An emerging trend across business-to-business marketing is its “consumerization.” As customer expectations shift and their buying habits change, businesses that sell and market to other businesses are stealing tactics from “businesses to consumer” marketers.

Tried and true b2c marketing strategies such as user engagement, personalized content, rich media, gamification and alignment with offline events are increasingly nudging their way into b2b digital campaigns. This shift is not lost on businesses, advocacy groups and trade associations, which are all leading the charge in adapting consumerized marketing tactics to a business customer audience. They are creating digital communities to effectively tell their story, sell their products, and gain traction for their issues. These communities are designed to make complex messages more consumable, mobilize user or advocacy groups, and provide users the opportunity to join or “own” the conversation.

At Bluetext, our approach to developing and executing digital marketing campaigns for clients is to not be bound by conventional battle lines of business, consumer and government. Each market is surely unique, but by remaining open to innovative tactics and strategies we are consistently able to help clients’ marketing efforts stand out from the pack. Based on recent projects, we have assembled a set of core recommendations for any business or organization seeking to leverage the consumerization of b2b and advocacy marketing to impact customer buying decisions and brand awareness.

Drive Personalized Content and Experiences
By stepping back and letting your best customers and members take the lead in telling your story, the content becomes more real and personalized. One example is a campaign Bluetext developed for Google called GovTransformers that showcases a wide variety of public servants and how they are using Google’s enterprise applications. The campaign shines a spotlight on dozens of government workers all across the United States – from law enforcement to CIOs – with video profiles, photographs and written descriptions. By making customers the heroes, other customers are encouraged to share their stories.

We leveraged offline events to grow the community with a series of Hackathons in key cities around the country. Each Hackathon brings together programmers and developers over a weekend to help solve digital challenges using any developer tools they want, as long as one of Google’s enterprise apps is also part of the solution. For example, at the Denver Hackathon, one of the challenges involved automating the Colorado Disaster Assistance Center. Another challenge included designing a transparent budget data system for the state of Wyoming.

Enable Users to Join the Conversation

Giving stakeholders an easy way to join the conversation keeps them engaged and an active part of the community. We have built polling ecosystems for several clients that can span a portfolio of brand sites to access their opinions across a number of relevant issues, while giving them a platform to collect and contextualize the trends of the community through data visualizations.

For Intermedia Outdoors Network, a leading publisher of magazines for hunters, fisherman and outdoor enthusiasts, we created SportsmenVote with a Pinterest-type of format offering various issues in the form of questions that have “yes” or “no” or multiple choice answers. The results can be displayed in real-time, and a comment section is built in for those who want to expound more on the topic. The results provide an ongoing reason for the community to return to the site and engage in the dialogue, with content ready to be shared in a social “snackable” format.

Showcase Your Most Important Assets –Users
Showcasing stakeholders in their own element can be a powerful way of growing a community. The Forest Landowners Association represents families who harvest wood products from privately-owned forests that they manage. Sustainability is a key component of their effort to preserve these private forests. To help build a community of like-minded landowners with a common interest in these issues, we built a platform called Forest America. It serves as a news repository and a recruitment tool for advocacy purposes, complete with impactful videos and a simple way for families to submit their profiles.

Don’t Be Boring. Engaging Concepts & Content to Educate the Market
Govplace turned to Bluetext to develop FedInnovation, a destination designed to help government agency executives get the latest information on current technology challenges and solutions for big data, cloud, security, mobility and storage. Developed in conjunction with leading technology providers including Dell, Intel Security and VMWare, it includes exclusive content, videos, blogs, and real-time social feeds. From this platform, Govplace will drive blog posts, webinars, and other marketing programs to ensure its target audience understands the value that it, working with the leading IT providers to the Federal Government, can deliver.

Get Game
We are not talking about the next Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty. But think about your audience and determine whether a game would engage them. Games can also throw off a lot of “social shrapnel” to drive content and interest. For Lucent Government Solutions (LGS) we designed a “Words with Friends” meets Scrabble experience to help recruit new engineers and drive awareness for the solutions they are delivering into the market.

Join the Cause – Everyone Wants to Take Action
Building a digital platform to showcase a community won’t be of much help if it’s not easy for new members to participate. We recommend offering opportunities to participate directly on the site, either through submitting your own story, taking a poll, seeking information and insight from other members of the community, or using an advocacy tool to weigh in with policy makers. What is essential is having well placed calls-to-action throughout the site so that visitors do not have to search for ways to participate. New Twitter tools like Tweet Builder increase a brand’s reach to its social properties by connecting with influencers whose posts then tie back into the digital platform. This social engagement extends the brand far beyond a single website to a wide variety of social sites.

The consumerization of b2b marketing is not about trying to fit a square peg in a round hole; instead, it represents the fact that forward-thinking businesses and organizations across every market recognize a fundamental shift in how business customers are accessing content and information, and what types of marketing initiatives will impact their buying decisions.

 

In an era of budget cuts and dwindling resources, hundreds of government organizations are achieving real success and showing a measurable return on investment using GovDelivery’s communications platform to communicate their messages and services.

Bluetext was hired by GovDelivery to help them reach public sector organizations who can benefit with tremendous cost savings while reaching more people, automating complex communications and driving mission value through deeper engagement with the public.

Bluetext conceived and designed a responsive landing page with an infographic demonstrating the benefits of using GovDelivery for Government agencies as the centerpiece of the campaign. We also developed a responsive email template and infographic poster to be used across many marketing channels.

CSC turned to Bluetext to design and launch an industry-specific landing page around its approach to targeting the requirements of the manufacturing industry. CSC’s vision is called Orchestrated Manufacturing, and it represents an age where manufacturing processes are orchestrated through digital interactions and cyber-physical production systems. CSC is working with clients to implement advanced solutions that leverage a new generation of systems is providing real-time awareness and autonomic interactions between machines, systems, assets and things.

 

Bluetext worked with CSC’s digital brand marketing team, as well as their Manufacturing industry marketing team, to design a landing page unlike anything CSC has ever launched inside of its corporate domain. It includes a modern design with one long, scrolling page to showcase the vision and its practical application to the market, and then lead visitors to download key content and interact with CSC.

 

At Bluetext, we find that many large companies with diverse industry focuses and solution offerings sometimes make it hard for target audiences to find exactly what they are looking for. The idea behind Orchestrated Manufacturing is for CSC to tell its story in a unique way with an online and offline strategy to drive a consistent visual message into the market. The landing page is complemented with two videos that can be used by sales teams to succinctly tell the story, as well as a highly produced poster for sharing at events.

 

Please check it out at www.csc.com/om. We would love to hear about how you are designing landing pages targeting unique audience groups and what strategies you are finding work best.

 

 

 

Something has happened on the way to marketing automation domination: brands are realizing that they didn’t have as much content as they believed; had a large quantity of content that was low quality; or burned through its content reserve and lacked the time, focus or resources to maintain the required pace of content creation. Out of this realization we are starting to see startups and even established players develop tools to automate content creation and delivery.

My latest PR Week Hub Comms article looks at the key role content automation may plan for companies seeking to maximize the ROI marketing automation can deliver.

We asked 150 top government executives who are involved in the decision-making process for IT purchases, both as decision makers and as individuals who have input into decisions, how they get information to help inform IT decisions.

Communicating Your Brand Position
When it comes to learning about new IT services, solutions and products, 44 percent report having previously worked with a contractor or hearing good things about that contractor from others as most important. But nearly the same number of those respondents—39 percent– find that vendor websites are important. Following closely behind are technology trade publications (38 percent). Further down the lists are trade shows (25 percent), webinars (23 Percent) and social media (21 percent).

What this means is that a marketing organization that targets the government market needs to have to a well-thought out mix of marketing activities that includes:

• Messaging to make sure that decision-makers understand your value proposition;
• A dedicated website or landing page that targets this market; and
• A thought leadership campaign that gets visibility in key trade publications.

Trade shows, webinars and social media need to play a part in that mix, proportional to their importance, leveraged strategically to reach the part of the audience that does rely on these tactics.

What Channels do Decision-Makers Use
Government IT decision makers want information on products and solutions, and they want to be able to find it easily and targeted to them. In our survey, 43 percent found most useful an information website on that solution, and 30 percent said that specific digital campaigns were effective for them. Less useful are radio spots (16 percent) and banner ads (13 percent).

Our takeaway is that this target audience is happy to go to your website and engage with your digital campaigns if they are providing the needed information to evaluate their IT challenges. What’s important is having a website, landing page or digital campaign that does speak to their mission needs and isn”t hidden behind When the blood circulates to the soles, and the skin draws the toxins from the blood to the outer layer, the Foot Pad can absorb eliminated toxins released from the acupuncture points. a larger, commercial-markets focused site.

Premium Content Has Great Value
We asked how likely these decision-makers would be to download information to learn about new IT services, solutions and products. Forty-three percent said they would download a white paper or case study, while an additional 33 percent said the same for an infographic and 31 percent for other premium content.

Good content is in demand, and when you bring these target audiences to your website or digital campaign, it is important to have more in-depth information to generate leads and create engagement. A well-designed white paper or case study that hits their mission challenges and is thoughtful and accessible is valued by this audience. So will an infographic that helps tell the story or other types of premium content, including a well-produced video or presentation via SlideShare.

The lesson from this research is not that one strategy is favored over another. Resources need to be allocated through a blend of activities that map to how these audiences prefer to get the information they need. At Bluetext, we believe that a successful marketing campaign for the government customer includes a blend of tactics that work together in context to deliver a powerful, consistent message on a consistent basis.

 

Across the federal government, agency IT leaders demand integrated approaches to technology to tackle their most pressing mission challenges. Govplace, a leading enterprise IT solutions provider exclusively to the public sector, turned to Bluetext to develop FedInnovation (www.fedinnovation.com), a destination designed to help government agency executives get the latest information on current technology challenges and solutions for big data, cloud, security, mobility and storage. Developed in conjunction with leading technology providers including Dell, Intel Security and VMWare, it includes exclusive content, videos, blogs, and real-time social feeds.

FedInnovation represents the concept of combining relevant, fresh content, complementary offerings, and financial resources to deliver an educational platform to drive awareness and leads for Govplace across its target market.

From this platform, Govplace will drive blog posts, webinars, and other marketing programs to ensure its target audience understands the value that it, working with the leading IT providers to the Federal Government, can deliver.

The development of platform is a continued focus for Bluetext as we look to conceptualize, design and develop creative solutions that deliver measurable business impact for our clients. We are finding that the customers of our clients are demanding unique experiences with premium content delivered in an easy to consume manner. That is the goal behind FedInnovation. Explore FedInnovation today (www.fedinnovation.com).

 

 

In an effort to rally its thousands of sales and customer facing teams at its Global Sales Conference in Dallas in April 2014, CSC turned to Bluetext to conceptualize and deliver a brand launch video and interactive experience around the key technology conversations that the company is focused on for the year ahead. The concepts of partnership and innovation, based on CSC’s decades of experience, came to life in an effort to position the company for the next wave of technology trends facing enterprises across the globe.

Bluetext built a storyboard concept around the “Road to Next-Gen IT”, and designed animated illustrations weaved throughout the video to most effectively tell the story. Now Bluetext is working on a virtual briefing center where CSC’s clients and entire ecosystem can come to learn more about these key technology conversations, set to launch in the next few months.

“Your focus, partnership and can-do attitude allowed us to deliver a complex world-class project in record time. Your ability to co-imagine and co-create with us is appreciated and valued greatly.”

Director of Global Brand & Digital Marketing
CSC

At Bluetext, we help many companies and organizations tell their brand stories through a family of imagery that delivers the message, attitude, and tonality for which marketing leaders are hungering.   Our clients want a platform for their brand that they can own, because as many markets become commodotized, this kind of differentiation allows them to stand out and represent their brand’s value.

Here are some recent samples:

Leveraging CSC’s brand mark, Bluetext was able to create these representative solution areas.

Gamescape produces eye-popping marketing retention programs leveraging gamification, social media, and a fire hose of sports data to deliver a completely brandable fun new experience for local and national bar and restaurant establishments across the country

Iron Bow retained Bluetext to bring its solution areas to life in a fresh new and inviting way. Iron Bow wanted to be portrayed as approachable.

Bluetext designed a series of illustrations consistent with a new brand attitude architecture. The four dimension illustration series was used throughout hundreds of assets for Sourcefire with both a white and black base design system, following research that the black and white option would be advantageous for Sourcefire marketing.

VMWare retained Bluetext to bring its value proposition to life in a fresh new and inviting way.

Bowman needed to convey their multi discipline multi vertical end to end solutions in a visually compelling way

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.