pruneau

Situation

Workers in today’s enterprise face high levels of “pain and frustration” just trying to find the content they need to do their work. As the volumes of content they create continue to increase at accelerating rates, things are only getting worse. Anyone who uses a company computer knows first hand that it’s easier to find World Series baseball scores on the Internet than it is to find their Q3 sales presentation on the in-house server. In fact, recent studies indicate that workers waste up to 25% of their time searching for the content they need to be productive.

Google was attempting to expand their leadership in Internet search into the enterprise with a family of “behind the firewall” search appliances that delivered all the fast, accurate search results that Google was universally known for. This easy to deploy and use enterprise search solution offered solid potential for incremental revenue and direct extension of Google’s brand strengths.

Strategy

Recognize the enterprise market’s need to reduce frustration with their inability to find critical information. Differentiate Google’s Search Appliance against traditional, expensive, software only search options by defining enterprise search in Google’s favor. Gain maximum advantage from Google’s easy, fast and accurate search results heritage and ubiquitous brand recognition. Challenge prospects with an insightful, confident, and disarming messaging that opens a dialogue with senior IT management about Google’s expanding enterprise portfolio.

Develop and deploy an integrated communications campaign that concentrated spending in the most efficient media vehicles with maximum reach and added value opportunities for editorial coverage and message distribution. Remove the barriers to evaluation and trial in order to demonstrate the superiority and affordability of the solution while maximizing lead response and inquiries to support Google’s enterprise direct sales efforts.

Results

The integrated campaign delivered almost 1000 qualified leads to the sales force in just 90 days and over 3000 leads in the first 5 months. Prospects completed a sales cycle of being unaware to becoming paid customers in 60-180 days. The entire program was executed with a 45% media savings. Highly targeted and concentrated media also provided value added opportunities such as feature editorial coverage —including cover articles and key industry speaking engagements for Google executives. Awareness of the Google Search Appliance has risen significantly as reported by publishers and the campaign components were localized for European and Asian launches.