Google Plus.
As of now, the internet is flooded with posts regarding the new G+ social networking initiative by Google+, so I daresay it has become the current G-spot of the internet. There are the praisers and there are the nay-sayers. Mostly praisers.
This brings us to the focus of this blog. Analysis of Google's Marketing Strategy which they have employed for G+; and is their general approach for almost all of their products.
So before I begin, Let me ask you a very silly question. Why are diamonds so dear; but sand so cheap? Both Diamonds and sand find equally useful applications and yet the discrepancy in their values is mind boggling. The key word here is Rarity. If we simply reverse the availability of sand and diamonds (that is make diamonds as abundant as sand and sand as rare as diamonds), the value of the two will be swapped accordingly as well.
The point I am trying to make is, it is human nature to value things that are rare and cannot be attained easily.
Rarity == Value.
The good people at Google understand this very well. As 'TechCrunch' puts it, "Google has tried to downplay its super top secret social project as much as humanly possible". And when one day, they were finished with coding and testing, their product was ready to go on air, poof, they put just put a black bar on their homepage. I for one had though it to be a permanent design change until I read about G+.
I was one of the lucky ones to get in without any glitches. So, I came, I saw, and I liked what I saw. I ran back to Facebook to herald it to the world - All behold! A worthy opponent to Facebook arrives. Everyone was obviously curious, but when they tried to get in, they were denied entry. The reason being - G+ had exceeded its sign-ups capacity.
Like Really?! Who would have thought the words 'Google' and 'Low capacity' would ever make their way into a single sentence! Okay okay, I already hear y'all arguing that G+ is still in its testing phase. And perhaps you are right. But I can't help wondering, if it was more of a marketing ploy rather than 'just pure testing'. By letting only a certain chunk of people in, Google managed to get rest of the left-out ones curious. And suddenly, the fact that you hold a G+ account is a thing to gloat about and to get your friends jealous.
So there, create a scarcity to increase the demand. Make it a rarity, and hence increase its value. So, without any countdown, without any trumpet blowing, without a single advertise anywhere* - Google managed to turn everyone's head to their product. A super cheap yet super efficient marketing ploy. Ingenious I say.
* personally, I dint see a single ad. Feel free to let me know via comments if you saw any G+ ads.
PS: Don't try this marketing strategy with your mid-sized business. It only works for the giants.
As of now, the internet is flooded with posts regarding the new G+ social networking initiative by Google+, so I daresay it has become the current G-spot of the internet. There are the praisers and there are the nay-sayers. Mostly praisers.
This brings us to the focus of this blog. Analysis of Google's Marketing Strategy which they have employed for G+; and is their general approach for almost all of their products.
So before I begin, Let me ask you a very silly question. Why are diamonds so dear; but sand so cheap? Both Diamonds and sand find equally useful applications and yet the discrepancy in their values is mind boggling. The key word here is Rarity. If we simply reverse the availability of sand and diamonds (that is make diamonds as abundant as sand and sand as rare as diamonds), the value of the two will be swapped accordingly as well.
The point I am trying to make is, it is human nature to value things that are rare and cannot be attained easily.
Rarity == Value.
The good people at Google understand this very well. As 'TechCrunch' puts it, "Google has tried to downplay its super top secret social project as much as humanly possible". And when one day, they were finished with coding and testing, their product was ready to go on air, poof, they put just put a black bar on their homepage. I for one had though it to be a permanent design change until I read about G+.
I was one of the lucky ones to get in without any glitches. So, I came, I saw, and I liked what I saw. I ran back to Facebook to herald it to the world - All behold! A worthy opponent to Facebook arrives. Everyone was obviously curious, but when they tried to get in, they were denied entry. The reason being - G+ had exceeded its sign-ups capacity.
Like Really?! Who would have thought the words 'Google' and 'Low capacity' would ever make their way into a single sentence! Okay okay, I already hear y'all arguing that G+ is still in its testing phase. And perhaps you are right. But I can't help wondering, if it was more of a marketing ploy rather than 'just pure testing'. By letting only a certain chunk of people in, Google managed to get rest of the left-out ones curious. And suddenly, the fact that you hold a G+ account is a thing to gloat about and to get your friends jealous.
So there, create a scarcity to increase the demand. Make it a rarity, and hence increase its value. So, without any countdown, without any trumpet blowing, without a single advertise anywhere* - Google managed to turn everyone's head to their product. A super cheap yet super efficient marketing ploy. Ingenious I say.
* personally, I dint see a single ad. Feel free to let me know via comments if you saw any G+ ads.
PS: Don't try this marketing strategy with your mid-sized business. It only works for the giants.
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