Long Tail wagging the dog?
Thank God for people like Jeff De Cagna who elevate the level of discourse in the association community beyond the simple concepts. In comments posted to this blog, Jeff suggests that association executives need to fully consider the ramifications for our organizations of an emerging economic theory called the Long Tail, not just dismiss it out of hand. I read the article written by Jamie Notter and Jeff when it first hit Associations Now back in February 2006 and posted a few thoughts about it back then. In the time since I jotted down those thoughts, I've considered this more fully, and in my view, the Long Tail doesn't translate well to associations for these four reasons:
1. In order for the economics of the Long Tail to be fully realized, there has to be a sufficient number of consumers to take advantage of the myriad products and services being offered. I would venture to guess that an association would need an audience of about 100,000 or more in order to begin to see results from a Long Tail strategy. Pragmatically, associations' audiences are their members, and I concede that every association has the opportunity to sell to nonmembers as well.
2. Related to the first point, the Long Tail can't be fully harnessed unless there is a sufficient diversity within an audience. The blessing (and the curse) of associations is that our audiences are very homogeneous groups. How diverse can our Long Tail products and services really be if we want to sell them to an audience with relatively similar needs?
3. Association executives are accountable to their organizations' tax exempt missions or purposes. Any association executive that wants to pursue a long tail strategy will have to determine if such activity falls within the scope of their association's objectives. The task of developing a diverse line of products to satisfy a Long Tail strategy may very well fail this test.
4. The Long Tail seems to run contrary to another economic principle that seems to work quite well for associations. It's the principle outlined in books like Blue Ocean Strategy and Purple Cow. Do something remarkable and something that no one else is doing, and charge a lot of money for it. This is a strategy that, in my mind, stands a far better chance of generating a high rate of return than a Long Tail strategy.
Even if your evaluation of the Long Tail strategy suggests that your association should pursue it, there's still the problem of actually developing the thousands of products to fill your inventory. Who will do it?
Staff? How many staff would it take to develop thousands of new products and services? And aren't we all struggling with what programs to cut?
Volunteers? Are you finding enough committed volunteers to undertake projects like these?
Will your association become a reseller of other companies' products?
There is lower-hanging fruit out there. More targeted segmentation, better member service, more innovative products and services that carry a higher value and a higher profit. If you want my advice, go after those.
And here's a deep thought: The association industry itself is the long tail.
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Comments
I agree with Ben that associations can not afford to develop products and services specifically for niche groups that fall further out on the long tail. However, the principle may still have some relevance to associations.
Consider the sessions you offer members at meetings and the articles written for your magazines and journals. They must be selected based on popularity and appeal to broad audiences to be successful. However, the online world affords associations the opportunity to meet the more specialized needs of smaller groups with self-service social networking options such as blogs, wikis, message boards, and the like.
Associations can help members identify others with similar niche interests and share obscure and bizarre information and experiences that may not be of any interest to the majority of members.
I agree with Jeff. Don't dismiss the Long Tail theory prematurely. Use it as a basis for thinking differently about how you can serve more of your members with little or no additional effort.
Posted by: Rick Johnston, CAE | August 3, 2006 4:57 PM
Don't any offerings by an association automatically fit within the Long Tail, as they tend to cater to a niche group? I think the key is to make sure the offerings (pubs, seminars, etc.) are developed in ways that make them easier to find and purchase...especially for non-members.
Posted by: Fred Simmons | August 3, 2006 10:38 PM
@ Fred: Yes! That's exactly what I meant by saying "The association industry itself is the long tail."
@ Rick: I think we are not too far apart. I agree that the Long Tail is a useful filter through which to process new ideas on how to serve members. However, I wouldn't advise my colleagues to count on a Long Tail strategy as a major new source of revenue. Better member engagement is a more realistic outcome (which may turn into increased revenue).
Posted by: Ben Martin | August 4, 2006 8:38 AM
As noted, the concept applies to more than just what we might traditionally consider a "product".
Case in point, all the forum posts that accumulate over the years. We were going to cull old posts (ie, trim database and web resource constraints), but members got up in arms about the "value" of/in all those posts - arguably much more diverse than the handful of popular threads under discussion at the moment.
The ability to easily search/access those old/all posts, along with tools to rate posts, fits in perfectly with LongTail thinking...
Jason
Posted by: Jason Della Rocca | August 4, 2006 9:56 PM
Ben, thanks for this post. I think you make some great arguments, even though I don't agree with all of them. I have posted my response to The Association Renewal Blog at http://www.associationrenewalblog.com/home/2006/08/why_the_long_ta.html. I hope you will check it out!
Posted by: Jeff De Cagna | August 6, 2006 3:10 PM
Great thoughts Ben. Thanks for continuing this now “elevated” conversation!
I agree with what Jeff said in his response, but I wanted to add a point. For me, there is a component of the Long Tail strategy that is not getting mentioned, and that is giving up control. The analysis of whether or not this works for associations comes from the traditional model, in which the Association controls the content and how it gets marketed and distributed. You create products and services, and then you market and sell them. Under that model, the Long Tail seems impossible, because how could you create so much material (there are millions of songs on iTunes), and how could you market it to this homogenous group of people (your members)? True, if you insist on being in total control, these are serious constraints. It is hard for your association to actively manage the creation of thousands of products, and then market them to many different niche markets.
But the Long Tail assumes that the entity that is profiting from the Long Tail does NOT centrally control or manage the content like that. The forum example listed by Jason above gets at my point. The association did not control the content in the forum, it simply created a container for members to do so, and they did so much that the association wanted to cut some of this “extraneous” content from its database, and folks got mad. But different members got mad for different reasons. A collection of “niche” markets said, “we need that diverse material.” From the association’s perspective, not one of those forum posts was a “hit” (something that could be turned into a conference session or a book they could sell), but as a Long Tail they had value. If you can open your mind to contexts where the association is not in its traditional position of “control,” then I think it’s easier to see the application of the Long Tail for associations (and even though the above example was more about member engagement, I do think there are revenue possibilities here).
Posted by: Jamie Notter | August 7, 2006 7:26 AM
Jamie drives to a point that we often misunderstand when applying the member needs survey data to program and product development. In my mind it is the niche market that help associations create (and groom) their long tail. By another name these members are the early adopters, bleeding edge or what have you of the particular profession. Through aggressive listening to these individuals that we retain the real control...their faith in our willingness to listen and move forward.
Posted by: David Lorms | August 7, 2006 2:54 PM