Web Ink Now

The Long Tail of Marketing and PR

I'm a fan of The Long Tail. As alert readers of this blog may remember, I've been interested in Chris Anderson's ideas long before the book was published.

Increasingly, I'm convinced that the thesis Anderson writes about in the Long Tail is critically important for marketing and public relations success. This is an important idea. All marketers and PR pros should read The Long Tail and reflect on what it means for the way that we deploy marketing programs and do our outbound PR and media relations.

In his book, Anderson shows "how the future of commerce and culture isn't hits, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve, but what used to be regarded as misses—the endlessly Long Tail of that same curve." Anderson shows that the old 80/20 rule-of-thumb -- that businesses should focus resources on the best-selling products because the top 20 percent of each category will be responsible for 80 percent of revenue -- is no longer true when the inefficiencies of distribution are removed. For example, the corner bookstore can only shelve 10,000 or 20,000 books, so naturally it will concentrate on the best sellers. However, Amazon stocks millions of titles, many which only sell a copy or two per quarter. Amazon is successful because it sells to the Long Tail of demand and millions of books are sold as a result.

Anderson says that the business implications of The Long Tail are profound. There's much money to be made by creating and distributing at the long end of the tail. Yes, hits are still important. But as successful businesses like Amazon (books), iTunes (music downloads) Netflix (DVD rental), and others have shown, there’s money to be made beyond Harry Potter, Green Day and Pirates of the Caribbean.

So what about marketing and PR?

There's no doubt that there is a Long Tail "market" for web content created by organizations of all kinds -– such as corporations, non-profits, churches, schools, individuals, rock bands -- and used to reach buyers directly. As marketers begin to understand that the web is a place to reach lots and lots of micro-markets with Long Tail messages, the way that we create web content changes dramatically.

Instead of a one-size-fits-all web site with a mass-market message, we need to think about micro-sites, purpose-built landing pages, and just right content aimed at many different constituents.

In advertising, it's not about the masses. It's about niches.

Instead of generic banner ads designed to trick people with neon color or wacky movement, we need to be thinking about the keywords and phrases that our buyers are using and deploy a bunch of micro-campaigns using Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing to drive the buyers to landing pages replete with the content that they seek.

In PR, it's not about clip books. It's about reaching our buyers.

Instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on a media relations program that tries to convince a handful of reporters at select magazines, newspapers, and TV stations to write about us, we should be targeting the plugged-in bloggers, online news sites, micro-publications, public speakers, analysts, and consultants that reach the targeted audiences that are looking for what we have to offer.

With news releases, it's not about reaching a handful of journalists. It's about being found on Google and Yahoo and vertical sites and RSS feeds.

Instead of writing press releases only when we have "big news" and that only reach a handful of journalists, we should be writing news releases that highlight the ideas and stories that we are expert in and distributing them directly to our buyers directly. We should be issuing news releases so that our stories are found on the news search engines and vertical content sites.

To succeed in Long Tail PR we need to adopt different criteria for success.

In the book world, everyone says: "If I can only get on Oprah, I'll be a success." Sure, I'd like to be on Oprah too. But she doesn't reach my niche, so what good would it do? Instead of focusing countless hours on a potential blockbuster of a TV appearance, wouldn't it be a better strategy to have lots of people reviewing your book in smaller publications that reach the specific audiences that buy books like yours? Oprah is a long shot. But right now bloggers would love to hear from you. Oprah must get 100 books a day. Bloggers run to their mailbox to see what interesting things might be in there. (I know from experience that this is true…).

Sure it would be great to have our business profiled in Fortune Magazine or BusinessWeek. But instead of putting all of our public relations efforts into that one potential PR blockbuster (a mention in the major business press) wouldn't it be better to have a dozen of the most influential bloggers and analysts tell our story directly to the niche markets that are looking for what we have to offer? Yes? Then we need to convince our CEOs and management teams that influential blog mentions in vital niche markets are even more important than that business magazine "hit" that people seem to crave.

For marketers, it's not about seeing your company on TV. It's about your buyers seeing your company on the web.

Companies with large budgets can't wait to spend the big bucks on slick TV advertisements. It's like commissioning artwork. TV ads make marketing people at larger companies feel good. But broadcast advertisements from what Seth Godin calls "the television-industrial-complex" don’t work so well anymore. When we had 3 networks and no cable it was different. In the Long Tail, YouTube, TiVo, 500-channel world, big bucks on TV ads are like commissioning your portrait to be painted in the nineteenth century: It might make you feel good, but did it bring any money in?

Instead of deploying huge budgets for dumbed down TV commercials that purport to speak to the masses (and therefore appeal to nobody), we need to think about the messages that our niche audiences wait to hear. Why not target ten thousand phrases on Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing to your niche audiences and tell them a story about your product that is created especially for them?

Instead of spending a million dollars on a huge direct mail campaign that virtually nobody will open, why not hire a team of journalism graduates to start a series of blogs that shows the market that you understand what they are thinking? Or why not establish a Wiki that brings together the people in a neglected niche?

Once marketers and PR people tune their brains to think in the Long Tail, they begin to see opportunity for being more effective at delivering their organization’s message.

Stay tuned. I'll be writing about this critically important idea often in the future.

Are Direct-to-Consumer News Releases morphing into News Programs?

I am having fun "hosting" a special week on the International Association of Online Communicators blog. Lots of good dialog is happening.

The first discussion Direct-to-Consumer News Releases: Do they suck? and the second Trackbacks in press releases: Gimmicky or great? have prompted some great comments.

I am about to post the third discussion topic: Are Direct-to-Consumer News Releases morphing into News Programs?

This topic comes from a suggestion by Steve O'Keefe, who says: "We are now speaking of news releases that are no longer news releases; they are programming. You exchange something of value for attention -- help with a problem, an entertaining animation, a tip sheet for packing Christmas presents. David, what say you about news releases as news programs? or entertainment?"

Glad you asked, Steve. I think great content is valuable no matter what the medium: a YouTube video clip, a podcast, a Wall Street Journal article and yes, the once lowly press release, all have potential to enlighten and inform.

What do YOU think?

The Long Tail: LIVE

Here at the SIIA Content Forum (where I'm speaking this afternoon), Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine and author of the upcoming book "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More" is presenting the luncheon keynote. My friend Ken Doctor is blogging next to me but the damn wireless here keeps crapping out on us so we may not be able to post till later in the day.

"The Long Tail" is a phrase that’s gotten huge viral juice since it was first used in a Wired Magazine article by Anderson in October 2004. He's now finishing up a book with the same title to be published in July 2006. It's cool to hear about this buzz term from the buzz agent himself.

"I have a background in physics and economics, so I came at this analysis through data," Anderson says. Companies like ebay, Google, Netflix and many others has vast amounts of data of consumer behavior. "Drawing from the data, the bell curve was the twentieth century and the powerlaw curve is the twenty-first." (A powerlaw curve is downward sloping to the right.)

What Anderson is saying for markets is that the old way of reaching the middle market is not the only way to make money now. Reaching the people who have specific demand for the less popular things way to the right of the powerlaw curve is good business. For example, Netflix rents many movies to people out at the long end of the tail of the curve. There are more movies online at Netflix delivered via the post office than a retailer (even Wal-Mart could possible stock in their shore). According to Anderson, "the average Blockbuster is 3,000 DVD titles while Netflix is 60,000 titles."

"The market for niches is anything but," Anderson says. Niche markets are big business. Getting it right will produce great companies and re-value archives of content. "Today’s hit is tomorrows niche."

Infofilter.net is a site for looking at data from companies that provide them via APIs (such as Amazon sales data). Amazon is great to analyze because Amazon has shown the power of findability. Amazon helps us to find, based on our express interest.

Anderson says Netflix buys less of the newer releases than customers would normally demand because they know that demand will drop quickly. So they tend to buy based on demand for some time into the future. Netflix pushes their older titles because demand is more steady and evidence shows that people like the older titles better than taking a chance on new ones.

Anderson says "Google is the classic long tail play." Google has finely sliced keywords to reach the long tail of demand. But Google also allows companies at the long tail to advertise when they could never afford to advertise before.

This is an interesting analysis that has implications for how marketers interact on the Web. Anderson's book sounds great. I would love to get an advance copy.

Interestingly, Anderson is a blogger who works for mega-publisher Conde Nast. His book on niches is being published by Disney. "I'm conflicted," he says. "I believe strongly in the peer production model through blogging. I've given away a bunch of data and given away chapters of the book for peer review. I'm a big believer of the open source book production model. I have more than 2,000 people who have given me free and extremely valuable contributions that has made the book better."

Name Your Game: Search Engines or Content Players?

Great to see that representatives from three of the four biggest search engines are on the same stage here at the Buying & Selling econtent Conference. Yahoo is missing unfortunately. I was hoping one of the search guys would toss a pie at another, or maybe pull a stun gun from a holster and tazer the competition, but alas it is way too tame on stage.

Jeff Cutler did a great job moderating.

Moderator: 

Jeff Cutler, Chief Revenue Officer, Answers Corporation 

Speakers:

Jim Gerber, Content Partnership Director, Google

Cliff Hawk, Senior Manager, Business Development, MSN Search Content Acquisition, Microsoft

Ryan Massie, Group Product Director, Ask.com

Jim Gerber says that Google's philosophy is to be that of a switchboard. "We don’t want to be content owners," he says.
There are four primary initiatives for content creators at Google:
Google News. Crawls freely available news on the web, but also closed content via subscriptions,
Google Video: Google hosts content for video producers and other video content owners to have a platform to sell.
Google Scholar: Also crawls freely available content and closed content via subscription. Will default to the primary publisher (using link resolvers). But the user can change affiliation if they have content from another source.
Google Book Search: Free worldwide marketing tool for publishers. Like being able to browse books in a library. Publishers can go into the system and determine how to sell the books via partner program. Help users to know that a book exists and where to find the book. Goal is for publishers to sell the book. Google Model = Search > Discover > Buy.

Gerber says that Google has gotten some criticism about this program. "But that this is a 21st century version of a card catalog, not a threat to publishers," he says. "One of the best things going for Google is reputation. We will never manipulate the search results."

Cliff Hawk builds partnerships to acquire content for search on MSN. MSN will be powering Windows Live, merging the desktop and content. Will be re-branded to "Windows Live Search." According to Hawk, MSN is "best of breed programmed content experience." He says MSN is for people who just want some information but don't necessarily need RSS and search. MSN is launching an ad bidding service (similar to Google AdWords). In what seems to this blogger as a follow the leader strategy, Hawk says that MSN is also launching academic search and book search in the coming months.

Ryan Massie builds all the vertical search product development at Ask. Ask re-launched a new site a month ago without "Jeeves" the friendly butler. Massie says that Ask has their own search engine (doesn't license one) and also acquires structured feeds of content. Market was confused because they thought the butler meant that actual people answered questions. National Language search is big.

Sigh. I miss Jeeves. I want to get a collector’s item Jeeves polo shirt. Maybe I’ll check eBay. Ryan, can you send me one?

Some great coverage from Buying & Selling econtent can be found on these blogs.
Barry Graubart's Content Matters
John Blossom's ContentBlogger
Rafat Ali's Paid Content
Shannon Holman's If you see something, Say something

The tradeoff between technology and content

I ran across a terrific post from Andy Monfried by way of Steve Johnson. In the post You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know Monfried talks about his love of rare rock concert DVDs. He's written eloquently about the phenomenon of great content being great no matter what the technology. His example is that he collects these concert DVDs (mainly bootlegs) and he just got one of a Rolling Stones concert. Called LA Blues, the DVD is of a concert from July 11, 1975 at the LA Forum and for him it is just terrific.

Monfried argues that technology is second to content. I agree with this point. In his example, many of his concert DVDs he loves won't ever be made into High Definition re-mixed versions, but that's OK, because the content is still great.

Many people obsess over the latest and greatest technology and forget that it is the content that is important.

Imagine all the trillions of blog posts out there. Any one can be a nugget as someone researches a product or an old friend or a disease. Yet the vast majority of blog posts are only read by a few people and will never be seen in another media or technology such as a quote in a magazine or book.

Read Monfried's post. Then think about all the great content that you can produce on your site, blog and other places and imagine the people are just waiting to hear from you. And hey, your content will live on for years and decades in cyberspace for people to look at again and again.

Knight-Ridder’s 100-year history comes to a sad end

One of the best jobs ever was the six years that I spent in working for Knight-Ridder in Asia. When I was a kid (28 years old) I was the first marketing person hired by KRI in Asia (based in Tokyo) and held the position of Asia Marketing Director (based in Hong Kong) when I left in 1995. We built an Asia business that was less than $10 million when I joined the company in 1989 into $50 million during that short six years and all was electronic. Believe it or not, fifteen years ago Knight-Ridder was a pioneering, pre-Web, global e-media business.

It is so sad that Knight-Ridder has now been sold and it looks like many of the flagship newspapers (Philadelphia Enquirer and San Jose Mercury News for example) will be put on the block.

When Tony Ridder (great grandson of the founder of Ridder newspapers) shifted into being exclusively a newspaper business ten years ago, he abandoned both his electronic and also his international strategies.

We built some $100 million in revenue outside of the United States by 1995 and the Asia part of that business was growing by something like 50% per year. It was certainly frustrating at the time to try to figure out why a business with overall growth of less than 5% would throw away a fast growing international business. And it is sad to see the end result ten years later of this short sighted thinking.

But the good news is that many electronic pioneers from Knight-Ridder have found their niches. Steve Goldstein, CEO of Alacra (who I worked closely with) founded a great company. Take a look at Steve’s analysis of KRI here. And Ken Doctor, who was a VP at Knight-Ridder Digital is now an analyst. Ken has written some of the best analysis there is of the KRI sagas of recent months.

Press Releases Now Part of the Blogosphere with PRWeb TrackBacks

PRWeb announced today in a press release the availability of inbound TrackBack pings within press releases. PRWeb is the first press release newswire to enable and encourage press release interaction and commentary from the blogosphere.

I was thrilled to offer a quote in the release because I see this is big news and an important innovation. Bloggers have been commenting for years on press release content, but without easy ability to show readers of the original release what they have blogged about.

Of course, PRWeb has made the availability of trackbacks optional for organizations that issue press releases. I went into the PRWeb press release submission interface this morning and the interface makes the ability to turn on or off the trackback feature really easy. So those companies that may not want trackbacks need not fear: Just don’t turn the feature on.

For those companies that choose to permit trackbacks, the conversation that starts around a release has potential for strong viral marketing expansion of the original ideas. As people discuss the press release content, the ideas grow and morph in interesting ways.

PRWeb's Founder and CEO David McInnis says: "For years, we have watched as press releases distributed through PRWeb have been the catalyst for online conversation. Adding TrackBacks to our press releases completes the communications loop."

Great move PRWeb – this will be one innovation to watch.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway to acquire press release distribution service Business Wire

Yesterday, Berkshire Hathaway announced that the company has agreed to buy press release distribution service, Business Wire.

Berkshire Hathaway, of course, is controlled by legendary investor Warren Buffett. In making the announcement, Buffett said: "In making this acquisition of Business Wire, we have followed our blueprint of buying profitable companies that are industry leaders, yet have significant growth potential. We quickly realized that Business Wire was a gem of a company. I expect Business Wire to continue to do what it has always done and I'll be there if I can help in any way."

This is a great move for both Business Wire and Berkshire Hathaway. As I've said for years (most recently in my complimentary e-book "The new rules of PR: How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly"), press releases are one of the best ways companies can reach buyers. So controlling one of the top press release distribution services is a great investment. If I had a few hundred million lying around, I would have made an offer for Business Wire.

New complimentary e-book - The new rules of PR: How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly

The Web has changed the rules for press releases. The thing is, most old-line PR professionals just don’t know it yet. But YOU need to understand the new rules. To help you, I just published a complimentary e-book called: The new rules of PR: How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly. Please download it and pass it on.

Because the rules for relating to the public have changed so slowly over the past ten years (since the Web has allowed people to read press releases directly), practitioners who learned based on the old rules have been equally slow to change. In fact, most old-school experts have refused to change altogether. It is time to step it up and consider the promise Web 2.0 public relations holds.

Today, savvy marketing professionals use press releases to reach buyers directly.

While many marketing and PR people understand that press releases sent over the wires appear in near real-time on services like Google News, very few understand the implications for how they must dramatically alter their press release strategy in order to maximize the effectiveness of the press release as a direct consumer-communication channel.

The media has been disintermediated. The Web has changed the rules. Buyers read your press releases directly and you need to be talking their language.

This is not to suggest that media relations are no longer important; mainstream media and the trade press must be part of an overall communications strategy. In some businesses, mainstream media and the trade press remain critically important and, of course, the media still derives some of its content from press releases.

But your primary audience is no longer just a handful of journalists. Your audience is millions of people with Internet connections and access to search engines and RSS readers.

Download my complimentary e-book The new rules of PR: How to create a press release strategy for reaching buyers directly and see for yourself what all the buzz is about.

Squidoo: Everyone's an expert on something, now you can be too

I was lucky enough to be one of a select few closed beta testers of Seth Godin's new Squidoo. Now the beta test is open to anyone. As the Squidoo folks say "Everyone’s an expert on something." And now that the beta is open you can be to. Just go to Squidoo.com and sign up.

I established three lenses. The one I put the most work into is called Web Content that Sells. A lens is basically an individual's unique way of looking at a particular subject. The best way to get a sense is to check out my lenses as well as other people's.

In classic Seth Godin style, his new company was launched via a blog and an e-book. Check the Squid Blog and read the e-book. Here's some of what’s on the Squidoo site: "For a long time, the web has been about more. More links, more traffic, more hits, more choices. In the face of all that more, many sites (and most surfers) are not getting what they want. This free e-book, from bestselling author and Squidoo.com founder Seth Godin, proposes a different way of achieving your goals: less." The e-book is classic Seth: well-written, short, funny, provocative.

Creating a lens is easy and quick. What the heck are you waiting for?