Never try to tell a marketer there’s no way to sell someone. There is ALWAYS a way to sell someone anything, if you’re creative and good at it.
Case in point, ReadWriteWeb put up a piece about how it’s impossible to make money in the long tail.
I disagree. In fact, I think you can “make money” anywhere, if you market the right way. Particularly for this discussion, I believe that “fun” is the key to marketing to the long tail.
Why? From my earlier post…
I’ve said this a million times. Tim Carter taught me this. People come to the Internet for two reasons…
1. To solve a problem. 2. To have fun.
Think about it. EVERY action you take online falls into one of those buckets. Really think about it.
Those two ideas have driven my decisions on how to blog, what businesses to create, what kind of videos to make, etc… I ask myself those two questions before I do anything.
ScratchBack, in my opinion, does both. But let’s get back to fun. Fun is HIGHLY overrated. Sure, fun may not be practical in the “making money online†world, but you know what? I don’t care, why, because it’s fun!
Sure, I want ScratchBack to be successful, and I chose to position the marketing of it as “fun†as opposed to “getting rich†because I truly believe that there is only so far you can go down the long-tail by pushing “get rich†stuff.
Cnet is right.
And creating that Long Tail content has never been primarily about making money.
I’m with you. It’s entirely possible to make money within the long tail if your blog is focused and serves a particular need. Smart advertisers will always be attracted to places where they can target specific customers – be it on large sites or small blogs.