Chris Anderson’s concept of the “long tail” described a revolution in the media business.
This was a change from a small number of “hit” items selling in large volumes (The Beatles) to our current setup of a huge number of super-niche items selling in smaller volumes.
The long tail concept was effectively fuelled by three things, all supported by the internet.
The first was the ease of production – we can all write and publish a book or a music album.
The second was the ease of distribution and a change in the retailing/wholesaling model (and massively reduced costs).
Finally, was the increased connection – it was now easy to find buyers for super-niche products and services through search and online communities.
We are seeing a similar thing in the movement, exercise and yoga industries (and many others) . Previously the barrier to entry was high – there were few “professionals” who really knew about movement, strength and mobility.
But now we have the same three things coming together:
1) Low cost – people can practice anywhere, and there are even a number of tools to support a “home practice.”
2) The ease of teaching and leading – it’s never been easier to connect a tribe and organise a walking group, a gym accountability buddy or a handstand training partner. There is digital content to support the “information” side of anything you’d like to do or learn.
3) Rapid connection and micro-filtering has meant that now people are using social media to effectively “learn” entire chains of highly complex movements and connect with each other through online communities.
Ultimately, this has meant that rather than a few big gyms running the show with huge client books (although those still exist of course), we are seeing a splintering of many different ways to train, explore and learn more about your “movement.”
All the way down to individuals just taking the job on themselves with no prior training.
While this is an amazing opportunity for those looking to get into exercise or movement (an abundant, albeit confusing “heaven” for the consumer), there are a couple of repercussions, in particular for the businesses operating in the space:
1) To survive in the long tail, you need to be clear on who you are for and what you are about. To be “for everyone” simply means you are trying to compete with the middle of the curve, and it’s likely you won’t have a marketing budget to match (or infrastructure).
2) You need to work to connect the communities. In entertainment, the “search” and connection is facilitated by the vendor (Amazon etc). In this case, it’s not. This means that you need to work to connect the tribe and become “known” as the expert for that particular niche. Make some noise.
3) There is infitinite opportunity to educate and transform. With people spending 46+ hours per week at a screen, as a business you have opportunity to educate and transform the client outside of the movement space – homework, movement tasks, lifestyle coaching, digital assets, online meetup groups, the list goes on.
The long tail points to incredible opportunity for both the provider and the consumer. But only if it’s seen in that light and there is a focused effort to embrace it. If not, then there is a heavy bias towards the consumer and the old status quo model of the providers won’t hold up.
Of course, this is happening in almost any industry, and spending more time on the “who’s it for” and “what’s it for” at a fine level of detail is rarely time wasted.
