Google’s Birthday: 12-Things to Learn From 12-years

Having just celebrated its 12th birthday – we thought it might be useful to look at 12-lessons traditional media can learn from 12-years of Google's growth.

1. Innovation and versatility define today’s success.
Google is constantly evolving, improving and adding. While most traditional media companies have put their toe in the digital waters, they’re nowhere near as aggressive as they need to be in identifying and capitalizing on digital opportunities. Serious evolution requires investment, ingenuity and persistence.

2. Google goal is to be local.
Google understands there is a lot more money targeting local markets and local advertisers than there is simply trying to attract national advertisers and sponsors. They’ve been very forceful in efforts to expand their offerings within your local market. Traditional media still has the upper hand on the local front, but it cannot last forever if market leaders continue to embrace the strategy of “you need us” or “you’re gonna miss us when we’re gone”. Local advertisers continue to review and research new alternatives to traditional marketing. If you do not want to own the local voice, someone else would be happy to take it from you.

3. There’s a lot of money in small, automated transactions.
Google has done a remarkable job of helping businesses help themselves… $20 and $30 at a time. Ad words allowed any small business person with a laptop and an internet connection to develop ads and launch them online to attract new customers. Those dollar amounts may not accumulate as much for an individual media property as Google has been able to generate with its massive reach, but traditional media folks can learn a valuable lesson to develop at least some of their digital strategy. What can you develop that is fast, convenient and self-serve for smaller clients that don’t normally spend money with your station or newspaper?

4. Targeting Trumps Ratings
The strength of ad words is built on the back of targeting. Allowing the advertiser to define and target the right consumer… not based on broad age brackets, stereotype gender guesstimates or ratings – Google focused on specific actions (search) and interests (what people were searching for) to put business and consumer on the same page… literally.

5. Focus on the customer first.
Why don’t you see any banner ads on the home page of Google? Because their focus is on customer satisfaction. Google understands gobbling up a few billion for a front page sponsorship would be a short-term windfall for their bank account, and a long-term negative for their existing audience.

6. Consumers want control.
The internet has provided the consumer a shift from “mass” media dependence to “me” media reliance. Consumers can pick how, when, where, how much, how often, how little when it comes to their news, weather, sports, music and information. Google makes it easy for them to find and interact. How about your media site? Is it all about you, or all about them?

7. Simplicity.
What do you see when you get to Google? A logo and a search box. I go to Google to search…perception meets reality.

Does anyone in your building have the stones to reduce your own media site to just your logo and a search box? My bet is your digital committee would pass on the idea because it’s not sexy enough, or wouldn’t provide enough banner space for the sales team. The real question should be: are you willing to sacrifice sexy for simplicity, and would that simplicity increase traffic and time spent with your online product?

8. Picks and Shovels.
During the gold rush - only a relative few struck-it-rich by hitting a large vein of gold. Smart folks bypassed the backbreaking, gold-digging work by selling picks and shovels to those looking to get rich quick. Through constant R&D, trend spotting, self-critique, and acquisition – Google continues to add features and tools that make things easier for the consumer. Google Maps, G-Mail, Google Docs, etc.

9. There’s value in Traditional Media
A full page Google ad in the NY Times? How about a page and a half…

10. Mobile Matters.
Check the rising numbers on Android – the open-source smart phone operating system developed by Google. This move took years to develop and implement – but encompassed numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 above.

11. Google Generates Buzz
One thing that Google does (that all great companies do) is generate buzz. While its successes far outnumber its flops, Google never disappoints when it comes to someone, somewhere writing about them. (Like, now for instance). Just the mere hint of Google moving into a micropayment system generated speculation on how their system could save the newspaper industry, while at the same time sent PayPal running to the development table to announce they’ll have a micropayment system in place by years end.

12. Competition is constant.
If there is one area that Google continues to try and find its footing – that would be Social Media. It was quite possibly the only major area that Google has been playing catch-up rather that spearheading the attack. It will be interesting to see what the digital giant does (if anything) in the near future to cool the hot hands of Facebook and Twitter.

--Chuck Francis, VP New Media Strategies, Remerge Media. Remerge is a multi-media consulting firm, specializing in new media integration and simultaneous media solutions. Remerge works with radio, TV and newspaper clients to help them understand, integrate and generate revenue from new media through custom sales solutions, and providing traditional media sales personnel with highly specialized training.