How to Beat the Long Tail
Have you seen Kevin Kelly’s “1,000 True Fans“? You will likely see this excellent article mentioned on other blogs. It’s one of those posts I wish I had written, because I have tried to recommend similar ideas, just not as well.
What he says is that an artist can make a living from 1,000 true fans. Rather than aim to be mainstream success, or scrape a living from the long tail, you can earn a decent income by appealing directly to a fan base.
When I talk about Marillion and not trying to please everybody, that is what I am trying to get across.
Instead of spreading yourself thin trying to please a huge gamut of prospects, focus on delighting a specific niche. Really care for and nurture this smaller audience. Prove your value and never betray the trust they place in you. Now we are talking true lifetime value rather than grasping after a 15mins of fame. That’s success to me.
This is the strategy I put in place right here, on this blog, and it works. I don’t aim to have a huge audience, I want a smaller but more engaged audience. I want people to who are really interested, who come back, and bring friends. Rather than millions of page views, I want a happy and vibrant comment area, conversations and interaction.
By Chris Garrett. Posted in Business
That’s a great goal, and one that I’m aspiring to as well. It’s pretty tough to measure though, isn’t it? How might you determine which site visitors and subscribers are part of that 1,000 true fan group who’ll buy anything you sell?
This is what I’ve been saying all along, but the “1000 true fans” metaphor is a much more brilliant way to put it. Especially in business blogging, your ceiling is a bit lower. What you’re blogging should be highly relevant to a select group of people and may not be relevant at all to anyone else. Just like any good business, you take care of your best customers.
The article is an eye openeer for me who will be looking into monetization, eventually. It gives me another possible option other than working on hundreds and thousands of traffic.
“1000 true fans” is brilliant. It’s amazing how a few words describe so much.
I like it!
It reaffirms my philosophy about who I’m aiming products at – rather than trying to please everyone I try to *really* please a core bunch. It’s more fulfilling as well, because instead of being pretty good for many, you can be excellent for some.
Completely agree. I’m working on increasing my online presence by sharing my expertise and also rewarding those who are kind enough to recommend me. Dave
Chris:
Thanks for sharing Kevin’s “1,000 True Fans” article.
It is a great paradigm buster for me. I am in the process of creating 1,000 true fans for my career and life success coaching practice. Kevin’s common sense approach to this is a great help to me.
All the best,
Bud Bilanich
The Common Sense Guy
Bravo Chris! I will settle for 10 fans. Ha! I sell my writing and photography and haven’t really gotten into the guts of all the marketing yet. On my baby blog I just invite people along with me on my new journey. Hopefully I can inspire and educate people along the way. Warts and all.
I wish my boss would agree with both you and I. She doesn’t believe long tail will generate enough traffic for our company blog (which she insists on having it hosted on wordpress to build links back to the site).
Chris, you are a wise man, aiming to focus on those who’ll actually appreciate your good works.
Thanks Chris for reminding me why I’m doing my business and blog. It’s not about page views, traffic or Google. It’s about people, specific people who you are ’speaking’ to directly. They know and trust you because consistency does matter and trying to be all things to all people is a hard act.
Ditto to all the above. When you know your niche market is small, it’s worth working those smaller numbers and making them feel very special.
Lissa – it sounded as though you were not happy about your boss hosting the blog on WordPress. I was wondering why.
I believe in this completely. Going generic is not a good way to begin. I guess your chances of success are way much better when you are niche and attract a very specific group of loyal readers. Further growth will require attraction more of that kind of reader or by slowing adding other adjacent areas/topics.