Marketing In The News Blog Post #2
Marketing In the News: Google Classroom Users Doubled as Quarantines Spread
At first glimpse, this article looked like it held all the necessary ingredients to a great marketing story. I chose this subject because it's a current issue and its relevance applies to me, as well as every other student who is dealing with this virus outbreak. While I was scrolling through Bloomberg, I saw several other articles relating to online schooling or Zoom updates. I chose this article because I want to dig deeper and learn more about what's going on behind the scenes of online schooling. I want to see from someone else's perspective. Not my own, and not any other student.
In the last month, Google's performance has skyrocketed (to put it lightly). Due to this virus pandemic, google's software has become a necessity for just about every school district in not only America, but Italy and Indonesia as well. Javier Soltero-Google's vice president-in an interview, stated that Google has seen incredible growth in the last month, due to the coronavirus outbreak. Google ¨jumped ahead¨ of all of their competitors by offering free software to teachers. They really emphasize the fact that their software is simple to use, even if you're new to teaching with technology. Since March, Google Classroom has doubled their active users to over one hundred million. Another Google function called Meet has increased its usage 25 times since January.
The Value Proposition in this case comes from their obvious differences between them and their competitors. Google puts a huge prominence on the fact that their software is free. FREE!! Who could resist that? Especially with how crazy everything is at this time in the world? The article references two other companies (Canvas and Edmodo) which both work the same way as Google Classroom, but both of which charge extra for their premium features.
The Marketing Relevance stems from the company listening to its customers. Not hearing, but actually really listening. In 2014, Google ¨flooded¨ schools with chromebooks to help make education easier and more efficient, while at the same time, students were learning how to manage Google's software from a young age. Google's hopes were that all these young students would grow to use this software for most of their childhood all the way into adulthood where they would upgrade to paid versions of the software that they've become so attached to. While the company was doing very well, they also had an issue with having millions of students online all at the same time. Students were able to kick teachers out of sessions. When users notified Google of this issue, the company listened and immediately fixed it.
Their Marketing Approach is unique because aside from keeping their software free and simple, Google also benefits from ¨privacy failures¨ of competitor companies. For example, less and less people have been using Zoom because of ¨intruders¨ or random people on the internet who break into a Zoom session. These users who have drifted away from Zoom, have in turn floated back to Google. Personally, I think their approach is somewhat successful, but somehow it still seems a little ¨in the dark¨ to me. Google expects schools to continue using their software, even when everyone goes back to school. In fact, they're banking on the idea that ¨pencil and paper¨ teaching will no longer be an active method after this pandemic ends. However, I think that's a foolish thing to put all your faith in. While I do believe that their software will still be widely used after the pandemic, I don't think it will be the only technique used throughout the world.
My Takeaway from this article is that Google offers a huge service to teachers, students, and lots of other people out there, and the thing that's getting them noticed, their remarkable approach, is their willingness to listen to people and to give their customers exactly what they want, even if they have to redesign their software or constantly fix issues and bugs. People admire Google for being a product that is effortless and quick, as well as efficient.
Comments
Post a Comment