How Google Could Sell More
Many of us at Razorfish Search enjoyed the pep talk Google’s John Nicoletti delivered to search marketers in this week’s AdAge. We hope we will indeed be perceived by clients to be “masterminds” and “the next generation of Mad Men.”
Nicoletti’s point is that SEM, an oddball medium for many years, is starting to look like the first 21st-Century marketing channel. Client interest in “always-on” campaigns is suddenly intense. The value of search marketers’ ability to orchestrate real-time interaction with engaged customers, utilizing creative informed by rigorous quantitative measurement, is intensifying right along with it. We’d quibble with Nicoletti’s characterization of accountable digital display as new (it’s new to Google, foundational for Razorfish), but couldn’t agree more with his conclusion that the emerging market for integrated digital services rightfully belongs to those who’ve already driven great results through strategic activation in an auction environment, mastery of optimization technology and actionable analytics.
It occurred to us, after reading the piece, that Google’s position mirrors that of its agency partners. That is, Google must also transition from a search-centric approach to meet rising demand for stellar mobile, social and display performance. So we thought we’d return the favor and try to pep Google up for the parallel challenge it faces.
The reigning chief organizer of all the world’s information has a dazzling product roadmap but no guaranteed advertiser dollars beyond search. It’s less clear what Google is selling in 2011 than today’s hot media product, Facebook. Everything Facebook creates will be placed in the trendy “Social Media” category. To compete long-term, Google is going to have to bring the same degree of focus it brought to selling search to selling a much broader array of ad units. The company’s tradition of hiring only the best and brightest should serve it well during this period of transition. Google can thrive by paying more attention to how media decisions are actually made, and by operationalizing a more nimble approach to sales.
Identify the best customers. When presenting its display, mobile and social innovations to large organizations, Google is selling into a maelstrom of competing client and agency interests. To navigate the churning waters of this volatile new market, Google should place strategic bets on certain organizations and individuals, investing in multi-sales-cycle relationships by gradually earning trust. Specifically, Google should put its relationship chips on executives and agencies most likely to own integrated measurement.
Appreciate the toolset. Until large marketing organizations integrate their online, offline, short-term and lifetime-value measurement platforms, the business sense of any cross-platform or social advertising initiative will be less than clear. Google has in the past seemed to want to own measurement, and Facebook might make the same mistake – a non-starter for enterprise clients. The best approach is to provide free tools that help with measurement, and train your sales team in all the tagging and tracking tools their clients utilize. A free, enterprise version of Google Analytics would be ideal. If that can’t happen, Google should make sure its sales pitches come with tailored tracking instructions for the client’s toolset.
Leave Analytics to the Consultants. The notion of a major advertiser changing its media mix because of a free study conducted by an interested publisher is so obviously silly, it took a company of engineering geniuses to try and bring it to life. We love Google’s PhDs, but positioning a custom analysis to satisfy the political needs of a big company is outside their skill set. Agencies are experts in client politics, and lots of companies get paid for an unbiased perspective on large data sets. If a client can’t invest in digital media without an expensive analysis he won’t pay for, that’s a big problem – but it’s not a math problem.
Innovate downstream. Google’s engineers seem determined to address every possible scenario of consumer curiosity with a handy utility. At times, it looks like Google hopes to market this wildly diverse suite of products according to plans designed without client contact in Mountain View and Chelsea. What works better for Google are sales experts empowered to meet large advertisers where they are. By lending its client-facing sales reps more control over what they sell, when and to whom (and which agency they partner with and even what they call the products), Google can reap valuable feedback that a more pushy approach bypasses. By reducing top-down directives, they’ll also learn who on their staff has what it takes to read the changing market and reel in big sales.
Rethink C-level access. It’s not quite enough for Google to contact the right customer, customize pitches for clients’ platforms and position advertising products squarely against client goals. There’s also a question of timing. Google can seem careless with its access to bigshots. Experiences over the past two years should clarify for Google the difference between being the hot media property and having a real chance to influence the way large marketing organizations operate. The good news for Google is that their brainpower guarantees them credibility as the aura of hotness inevitably moves on. The trick now is to treat executive access as a non-renewable resource, and exhibit the courage to hold off on big pitches until the preconditions for organizational change have been met.
The vision of users digitally engaged as they research, shop, kill time, travel, advise, complain and socialize is already realized. Every consumer-focused company is working toward an upside for them, but none are as well positioned as Google. Seizing the opportunity to transcend its success in search could be a simple matter of partnering better.
