Free «Marketing Final Research Paper» Essay Sample

Introduction

Google is a miracle of web brilliance and moreover, it gives a great lesson of savvy management. Therefore, no wonder that the company is one of the world’s most exciting young companies to learn from by other businesses. Google is a great example not only of excellent management, but of effective marketing and veritable professionalism. The research paper provides a brief overview of the company’s success and the role of actual organization’s marketing strategy. To identify the key merits and demerits of company’s strategy, the paper reveals SWOT analysis and estimates the implementation of 4 P’s instrument. According to the result of the analysis, the ways of company’s improvement are outlined.

The Company Overview

Nobody could ever imagine that two lucky boys Sergey Brin and Larry Page from Stanford can achieve such success. The simple idea was to network a several computers. However, what began as a reserved project is now a multibillion-dollar business that consists of more than 19,000 people all over the world.

Google’s mission is to bring the world together through the technology. Google was established and incorporated in 1998 focusing on the search engines. Since then, the company has significantly extended its huge portfolio of goods and services. Today, Google Inc. provides such Internet-related products as a search engine, cloud technology, software, and advertisements.

Google’s best search devices that limit its competitors like Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo manipulate more than 3 billion searches daily. The market share of the company was about 67% in 2013. In comparison, market shares of Bing and Yahoo are lower by about 16% and 13% respectively in 2013 (The New York Times, 2014). As a search service, Google does the operations best.

As it is stated on the Google official website, when the organization was on the early stages of its development, their team wrote a list of 10 rules of the company, which are still true.

1. User is the main goal. The company is focused on providing the best services. Whether it concerns the development of a new site or new devices, Google cares about meeting the needs of users.
2. It is better to do one thing, but it should be the best. The company is aimed at helping people have access and use even more of the ever-expanding information pool in their lives.
3. Make everything fast. A customer’s time is priceless, so the purpose of the company is to have people leave the website as quickly as possible. 
4. Freedom and equality on websites. Google is connected to millions of individual links on others websites. Thus, it is useful to find out, which other sites propose the content of value. So, the company admits equal organization on web works.
5. You can be anywhere, but you will obtain an answer. The company is inventing new devices and offering innovative solutions for services that help people all over the globe to access the database wherever they are, whenever they need it.
6. Do not be evil. The company generates profits mainly by delivering online advertising and from offering search technology to companies. Making profit is important, but not the main part of the business.
7. The quantity of information is never enough. The company had introduced more websites to the Internet than any other company; its workers primarily paid attention to the information that was not accessible before.
8. The need for information overcomes all obstacles. Its goal is to make access to information easy for the entire world and in every language.
9. Make fun. The idea of Google’s work should not be easy, but the challenge should be fun. An important role in the company’s overall success plays the right company’s culture.
10. It should not be great, it should be the best. The main thing is to set goals they know they cannot accomplish yet, because by trying to achieve a person can get further than expected.

Competitive Advantages of the Company

As Nicholas G. Carr says in his article (2007), Google’s success and profits are provided by the implementation of three innovative directions. The first one is an excellent approach to the organization of marketing. The second direction is a creative system of imitation. The last but not the least one is a breakthrough in the computer engineering.

Although Google is one of the most successful companies, it is tough to be Google, especially today, when it is being attacked from everywhere. While a couple of years ago, Google’s chief competitors in search might have been Bing and Yahoo, but today Apple and Amazon entered the picture, and tomorrow it may be Facebook.

Undoubtedly, Google has the sustainable competitive advantages, despite the fact that it faces competition from organizations in different industries. The company scores over its rivals in the competencies. The first advantage is brand image. Google does not sell services, it brands them. A well-known reputation gives a sustainable advantage for the company to win. The second is scalability. Working with Google applications the user understands that they were done by professionals to simplify individual’s life. The technological advantage of the company refers to the exploitation of high-performance informational system. The work performance of Google applications is higher than average, which leads to the cost advantage over the other companies (Matthews, 2012). The third benefit is infrastructure of the database and its coverage all over the world. The fourth advantage is product quality. Google’s search results are relevant and fast, all the products are simple and convenient. The last strength is culture. According to the recent research, Google is one of the most sought-after employers worldwide. The main task of the CEO is to make sure that every employee in the company has significant opportunities. Moreover, they should feel the importance of their work, the results of which make a significant impact on society and contribution to the good of the world.

The one way to realize Google success and the ways how it is winning over all the competitors is to estimate its marketing strategy. Google is a combination of brilliant marketing ideas, reasonable choices, financial backing, challenges, risks, smart advisors and immanent success.

The company’s marketing strategy is simple as everything that is genius. Firstly, the corporation provides the public with the products they need. Even if the market does not need them now, they will require later. Secondly, Google’s marketing strategy is to do direct marketing focusing on the customers. Finally, the company performs smart pricing policy. Google might get a little revenue from Google Maps, Video, Gmail etc, but in order to get something the one has to lose something else.

Hence, a business that has begun as a small enterprise, but has become the most obvious example of successful marketing strategy and management effectiveness. The marketing strategy of Google is strong as it collects all the data of the world in one place and presents it to customers. Therefore, Google’s marketing strategy turned out to be an excellent one.

4 P’s Analysis

The 4 P’s of marketing are the basic elements to build on a proficient strategy. Google has carefully evaluated each component of the marketing mix and uses them to win over the opponents. The marketing mix stands for product, price, place and promotion. The effectiveness of the implementation of the 4 P’s elements by Google Inc. is represented below.

Product

Google provides a variety of services for people and businesses. According to the New York Times (2014), the company is engaged in such activities as search, advertising, developing operating systems, enterprise and hardware products. Its products and services are translated into more than 120 languages, and they are spread in more than 70 countries.

Google’s products include services and tangible items. The company offers customers advertising (Google AdWords), business solutions (hardware and software of search technology), and Google Store (for tangible goods) (Google Official Website, 2014). At the beginning of the company’s success story, two university students determined the main requirements to the search engines. Firstly, the search results should be accurate and fast, and the user interface should be easy to use, simple, clean and with no code required.

Due to the aforementioned characteristics the world known brand was formed. The context of the Google homepage is simple, with no advertisements and basic textual icons for direct users. The pages load right away and are very user-friendly. The Google products that are outright noticeable are the search engine, Gmail, and iGoogle. In the Internet environment, where heavy advertisements dominated causing web pages to load slowly, Google has given the consumer simplicity.

Google’s steady pursuit to expand its portfolio of services and devices is also an evidence of its constant competitive benefit. Moreover, Google has spent near $20 billion in the past several years to acquire hardware, software and advertising companies (The New York Times, 2014). Thus, Google is investing a huge amount of money to enlarge its influence and get the necessary ability to increase the market in spheres such as smartphones and Web-enabled gadgets.

Price

Google provides a wide range of products, most of which are free of charge. For the successful companies, it is vital to take into account the price elements like discounts, payment period, list price etc. Google’s products are free for general purpose and non-commercial use. However, if intending to use Google’s products commercially, the company offers extra features, more and better services, but for payment.

With a millions of users of each Google’s products daily, companies are willing to pay a high price to advertise. However, company’s cost per click advertising fee and ranking policy is confusing and makes it complex for marketers to predict how much their advertisement will cost, and where it will be positioned. While Google customers generally do not have to purchase Google products, the company still manages to give the public incentives for their loyalty and promote how superior the Google brand truly is.

Promotion

The promotion mix of the company includes mostly viral marketing. The Google homepage is minimalist, which attracts consumers and motivates loyalty. Therefore, customers recommend Google to their friends. Hence, the word-of-mouth marketing is beneficial, as the company attracts a friend with a lot of friends. Nevertheless, the organization does use other forms of advertising. It has been established that the most of Google’s promotion is done online. For the company that almost owns an Internet platform, that fact is not surprising. Google advertises its services and products through AdWords Internet ads and using its YouTube channel. A great example of Google’s Internet advertising project is the release of Google Chrome. When the web browser appeared, Google put a link on its homepage for a week. Thus, the example is a clear indication of the effectiveness of Google viral marketing.

While Google promotions may take many forms, from Twitter tags to television commercials, the message strategy is clear – less is more. By keeping their promotions simple and honest, the company has managed to create a very dependable and trustworthy brand in the eye of the customer. While the presumably simplistic strategy may seem ineffective, the fact that the Google brand is globally recognized speaks volumes on the company’s promotions strategy.

Placement

An important option when trying to devise an effective marketing strategy is placement. Place stands for company’s activities that make goods and services available to final customers. Google is an online business that distributes products using the Internet as the channel. To make products more available for users, Google provides search engine in different languages. Moreover, via the Internet, Google can see what is on people’s mind and what needs to be changed. Hence, Google can easily update products to the customers’ needs.

S.W.O.T. Analysis

To identify the main goals of Google and the resources necessary to accomplish them, it is essential to conduct a SWOT analysis, which includes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It provides directions for the future of the company and serves as a source for the development.  According to the method, a manager evaluates the information from the environment and divides it into the internal part (strengths and weaknesses) and the external one (opportunities and threats). Hence, a basic and straightforward model to understand the nature of Google is represented below.

Strengths

Strengths are the internal factors that indicate what Google does well. They should also be considered from an inner and outer viewpoint. The major company’s benefits are as following:

• The company’s brand. Google works more on branding than profits. A long-standing reputation of the company as a reliable search engine provides significant benefits.
• Google services. All products of the company from the Google’s search engine to Google Earth and Android refer to the major strength that has formed a giant user base.
• Capabilities, employees’ knowledge and experience. The exceptional technology development, experience in innovative projects, and operations awareness, devoted and skilled workforce identify Google as an organization.
• Corporate culture. As Rene Carayol says (2012), Google is a company that has succeeded to find the sense of balance by being performance-driven and values-led. One of Google’s motto, which is “Don’t be evil”, has been successfully embedded in their organization.

Weaknesses

Weaknesses are the issues that should be avoided. They correspond to the view of the organization and the clients as well. The key demerits of Google include:

• Differentiation issue. Even such reliable search engine of Google finds it difficult to differentiate between good, normal and average content. A search system cannot check all the data for credibility.
• Near 90% of Google’s profits come from advertising and search engine. However, such pay-per-click concept puts the company into dependence on people’s searching activities.
• Mobile advertisements. As customers increase the use of mobile phones, company’s advertising rate has turned down. There is no doubt that Google is anxiously working to fix the situation and increase the rates, which naturally leads to concern among shareholders and investors.
• Privacy issues. Because of some Google’s application, such as G-Mail, Google Maps, and Google Search, there is an increased risk of invasion into privacy.
• Patent litigation. One of the dramatic examples is Motorola acquisition. While Google purchased the company for the patent portfolio, it still bleeds millions of dollars a year (Nemcick-Cruz, 2013).

Opportunities

Opportunities characterize external environmental changes that will assist the organization in achieving its goals. There are the following prospects for Google:

• One of the most significant opportunities to revolutionize the world is Driverless cars. While it might take a lot of time to present it to market, the potential outcome of the invention may reach approximately trillions of dollars.
• Cloud technology. Google is becoming a key player in the sphere due to its substantial infrastructure, winning over Amazon or Microsoft. Being a leader in the cloud innovation may bring considerable benefits for the company.
• Google fiber cables. The product updates the Internet providing services in the US, increasing a connection speed to 1 gigabit per second (Nemcick-Cruz, 2013).
• Innovative ideas. The company may provide the public with many other robotics and technological projects. Google hires the best engineers in the world. Hence, it is expected to develop and promote growth in the electronic industry.

Threats

Threats indicate external obstacles that must be overcome or diminished to accomplish desired results. Google may face the following difficulties:

• Increasing number of mobile users. It is less profitable for Google when the user searches via mobile, but not a personal computer, because of lack of space for advertisements.
• Being involved in many industries, Google faces competition from many rivals. Nevertheless, the key competitors are Microsoft, challenging the company in search devices and mobile OS, and Facebook, as Google fell behind in social media. Alliance of Facebook and Microsoft makes the threats stronger (Kirk, 2012).
• Unprofitable products. Among numerous products and services introduced by Google, few of them bring revenues for the company. Such strategy will not add value, and Google’s profits will decline.

Ways to Grow the Business

However, it is not enough to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the organization or underline the realization of the marketing mix. It is necessary to implement the results, minimizing weaknesses and threats or converting them into benefits or possibilities for the organization in the spheres of product development, pricing, promotion activities and placement. According to the conducted analysis, the recommendations to Google concern the issues discussed in the next section.

Firstly, it is needed to improve its social media. In order to compete with Facebook and win, the company should pay attention to Google+. The key point is to differentiate it from Facebook and other social network and suggest the public new, interesting and convenient features. If not, the company should eliminate the unprofitable product, such as Google+ (Newton, 2014).

The second strategy is to diversify budget streams. The concentration of profit from one source may have an adverse influence on the general profitability. A good opportunity is expanding the online video sphere where the company can earn from its services. Moreover, Google may take a slightly broader niche improving mobile search and pushing forward with Google TV.

The next strategy is to maximize the marketing potential to promote its products. There are many people who are not aware of all Google’s brilliant services. Mostly the public perceives Google as a search engine, knowing nothing about Google Earth, iGoogle or Google Docs.

Finally, Google has to continue doing what it does well. It is essential for the organization to focus on the continual improvement and enhancement of operations in order to generate revenue and remain dominant in the world of the Internet.