Carrying Your Long Tail: Hitting the Sweet Spots, Delighting Your Customers, and Controlling Your Costs

The ability to sell a wider range of goods, in smaller quantities, while still making a profit, is now widely called a long tail strategy. Profiting from greater product diversity represents a significant change in optimal business strategy, which in turn is based on important changes in consumer behavior. Many firms want to develop long tail strategies, avoiding competition in mass-market fat spots, and harvesting the superior margins available from sweet spots. Sweet spot offerings resonate with consumers, allowing consumers to find what they truly want and to avoid compromises; consequently, consumers pay more while remaining happier with their purchases, and firms earn more and are more profitable. Evidence from earlier recessions suggests that competing through resonance offerings may represent an important source of protected profits. And yet, carrying a long tail and selling into sweet spots requires new skills, both for locating targets of opportunities and for controlling costs.