Executive Summary
Google Company is an American-incorporated global organization that offers various internet-related products and services. It started by offering web search services. After its IPO, it focused on the development of Gmail, Google Maps, and Docs, among others. Google’s major income generator is Ad Word. Appendix 1 shows how well it is doing in relation to other companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo. Through the application, the company receives revenues in the form of a pay-per-click basis. The company’s marketing strategy focuses on increasing its profit generation base. However, it appreciates that gaining success in some products also requires it to lose some others.
This comprehension makes its direct marketing strategy focus on the ‘power of the less’ plan. The current paper analyses Google Company’s marketing strategies. In its endeavor to move forward, the paper recommends the company to continue utilizing its current marketing strategies since they have proved effective. Through the tactics, Google controls more than 60% of the global search market where its applications, such as the ‘paid listing’ and Ad Word, have continued to do well.
Company Analysis: Google
Introduction
Google Company began its business by introducing search engine products with the hope that it would overcome the competitive force from the Yahoo Company, which was the main dominant player in the search market. Search engines allow people to acquire information at a higher speed via the elimination of the need to peruse pages, as witnessed in the case of books. This accessibility has translated into making the internet develop to become an important media tool for distributing printed academic materials such as eBooks and eMagazines. The rapid deployment of the internet as the most preferred media for communication is akin to the development of the World Wide Web.
It has the advantage of delivering high-speed services while at the same time fostering a two-way communication plan. During the infancy stages of the World Wide Web, Yahoo!’s search engine had already been developed. Google Company emerged to take a market share in the web search. This achievement may be attributed to the successful placement of the company in the marketplace through its effective marketing strategies. This paper conducts market analysis for the Google Company.
Background to the Company
In mid-1998, the ‘dot com’ bubble had already begun to explode. The burst led to the death of some of the earliest developed browsing applications. Amid this change of events, some two Ph.D. students from Stanford University began working on strategies for making the world information useful to global communities by increasing its accessibility. From their idea, a multi-billion organization, namely the Google Company, emerged. The company is now worth more than USD360billion. It has employed more than 53,000 employees. Google began its business by venturing into the internet industry to offer web search services. After the company’s IPO, it focused on developing Gmail, Google Maps, Docs, Checkouts, Google Books, finance, and calendar, among others. This observation suggests that the company not only focused on competing with companies such as Yahoo.com and MSN but also engaging in the online sales business to compete with companies such as Amazon and eBay.
Products such as paid listings and advertisements supported the growth of Google. Its business has also been incredibly supported by corporate values and governance. In fact, Edenlman and Eisenmann (2011) report a high economic performance of the organization in comparison with its competitors by 2008. This success attracted the attention of the Yahoo Company in 2012 so that it sought the help of Marissa Mayer, a former Google CEO, to bring her leadership expertise to Yahoo Company in an attempt to rejuvenate its success in its web search subsector. However, the Yahoo Company has not yet regained its market leadership in the web search from Google. The company now controls 60% of the global search market.
Marketing Analysis
All organizations, including Google, need to place their products in the market. This move requires Google to engage in effecting its marketing plan as one of the noble activities that an organization does to create awareness of the value of its products and services. A fundamental interpretation of the marketing function of an organization is that it involves the art of selling. However, selling is only a small fraction of the concerns of marketing. In a broader perspective, marketing entails market research, market segmentation, a setting of marketing strategies, evaluation of the marketing environment, and even market positioning strategies, among other issues (Kotler et al. 2009).
In the successful planning and implementation of these marketing concerns, organizations need to conduct a marketing analysis. This section discusses and analyses Google’s marketing strategy since its inception as part of the important components of successful marketing of any organization’s products.
The Nature of Google’s Marketing Strategies since it began
When marketing products and services, organizations may focus their efforts on brand positioning strategies that are developed around the products, service features, or even around customers’ experience with the merchandise and services. Since the inception of Google Company, the business has been focusing on simple marketing rules to effectively place its brand and/or build its brand loyalties. It combines little things to determine the ones that boost their sales. Since people are not similar, the company mixes different things in an attempt to build a brand that people can admire. This plan reveals why the company offers a wide range of products, including Ad Words, Google Earth, Google Books, Web Search, and Google Maps, among others.
Google marketing strategy focuses on mixing various smart ideas, which are evaluated for effectiveness before targeting them to their audiences. This goal is achieved by utilizing the ‘power of the less’ strategy, which involves giving people clean, yet simple products and services, which are free from interferences. For example, upon opening the Google web page, people could not see anything else apart from the organization’s logo and a search bar, which could download at high speed. Hence, the marketing strategy focused on the products and services that the business offered. Indeed, developing a marketing strategy that is built around features of products and services can help in increasing customer preferences.
Fields (2010) defines service and product features as the characteristics of services or merchandise that an organization wants its customers to understand in a bid to build a brand image. To this extent, Google incredibly markets its web search products by ensuring forbearance of use and quick access to what customers are looking for. The Google search products guarantee speed on the search page, which is readily available in 24 hours all days within a year.
During the foundational years, Google search bar and the company’s logo were the only features that appeared when people made any ‘Google search.’ This strategy of increasing user experience was then explained by slow internet connection speeds. Speed has been an important aspect of Google Company’s products since its inception. Deploying the ‘power of the less’ strategy ensures that the company also can avoid offering people pages that are full of confusing advertising information and other features that people may consider useless based on what they are browsing.
Google ventured into its businesses through the introduction of new products followed by the monitoring and evaluation of their (products) success. For instance, to increase spending on consumers’ preferred products, the company provides them with an opportunity to evaluate the success of their spending on Google products to pursue their business interests. For instance, using Google Analytics, advertisers have the capacity to track advertising keywords that can win them sales (Edenlman & Eisenmann, 2011). This accessibility permits them to increase their spending on the keywords, which allow Google to have better penetration. In 2005, advertiser optimization software-enabled Google to get 38% more earnings per search in comparison with its closest competitor, namely Yahoo (Edenlman & Eisenmann, 2011). This figure rose to twice as much as that of Yahoo by December 2005.
In brand marketing, organizations focus on increasing products/service awareness. This process entails communicating the business in which an organization engages together with how it delivers utility to its customers (Hill & Ettenson 2005). Therefore, brand marketing is all about communicating the quality of products that are offered in the marketplace. Direct marketing encompasses ‘a channel-agnostic form of advertising, which allows businesses to communicate straight to the customer using advertising techniques, including email, interactive consumer websites, and online display ads, among other techniques’ (Ayyadurai 2013, p.78).
Through direct marketing, Google Company has managed to attract the attention of thousands of businesses using the company as the platform for communicating its brands. Google capitalizes on people’s psychological reasoning processes to increase their sales. People prefer better products, irrespective of the difference between any two products. To this extent, Google focuses its efforts on innovation and creativity to improve its product user experience.
Currently, Google Company dominates in the web search by controlling 60% of the global search market. This observation suggests that its direct marketing strategies are effective in increasing its marketing share, which is the main objective of any marketing campaign. The company pursues a risk-free policy by providing customers with free services. This plan enables it to beat other companies. For example, when Google launched the Gmail platform, it provided a free 1GB space. The rival organizations charged for mail spaces. In addition, using Google’s range of products, people are required to own Gmail. The implication is that the company markets its products as complementary to attract sales to all its products.
Strategic Marketing options for Google as it moves Forward
A clear understanding of Google’s marketing strategies requires an ardent appreciation of the company’s business model. The company uses a pay-per-click model where website owners pay when users click their websites. Although it is risky, Ad Word has been the leading source of the organization’s revenues. Therefore, the focus of the company is on advertising directly to website owners and potentially increasing the number of web hosting through its platform.
While the company may not successfully increase revenues from products such as Google Earth, Google Maps, Gmail, and even Google Video, the company appreciates that it needs to lose in some products for it to build other highly successful products such as the Ad Word. Appendix 2 shows the trend in revenue collection from the Ad Word as the US reveals it in relation to other companies.
The company has the option of increasing its revenues by charging mail storage space. However, this move is inappropriate upon considering that it has built its success on the ‘power of the less’ marketing strategy. Considering that it is the leading search engine, direct marketing constitutes a good marketing strategy both currently and in the future. Its pay-per-click model will be effective in the future upon considering that advertisers are guaranteed free-of-charge Google services to access global consumers to increase the likelihood of search via Google’s search engine. Therefore, advertisers will continue to utilize Google in advertising compared to the company’s competitors.
In its process of moving forward, Google should work more on increasing its brand loyalty. This process may require it to engage not only in direct marketing but also in experience marketing. Most importantly, the company should continue with its marketing strategies of attracting more users than focusing on increasing profits. The strategy works well for the company. It constitutes one of its major strengths since it was listed on the American stock exchange on its IPO.
Conclusion
Google, an American-based cosmopolitan organization, began its business by offering web search products as its flagship product. Focusing specifically on web browsing, the company has managed to establish a strong global brand image and loyalty. The main long-term challenge is how it can maintain sustainable dominance in the market upon considering that its web browsing market is in the maturity phase. To address the challenge, the company explores the direct marketing strategy to market its different products. The Ad Word is its major source of income. Steps such as utilizing the ‘power of the less’ marketing strategy and offering risk-free products are important in increasing the company’s sales currently and in the future.
References
Ayyadurai, S 2013, The Email Revolution: Unleashing the Power to Connect, Allworth Press, New York, NY. Web.
Edelman, B & Eisenmann, T 2011, Google Inc, Harvard Business School, Harvard. Web.
Fields, E 2010, ‘A Unique Twitter Use for Reference Services,’ Library Hi Tech News, vol.6 no.7, pp. 14-15. Web.
Hill, S & Ettenson, T 2005, ‘Achieving the Ideal Brand Portfolio,’ Sloan Management Review, vol. 2 no. 1, pp. 85-90. Web.
Kotler, P, Adam, S, Denize, S & Armstrong, G 2009, Principles of Marketing, Prentice-Hall, Australia. Web.
Appendix
Paid Search Ad Spend Share. Source: (Edenlman & Eisenmann 2011)
