Social Marketing Strategies from Social Marketing Expert Peter Lenkefi

The long tail has been a subject of research for a long time. The term was coined by Chris Anderson, chief editor of Wired Magazine. It has been observed that high frequency events are always followed by low frequency ones before these events are finally fading out.

Often the low frequency event will collectively offset the high amplitude events to make up the majority of the graph. This phenomena is called The Long Tail.

In business, if a store has a wide distribution network but low sales volume, the phenomenon of the long tail can ensure that products in low demand can occupy as much of the market as products with high popularity.

Businesses can enter the long tail market via different distribution channels on the web.

One of the most famous papers on the long tail was written by Erik Bryn Olsson, Yu (Jeffrey) Hu and Michael D. Smith. It is tightly related Amazon’s sales with its sales ranking system using a non-linear curve on a XY axis graph.

It is said that the majority of Amazon’s sales comes from books that are not found in ordinary popular bookstores, and thereby the value of the long tail is computed to consumers.

Whether a sales distribution has a long tail or not, it is determined by forces acting on both the demand side as well as the supply side.

On the demand side search engines, recommended software and other sampling methods determine the presence of the long tail. On the supply side the main factor that determines a long tail is the cost of inventory and distribution.

If the cost is low it is economically more practical to sell products with low demand.

These will cumulatively equalize the market share of more popular products. However, with high storage and distribution costs it is crucial to sell products in high demand. As with most economic models, the long tail too has major social and political implications. As explained earlier a low cost of storage and distribution of inventory makes it possible to increase sales demanded by a minority of the population.

The long tail phenomena can also effect long established businesses. Sale of popular products can decline if the long tail comes into play in that particular market. .

Brand name products can be replaced by a variety of no-name products with low individual need but high cumulative demand.