on social-networking sites. This helps direct users who have already expressed interest in a similar topic or product to your site.



Keywords: quality, value systems, trust, domain knowledge, technology, networking