L-3 Communications, in partnership with Harris Corporation, hired Bluetext to help them pursue the Air Force’s $1B Satellite Control Network (AFSCN) Modifications, Maintenance & Operations (CAMMO) Contract. Air Force AFSCN is a critical operational national security resource used for the global deployment and operation of National Security Space (NSS) Systems used primarily by the DOD and NASA to protect vital US interest worldwide.
L-3 is currently a subcontractor under the existing contract and as such is already vertically and horizontally integrated within Air Force teams inside of these facilities and in fact are the only team with current experience on all consolidated CAMMO elements and as such could provide a low risk, seamless transition.
Bluetext worked with the L-3/Harris Capture teams to develop a campaign strategy that would position them as a Prime by highlighting the many advantages they bring to the table. The overarching campaign theme we developed is:
“The Power of Partnership, From Vision to Reality”
The creative strategy of this project began with the core concept of the ad, “from vision to reality.” The left side of the ad is a wireframe representing the vision with the right side representing its reality. After the wireframe of the satellite was created, it was overlaid on top of the red diagonal to create a striking visual element to draw attention to the campaign. We incorporated a large area of blackness to emulate space that would further support the strong type of the advertisement.
The first series of ads were placed in a high visibility areas inside of Colorado Springs Airport, a key travel hub for Air Force brass. The media plan for the campaign also includes online, print and OOH media placed strategically to maximize reach and frequency throughout the entire contract RFP and award life-cycle.
The Cloud continues to be one of the hottest technology themes across all enterprise organizations, and that’s no different for government agencies at the Federal, state and local levels. Then-U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra even announced an Administration-wide “cloud first” policy three-and-a-half years ago requiring agencies move some of their systems to a cloud-based service, and while budgets are in flux, that remains a priority for agencies. I read a recent article from IBM around top technology trends shaping the government’s future, and cloud computing was right behind mobile devices at the top of the list.
While there are conflicting reports across the public sector regarding the extent to which spending Cloud spending will grow in the near term, there is no uncertainty that the underlying spend figure is massive. As a result, companies in the cloud services business face opportunities and challenges in effectively marketing their offerings to federal agencies.
At the top of the list of challenges that makes government agencies a tough sell when it comes to moving to the cloud is security. Agencies require assurances on who has access to and controls their data, and about how they will get it back if a cloud provider goes out of business, is acquired or simply disappears. Messaging that works for the commercial sector might not resonate with government executives, while concepts around hybrid approaches might be a better solution.
My partner Don Goldberg recently wrote a blog post around Ten Tips for Marketing to the Government. Thinking about cloud service providers, some of these apply. Here are five that really need to be considered:
1- Dedicated Government messaging that is clear and easy to find is essential. Agency decision-makers will not sort through corporate messaging to discern what might be important to them.
2 – Speak the language of Government. Their needs are different than the needs of commercial enterprises. Understand their pain points and realize that mandates and mission requirements are driving a lot of the decision making. At the same time, don’t become consumed in ‘defensive messaging.’ In other words, companies become so sensitive to agency cloud concerns that messaging assumes a defensive posture that attempts to negate pre-conceived notions around security and control. These pain points are important, but don’t lose sight of putting forward positive messaging on all the benefits the Cloud can deliver.
3- Easy-to-find government specific landing pages are a must. If decision makers don’t quickly find information that is directly relevant to them, they will move on to a competitor’s website. We all too often find government subpages buried deep into a site, and masked with an all too obvious government façade that will only serve to completely negate the hard work of your sales and field marketing teams dedicated to this market
4 – Get involved in the community. If you are just getting started and don’t have case studies, getting involved in the community is important. Carpet baggers don’t succeed selling to the Federal government. It takes a dedicated, focused effort and commitment to the community.
5 – Think about many marketing avenues to get your message out. Buying some radio or sponsoring one event is not enough. Work with specialists who understand the government market and how to drive an integrated message into it – the impact of your spend will be easy to measure.
The federal, state and local government markets are large and attractive targets of opportunity for technology companies. Because of our location and experience in the public sector supporting the most recognized brands in global technology, Bluetext is frequently asked to develop innovative marketing campaigns to help companies throughout Silicon Valley drive visibility for their brand and demand for their products and services across the public sector market. This can range from a dedicated microsite to traditional public relations and everything in between – including content marketing, social media and, of course, advertising – all integrated to help our clients succeed in an increasingly digital environment.
The challenge for companies seeking to expand from the commercial sector to government market is that agencies speak a different language, have an entirely unique buying cycle and process, and are motivated by different needs and priorities than private sector enterprise companies. For those who don’t recognize this and fail to develop their campaigns with that in mind, their efforts will feel as if they fell on deaf ears when the reality is that you are just speaking the wrong language. Here are some of the rules to keep in mind for the public sector audiences:
1) Think mission goals over ROI. Agencies are driven by legislative mandates and regulatory requirements, and that’s how officials get promoted and move up the chain.
2) Budget savings are important, but don’t talk about how your solution can reduce headcount. No one wants to put their jobs at risk. Talk about how agencies can cut costs and reallocate resources to where they are needed most.
3) Dedicated Government messaging that is clear and easy to find is essential. Agency decision-makers will not sort through corporate messaging to discern what might be important to them. If they can’t find it quickly, they will stop looking.
4) Easy-to-find government specific landing pages are a must. If decision makers don’t quickly find information that is directly relevant to them, they will move on to a competitor’s website. We all too often find government subpages buried deep into a site, and masked with an all too obvious government façade that will only serve to completely negate the hard work of your sales and field marketing teams dedicated to this market.
5) Social media should not be an afterthought in terms of dedicated content. We always recommend government-specific social media handles. Decision makers won’t sort through a dozen tweets about issues unrelated to the government to find the one that is. It is better to have low volume but a dedicated channel.
6) Customer case studies are important. No government official wants to be the beta tester of a new solution. They want to know how it’s been successfully used by other agencies – and there is no better way to tell that story than through the lens of their peers.
7) Highlight your government success stories. Government officials don’t get much recognition for a job well done, and they have strict rules about promoting themselves. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t tell their story, making them look good in the process.
8) The government audience cuts across all demographics. Personas are hard to create because they can be so different in age, how they get their information, what they read and their comfort level with new technologies. While the existing demos trend to the older side and rely on trade publications, agencies are aggressively recruiting in the younger demos who digest most of their content through social media. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all.”
9) Get involved in the community. If you are just getting started and don’t have case studies, getting involved in the community is important. Carpet baggers don’t succeed selling to the Federal government. It takes a dedicated, focused effort and commitment to the community.
10) It is not just Washington. Federal procurement teams and decision-makers are across the country – from U.S Central Command at MacDill AFB in Florida to San Diego to military bases in between, customers are everywhere and need to be messaged to appropriately. Knowing where the influencers are is often half the battle.
11) And a free bonus for listening – while so many brands are focused on the government buyer themselves – they ignore the contracting community around them. The mammoth defense contractors and systems integrators that surround the beltway can walk you down the red carpet into every agency in Washington – if only you spoke their language…
With so much value and change coming out of organic Search Engine Optimization it is easy to make a mistake. We’ve made a presentation of the top 10 mistakes you should try to avoid when working on your SEO campaigns.
Georgia-Pacific turned to Bluetext to develop a campaign to most effectively share its approach for sustainable forestry in the United States. In the United States, the free market economy, private property ownership and a strong rule of law have created an environment where forests are responsibly and sustainably managed, and illegal logging is not an issue. Georgia-Pacific practices, promotes and supports sustainable forestry through a broad range of methods which are outlined in this infographic themed “Seeing the forest for the trees.”
Google’s new Hummingbird search engine algorithm is sending shock waves throughout the digital marketing arena. What it means, and how marketers need to adjust their SEO thinking will be on the to-do list for the foreseeable future.
When Google released its latest changes this fall, it used a very clever strategy that took almost everyone involved in SEO by surprise. First, it ran the new algorithm for 30 days before telling anyone. No big announcement, no public launch, just a quiet change. Then it held a press conference to discuss what was quickly recognized as its most significant revision in more than a dozen years. And with a full 30 days’ worth of data under its belt, Google was able to say that the world had not ended by its revision. Not only did the industry feel no seismic disruptions, but by most accounts no one had even noticed.
Hummingbird is a massive change in the way in which the Google search engine returns search results, and it has major implications for the way that companies and organizations need to approach SEO.
First, a little search engine background. Search has always been a game of cat-and-mouse. The marketer’s goal is to use links, key words, and other tactics to ensure that their website comes up high during relevant searches. Google’s interest is in having the most relevant results that don’t favor a site just because it has tricked the search engine. So, for example, when inbound links were weighed heavily, tacticians could create “link farms” that gave the impression of links that weren’t real. When Google altered the algorithm to degrade unimportant links, new tricks were developed that included keyword stuffing, or the heavy use of searched terms throughout the site. Google responded by setting parameters on how many words could be used in a given paragraph. The back-and-forth continued.
Hummingbird marks a steep departure from this word-based game. It focuses on context and what are known as “long-tail” queries to deliver results that are more specific to the needs of an evolving Internet where mobile devices and voice commands are replacing simple word searches. Hummingbird is supposed to reflect that context when, to use an obvious example, we search for Chinese restaurants. What earlier search engines would deliver was a list of restaurants. But what we really want to learn is a good place to eat that is nearby. The intent of Hummingbird is to understand that context and deliver recommendations of good restaurants in our area. Remember that what is a “good” place to eat is a subjective notion and will become very important in how marketers will need to structure their SEO strategy going forward.
That context gets more difficult as people speak their questions rather than type. So for example, while a typed query might read, “nearby Chinese restaurant,” a spoken query might say “What’s the best place to get Chinese near my home.” Google needs to recognize the actual location of your home, understand that ‘place’ means you want a brick-and-mortar restaurant, and get that “Chinese” is a particular type of restaurant. Knowing all these meanings may help Google go beyond just finding pages with matching words.
Google has reoriented its search algorithm in three very important ways in Hummingbird, and two of those changes have to do with what it determines is “good.”
The first is that Google now rewards good content. That means that long, detailed and well-sourced articles are going to get better results than mere word mentions on a page. Do a search on “slavery” and you will find long articles from The New York Times as well as The Smithsonian magazine. Search for “best rain jackets” and you will get reviews from publications and “How to choose” articles from within the REI site, instead of links directly to items for sale.
The second is that Google is putting links to what it considers to be good content directly on the results page, and is including related articles and other information that it didn’t previously deliver. From a consumer’s point of view, this turns the search results page into a sort of encyclopedia with snippets of content pulled from others’ sites. From a marketers perspective, it could mean that viewers will see information from your site, but not need to click onto your site to get it. Skeptics have theorized that Google is actually trying to keep you on their page as long as possible in order to run more ads and realize more revenues. Whatever the motive, getting someone to leave the search page for your website is more challenging.
The third is that social media, and in particular Google+, will become a larger part of the search engine equation. Google’s goal is to tap into your network of friends to give you additional insight on your query. Go back to the question about a good nearby Chinese restaurant. If Google sees that friends within your Google+ circles like a particular restaurant, that might be included in the search results.
This is a lot to think about, and requires a different mindset when executing your SEO strategy. If this is starting to make your head spin, join the club. Much of what has been written about Hummingbird so far is difficult for anyone not steeped in algorithm technology to understand. So with that in mind…