Google's marketing strategies and product launch customer relationships

Google's Marketing Strategies

Google, Inc. was a company founded by two Stanford University computer science graduates that initially sought to order and catalog all of the information available on the internet through their search engine. This simple engine with the clean interface would become the premier internet search engine in a relatively short amount of time, surpassing the offerings of Microsoft, Yahoo and many others. The web search engine would become so popular, in fact, that it would inject itself into the national psyche, becoming a verb that we all use today to explain how we search the internet. Even young children know how to "google" something on a computer. Today this company offers everything from the search engine, to an email service, to YouTube videos and even mobile phone apps. As of 2011, this now publicly traded company, had revenues of nearly $38 billion and a gross profit of over $24 billion (Google.com). This astonishing growth could not have been achieved without Google's strong marketing strategies and customer relations. Google has effectively revolutionized the marketing world, not just for themselves but for every company that uses the Internet in any way. When Google offers a new product, whether it is a web-based social media site or a new app for their Android operating system, they have a built-in following that hangs on their every move and eagerly embraces the change they are offering.

Google as Marketing Partner

Most people who use Google are accustomed to their more popular offerings, such as their web search, Gmail, or an Android phone. They use these programs and devices to access the things they are looking for on the web, often available from another company aside from Google. For instance, a Google search may be the first step whenever someone is about to make a major purchase, a car, television, or any other product or device. They will view the results of their Google search on their home computer or smart phone and then click on the link that most closely resembles the product they have been seeking. What most people may not realize when they do this is that the companies whose site they have accessed may now owe Google money for directing a new customer their way.

There are two ways in which a company can attain a prominent ranking on the list of sites that Google returns via a user-generated search. First, they can integrate targeted search words into their website so that, when Google's crawlers search the site they will return words that are frequently input into search engines. This type of search is known as an organic search and about 85% of users click on these ads (Fox, 2010, p.3). The other way to reach users is to simply pay Google to return a particular site when certain words are searched. This is supplied by Google's AdWords program, a pay service that elevates certain sites on the search results list when certain terms are searched. It is estimated that 88% of all online dollars are spent on paid search result (Fox, 2010, p.3). For Google, advertising comprises approximately 96% of its $38 billion in revenue ("CCI," 2012).

There is a clear disparity between what companies are willing to pay and what they believe will generate notice on the internet and what sites people who view the results are actually interested in navigating towards. Companies are paying Google an exorbitant amount of money, to the tune of billions of dollars every year, for a service that does not give them any better chance of attracting notice from potential customers. There are most likely better alternatives to spending this money with Google, like simply changing a website to be more relevant in their search listings. Companies appear reluctant to do so however, perhaps, in part, because they still believe that Google is the key to success on the internet. This seems to be a majority opinion. Google has positioned themselves as the mediator between company and customer, a portal through which one must go to reach the other.

The evidence of sparse results for AdWords notwithstanding, Google continues to rake in money from advertisers, primarily because these same companies trust Google. The customers who come to their search engine and other internet offerings also place a tremendous amount of trust in Google, a rarity among large corporate entities. Google has earned this trust over the years by providing both corporate advertisers and customers with exactly what they are looking for: a large audience for companies and accurate, honest information. Most importantly for consumers, almost everything Google has provided to end users has been completely free of charge. A user can search, send free email with Gmail, look at products on their Android smart phone with free Google apps, watch YouTube videos about the product and even get directions to a store from Google Maps without spending a dime. The advertisers are paying for the entire experience.

Marketing Products

Though advertising and the search engine in particular offer the bulk of revenue to the company, Google estimates that by 2013 a full 35% of revenue will be derived from other sources ("Google expects 35%," 2012). This is indicative of Google's mindset since they first started to reach beyond being merely an internet search portal. They are always looking for new ways to generate income and extend their reach into people's lives. There are ample areas where they see an opportunity to encroach on another's cash cow. The creation of GoogleDocs is a prime example of that.

For years Microsoft has generated the vast majority of its revenue from just two products: the Windows operating system for PCs and Microsoft Office, the suite of programs for everything from word processing to spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. While the software was expensive to purchase on its own, it was so ubiquitous that users had to have access to it in order to be able to work at home, school or the office. Computer manufacturers paid a hefty price to be able to include it in their software packages as an added incentive to but their products. That all changed with the advent of GoogleDocs.

Instead of being installed directly onto a user's computer like the Office suite, GoogleDocs is stored in the "cloud," servers run by the company, so anyone can access it by simply logging into the service. The products are compatible with Microsoft Office and can be viewed or sent from anywhere in the world as long as internet access is available. The product may lack some of the functionality of a full office suite, but it provides the average user with an adequate substitute. In fact, it has proven to be so effective that Google claims over 1.75 million businesses are now using GoogleDocs, instead of Office (Gralla, 2009). For most people the move from Microsoft to Google made sense. They received access to a product that provided them with everything they had needed from the previous suite of programs and it did so at no cost at all.

Though GoogleDocs has been incredibly adept at undercutting Microsoft's Office monopoly, it simply demonstrates Google's overarching philosophy: find a product area where people are paying more than they should be and provide them with a free alternative. Sometimes they are even able to infiltrate the market when the product was already free, as was the case with Gmail and Google Chrome. Google uses its tremendous cache of goodwill to introduce a product that is at least as good as the one it purports to replace, then lets users decide which one should be used. To them, this represents democracy at its best.

Another case in point was the introduction of the Android operating system software for smart phones. When it was first released, the smart phone market was dominated by one player: Apple's iPhone. Apple had created a sleek phone with an even sleeker operating system that allowed even people who had never before used a cell phone at all to easily navigate around all of the phone's new features. The only problem with it was that you could only get this operating system if you bought an iPhone, keeping prices for the phones higher than they needed to be. Google saw an opportunity to provide an alternative and partnered with a coalition of hardware manufacturers known as the Open Handset Alliance to create a free operating system that could be distributed on any phone platform (Rubio, 2011).

From a single device offered through T-Mobile, the system is now available on phones from Nokia, LG, Samsung and many others and available on phones, tablets, and portable media players and through almost every wireless provider (Rubio, 2011). The Android OS is now the most popular operating system in the world, far eclipsing Apple's iOS (Rubio, 2011). Again Google offered users a viable alternative to an already existing product and allowed the consumer to have a real choice, of both phone and wireless provider. The OS drove down prices and expanded the reach of smart phones in society overall. By creating their own app market, Google's reach into people's lives and homes extended farther than ever before.

Conclusion

Google has come a long way from a company that offered only a search engine to internet users. It has continually expanded its reach to include almost every aspect of technology that touches our lives. As it has grown, it has used its considerable positive image to promote itself as a company geared towards giving people products and services for free while others were charging for the same thing. While Google gleans a remarkable amount of income from advertisers who pay dearly for exceptional placing on search results and for information about user searches, it enjoys a tremendous amount of goodwill for its ability to promote freedom both by consumers and users worldwide. As long as Google can continue to adhere to its creed of "do no evil," it should continue to enjoy similar success in the future.