Online Marketing 2.0 – Round 2 begins

Well, we correctly predicted that a big Microsoft Office announcement must be imminent to prompt a Google Chrome OS spoiler announcement last week. As a follow up to that follow up, it is interesting to consider how this may translate in strategy terms and how this affects b2b and b2c marketers.

As we already know, the transition from offline to free online software has to be paid for.

Microsoft have resisted moving online because this inevitably means that they are putting potential clickers into a space where 80%+ of the revenue then goes to Google – in simple terms they would be indirectly funding Google!

The launch of Microsoft Office 2010 online is interesting because it will need to address the issue of keeping the customer online, but more importantly, then keeping them searching with Microsoft rather than Google and therefore driving the revenue to maintain that web presence and ultimately replacing the revenue from the software offline-only version of Microsoft Office.

In this context, the strategy to keep people both online and offline i.e. a software app with web connectivity and storage works both ways – at least while Microsoft work out how to get some market share and revenue back in the search space. Interestingly, Google and Adobe are simultaneously working back the other way – from online to offline using Google Gears and Adobe Air.

To the customer, I suspect this will be quite acceptable, as it provides a gradual means to move to working entirely on the web at some point in the future and for Microsoft, it provides a delaying tactic to re-establish their search capability in the meantime. We reckon they could do with having a browser without a search box sitting outside of the main window though!

Ultimately, what fascinates us and what makes it relevant to marketers, is that all of this is driven by revenue streams, which come from (or through) us, the marketers – the online camp is driven by marketing spend and a desire to grow it by increasing advertising. Offline is only really driven by Microsoft’s reliance on software like Office to generate billions of dollars of income.

The question is – as a marketer, which version would you therefore prefer, online or offline?

How Google plan to increase sales

We saw the news about the new Google Chrome OS and thought a mini-post would be relevant to our last topic of online vs offline marketing, so here it is. (And because its a trendy topic, we might also get some extra clicks!)

Like every form of marketing, “if the customers ain’t buying, then the suppliers ain’t paying for marketing to attract ’em” and this will be as true for online marketing as offline. Although I have encapsulated this phrase in quotes,to make it look official and from someone with great authority, I actually invented it just now, so if it gets repeated, reference me.

If it is the case that people are not purchasing goods as much, then it stands to reason that they will therefore be searching for goods less. Inevitably, this will mean lower response and conversion from marketing, resulting in lower return on investment and therefore ultimately lower investment in more marketing. So if you are Google, and you derive revenue from this primarily, what do you do? ( Well what do you do that you can control!)

The answer is…

…you need to get people searching more frequently.

So how do you get people searching more frequently?

You get them to be online more.

How do you get them to be online more?

Simple, make it so that the Operating System gets them to the web faster and then keeps them there. i.e it boots up in seconds and it boots straight into the web or more specifically it boots straight into Google. No distractions, no faffing and no opportunity to avoid the ads. Then you make the browser work all of your lovely web based apps, which keep them online even longer, work really quickly in your own browser. If this sounds like a familiar strategy, I think you are catching our drift.

Next, we might see some heavy promotion of the cloud and acquisition of some SaaS companies to keep us online longer.

The question is, once we are online all the time, how will Google grow?

Suggestions are welcome below.