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Distribution channels for Google Workspace products

  • 21 September 2021
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Hi there!

As you may know,  I am building Noty - platform transforming video calls into actions. 

We are strongly focused on building product people want, but are also struggling with finding the right way to test our product on a scale. 

If you have, or are building product that integrates with Google Workspace product, what distribution channels have you find most effective for you and why?

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Best answer by markphwilliams 21 September 2021, 13:04

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Hi Natalka, your product sounds interesting, I will take a look.

I am the PM for Overdrive.io which integrates with Drive and GW to build websites. We find the best channel to be the GW Marketplace and our Works with Drive integration - we certainly get most trialists that way. A good entry works well there I think.

We also get traffic from our own site of course. We are fortunate to also have a sister site giving GW tips which gets a lot of traffic - gsuitetips.com. I haven’t found social to be that useful really but it is always a slow build.

I’m interested in other comments on this thread, for sure - lets face it, it is a constant search for users!

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Hi @natalka 

It’s a really interesting topic.

Your first question regarding testing at scale is something I feel that Google doesn’t really have a good answer for at the moment. You can request a sandbox domain for testing via the Google Cloud Partner portal, but the size of users is limited to the number of users within your organisation unless you’re working with a large customer who is willing to sponsor you, and even that may not be good enough. The Google Workspace API’s work really well up until several 1000 users, but as soon as you start hitting 5k - 10k or 100k+ user domains things will start to buckle, and unless you’ve tested at scale you’re likely in for a bumpy ride. So having a large sandbox domain is something every Google Cloud build partner should be offered if they need it. You can always speak to your Google account manager and make a case for a large dev/demo domain, however as it’s not a standard offering it may take some time before you get a response. 

Regarding marketing channels I’d disagree with @markphwilliams, I don’t find the Google Workspace Marketplace at all useful, and I know many organisations, when they first start out, deliberately unlist their products from the Marketplace so that they can better capture customer details via their own onboarding process. Like any product you need to be where your customers are, in forums, communities like this one etc. You also have 2 main customers, the direct customers and reseller partners and it’s important to work with both of them. You can obtain a list of partners from https://cloud.withgoogle.com/partners and if you have a budget it’s worth contacting as many reseller partners as possible so that they are aware of your product. I also find social media useful, specifically LinkedIn, but that takes time to build a network of customers.

Finally, one of the Google Workspace Group Product Managers once told me that “partners who provide point solutions that address a gap in Google Workspace are like flies buzzing around a bear, and they shouldn’t be surprised if one day they get squashed. It’s not malicious, the bear (Google) doesn’t actually realise you’re there.”

Your product looks really nice and definitely addresses a gap, but I feel that it’s an area that Google will fill in time. (or acquire you ;) )

Good luck, and would love to hear from others in this community on what works and what doesn’t.

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