Author Seth Godin has some interesting observations about Long tail vs Short Tail. There is this common misconception that the long tail basically tells us “forget trying to be the vanilla, be really good at chocolate peanut butter crunch with strawberries.” Meaning that going for the highest demand keyword, product, industry, etc is ineffective because everyone is fighting for it when you could get more market share by targeted a few niche markets.

However Seth is saying that given the choice you should take the short tail if you can make it.

This is an interesting observation out of Seth, as I got the distinctly different idea when reading his book “The Dip.” His advice in that book seemed to say that rather than trying to be the number one restaurant in America, be the best in the world at a specific type of food or dish (ie: the long tail). Is he changing his mind? is the message diluted?

Honestly I think there isn’t a right and a wrong to the long/short tail. You shouldn’t always take a shot at the short tail even if you can make it, and you shouldn’t always take a shot at the long tail if you can make it. There are reasons to go after one or the other and it will differ based on the industry, company, situation, long term strategies, etc…

I have talked with a company owner who could go for the short tail, big hit, and he has the product to do it. However his strategy is not to shoot to stardom, but to build a business that will last long after he is gone and out of the picture. Doing so means slow growth building up a product to a point where people simply will not be able to replicate it. No quick launch and burn out, but a strong steady growth of long tail efforts.

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Tags: long tail, marketing, niche, sales, seth godin