• Wall Street Journal, Monday, May 24, 2010 10:48 AM

Long-tail marketing has its success stories, sure, but simply avoiding the clutter of mass markets isn't enough to guarantee success, write Eric K. Clemons, Paul F. Nunes and Matt Reilly, who go on to offer six strategies for finding the sweet spot that will coax consumers to pay a premium price for a product. They call it "resonance marketing."

The strategies are 1. Target Carefully; 2. Listen to Your Customers. Really Listen; 3. Control Production Costs; 4. Control Distribution Costs; 5. Some Apparent Losers Are Worth Keeping 6. Prune Your Portfolio Ruthlessly.

"Many shoppers will compromise whenever possible by looking for cheaper alternatives to the things they usually buy -- but keep buying products that don't have any direct substitutes," the authors maintain. Clemons is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Nunes and Reilly work for Accenture.

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