Report on Google Marketing Strategy Analysis

Introduction

Before the analysis of the marketing strategy of Google, one of the main question that arises is how Google succeeded in becoming a brand of nothing to a brand that is now known worldwide in just a couple of years. What are the main strategies that have been adopted by Google in order to make sure that more success is gained by the brand along with making sure that there is an increased trust of the customers on the global scale? One of the main facts that need to be mentioned here is that the strategies that have helped Google in reaching the capital of more than US$ 400 billion. Even in the short period, it has been seen that greater revenues and profits have been earned by the company. On the other hand, the analysis of the marketing strategy will show that by using these strategies, Google was able to win over some of the main competitors that include Yahoo, Infoseek, AltaVista, Lycos and Excite. This winning success was gained by Google between the years 1998 and 2001 when the total number of employees of Google was only 25 (Auh and Merlo, 2012).

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Marketing strategy of Google

The foundations of Google Inc. Was lay in the year 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. By the year 2001, the page became one of the best search engines. From here, it can be seen that within a period of three years, Google had attained greater leadership in the market of search engines. On the other hand, additional strategies were adopted by Google in order to make sure that the leadership is strengthened in the coming years (Berthon et al., 2012).

When the market capitalization by Google is taken into account, it is seen that the company became one of the third most earning biggest US corporations in 2013 having US$35 billion. When these figures are compared with the other companies, it is seen that the total worth of Yahoo in 2013 was US $ 40 billion. In terms of market capitalization, it was seen that the market capitalization of Google was five times to that of Goldman Sacks and 8 times as that of Lockheed Martin (Ferrell and Hartline, 2014).

The success of Google is not based on just a set of strategy but there are multiple factors that are involved.  One of the main facts that need to be mentioned here is that the success of Google is based on the set of increased innovation, which is linked with complex decisions that have been taken with the adoption of increasingly risky business model.  On the other hand, the products that have been offered by Google for the customers are the ones that have won over the customers.  It has been seen that the company has been known to have the best financial and business advisers that are keen on risk management (Ge and Ding, 2005).

Issues highlighted in the Google marketing strategy

Before taking into account the marketing strategy of Google, there is, a need that the market situation of the search engine market is considered at the times when Google was born in 1998. Some of the main players in the search engine market at that time were Yahoo, Infoseek, AltaVista, Excite and Lycos.  One of the main facts that need to be mentioned here is that in that year the internet connections were not properly timed and the speed of the overall internet connections were slow.

On the other hand, it was seen that most of the users of the internet on the global scale were giving internet connections that were dial up connections that were in between 10 and 40kbps range. However, in the case of the modern days it is seen that the internet connections are much better, in between 2 and 60 MBps.

In the year 1998, it was seen that Yahoo, Infoseek, Excite and AltaVista were having overly cluttered pages, which was one of the main reasons that the pages were loading slowly in the presence of slower internet connections. The average time that was taken by these [ages to load on the internet was one minute. In the modern days, it is seen that even the waiting time of 5 seconds so considered long enough. One of the main reasons is the fact that the internet connection speeds have improved. This was one of the main issues that was considered and given increased focus by the founders of Google.

The second main issue that needs to be added here is that at that time, no revenues and profits were being generated by the search engines. When the business model and business strategy of these companies is taken into account it  is seen that all the companies were operating the search engines on the hope that  one day the revenues and profits would come. Some of the main sources of revenues for these companies were the banners and the advertisements that were displayed on the webpages of these companies (Neslin, 2011).

On the other hand, another main issue that was being faced by the users was in relation to the results of the search engines. In these cases it was seen that the uses were not entirely satisfied wit the results of the search engine results. One of the main element of the lesser internet of the users also included irrelevance of the results.  Thereby, the users were increasingly frustrated by the irrelevant outputs of the search engines after long waiting based on slow internet speeds. Thereby from here, it can be seen that there was an increased level of dissatisfaction in the users regarding the search engines.

These were some of the main issues that were considered by Larry Page and came up with a different concept of a search engine.  One of the main facts that need to be mentioned here is that this is the problem that was seen as an opportunity by the founders of Google and they worked on the opportunity until the search engine that they designed became a great success. These were some of the main issues that were highlighted in the marketing strategy of Google (Page and Pitt, 2011).

Strategic options for Google

Before recommendations are generated for Google for further success, the section will analyze the market position of Google by taking into account some of the main weaknesses, strengths, weaknesses and opportunities that are being faced by Google in the current search engine market. The SWOT analysis of Google will be for the year 2014/2015. 

Strengths

Google owns more than 70% of the market share. Other than the shares, they earn from search engine market, more than 80% of the market shares are captured by Google from android. Of all the affiliate programs, AdSense has been known as one of the most revenue-generating source.  This is one of the main affiliate programs that have been known to divert a great amount of traffic to Google. One of the main strength of the company includes loyal employees. There are many products of Google that are in pipeline that make sure that the customers would be surprised.

Weaknesses

 There is an increased dependence of Google on their search engine, which is one of the main sources of increased profits and revenues. Google was the main browser for Mozilla Firefox, which was recently replaced by Yahoo, which has had a negative effect on the market shares of Google.

Opportunities

More has been done on the development of the search engine and there is a need that more is done to improve the overall search strategy. Boston dynamics is one of the main robotics companies that have been bought by Google and this will give an increased and much improved opportunity to the company for having better opportunities (Pitt, 2012).

Threats

One of the main threats for Google includes Facebook.  One of the main search strategy that is being developed by Facebook is graph based search that will enhance the searching capabilities of the website. The other r threat is coming from Apple as it is thinking of replacing Google as its default search engine and this will affect the shirt term price of Google. Some of the main searches have been taken away from Google by the online shopping websites as Amazon (Pitt and Berthon, 2011).

Recommendations

Some of the main recommendations that will be generated in this section will be based on the SWOT analysis that   has ben conducted in the previous section.

1. There is a need that Google updates the text based search strategy that has now become older. There are many websites on the internet that are now using better and more improved search strategies on the internet, based on which there is a need that more development is done on the search strategies.
2. One of the main strategies that can be used by Google includes changing the overall interface of the page. Much is now being done by the websites on updating the overall user interfaces, which have ben known to be more attractive for the users (Quintens, Pauwels and Matthyssens, 2006).
3. One of the main strategy that can be additionally adopted by Google is to make sure that new internet based products are released that attract a great deal of attention of the customers.
4. One of the main changes that need to be made by Google is based on the reduction of the overall search because of the new online shopping stores. There is a need that increased collaboration is planned by Google with these online shopping stores.
5. There is a need to make changes in the search strategies and the overall outlook as this is one of the main reasons based on which Google has been replaced as the main search e engine by Apple and Mozilla (Zou and Cavusgil, 2002).
6. There is a need that market analysis is carried out b Google in order to be more aware of the changes that are taking place in the search engine market.
7. One of the main recommendations is that there is a need that Google makes more expansion in the research and development. There are two main areas in the terms of research and development that needs to be focused upon by Google. The first area is to increase the brand recognition by making sure that better advertising is done. The second main area is the pursuance of telecommunications. Google has always been known to follow the lead strategy of brand advertisement through the establishment of brand equity, which has helped Google in becoming more competitive in the search engine market. Although the trademark policy has been properly revised by Google but these policies, need to be revised in order to make sure that the requirements for the advisers are made easier. In case of the second area of research and development, you are a need that more focus is given by the company on telecommunications. In these cases, one of the main facts that need to be stressed upon is that these days the internet is more used by the users on their mobile phones. The interface that is needed on the mobile phones needs to be changed by Google (Urban, 2004). There is a need that the company takes more advantage of its recent equitation of Ad Mob. With the help of AdMob, Google would be integrated with some of the main applications on the smartphones. This will also increase the overall level of loyalty of the Google customers. This is also one of the main implementation that will help Google in determining the main changes that are needed with the development of Droid application systems. On the other hand, there is a need that Google realizes the fact that as the telecommunications change, a positive change in the Droid applications would help in the generation of more revenues and profits.

References

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Berthon, P., Pitt, L., Plangger, K. and Shapiro, D. (2012). Marketing meets Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy. Business Horizons, 55(3), pp.261-271.

Ferrell, O. and Hartline, M. (2014). Marketing strategy. Mason, OH: South-Western/Cengage Learning.

Ge, G. and Ding, D. (2005). Market Orientation, Competitive Strategy and Firm Performance. Journal of Global Marketing, 18(3-4), pp.115-142.

Lal, R., Quelch, J. and Rangan, V. (2005). Marketing management. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Neslin, S. (2011). On Estimating Current-customer Equity Using Company Summary Data: Comment.Journal of Interactive Marketing, 25(1), pp.15-17.

Page, K. and Pitt, L. (2011). Web 2.0, Social Media, and Creative Consumers: Special Issue. J. Consumer Behav., 10(6), p.i-iii.

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Pitt, L. and Berthon, P. (2011). Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the Web: Marketing meets Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers. Business Horizons, 54(3), pp.181-183.

Quintens, L., Pauwels, P. and Matthyssens, P. (2006). Global purchasing strategy: Conceptualization and measurement. Industrial Marketing Management, 35(7), pp.881-891.

Urban, G. (2004). Digital marketing strategy. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Zou, S. and Cavusgil, S. (2002). The GMS: A Broad Conceptualization of Global Marketing Strategy and Its Effect on Firm Performance. Journal of Marketing, 66(4), pp.40-56.