Bluetext Survey Shows How Government Executives Make IT Decisions
Survey Results in Federal Computer Week
Federal agencies can be great customers because they remain some of the biggest spenders and their budgets stay fairly stable even during economic downturns. Yet sales and marketing teams used to marketing to consumer or commercial enterprise customers often find that their efforts fall flat in the government space — wasting everyone’s time in the process.
That’s because talking to the government customer can require a different approach, including the channels used to reach that audience and the messages included. Understanding those needs and preferences can help contractors and feds alike.
We recently surveyed 150 top government executives involved in the decision-making process for IT purchases, to understand directly how they get the information that helps inform their purchasing decisions. The results provide a road map for targeting this audience — and a valuable look in the mirror for agency leaders who wonder if there are better ways to gather the information they need.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE AT FCW.COM
6 Ways Government Contractors Can Use Innovative Digital Marketing and PR Strategies To Win Business
When it comes to marketing and communications, government contractors and public sector IT providers face a set of unique challenges. For one, the customer base of Federal, state and local decision makers responsible for purchasing technology products and services – ranging from CIOs and CTOs to program managers, IT managers and procurement officers –represents a finite group that can be difficult to reach.
Compounding this predicament is the fact that government contractors must not only market their brand, product and services to these decision makers, but also time these marketing efforts strategically. This means building awareness far enough in advance of a contract award, and then sustaining marketing and PR efforts throughout what can be a multi-year process from pre-RFP to the contract award – and even beyond due to potential contract protests, delays and budgetary obstacles.
READ THE FULL BLOG POST HERE:
6 Ways Government Contractors Can Use Innovative Digital Marketing and PR Strategies To Win Business
Federal agencies can be great customers because they remain some of the biggest spenders and their budgets stay fairly stable even during economic downturns. Yet sales and marketing teams used to marketing to consumer or commercial enterprise customers often find that their efforts fall flat in the government space — wasting everyone’s time in the process.
That’s because talking to the government customer can require a different approach, including the channels used to reach that audience and the messages included. Understanding those needs and preferences can help contractors and feds alike.
We recently surveyed 150 top government executives involved in the decision-making process for IT purchases, to understand directly how they get the information that helps inform their purchasing decisions. The results provide a road map for targeting this audience — and a valuable look in the mirror for agency leaders who wonder if there are better ways to gather the information they need.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE AT FCW.COM
Ok, admit it. Marketing these days feels like high school. The cool kids are throwing around new terms every day. As you sit in meetings, meet with agencies and follow “thought leaders” on Twitter, someone uses a new term and you have no idea what it means but don’t want to raise your hand to admit it. You finally feel confident when someone talks about a responsive website, and then they start talking about adaptive response…UGH!
It’s ok. The web, content marketing, digital, inbound, lead scoring, social…they are all changing so fast it is very hard to keep up.
Don’t despair. Here it is. The “I’m No Dummy Guide to Marketing Lingo.” A list of terms that get thrown around all the time that we all wish we knew.
Go ahead…Print it out…Post it on your door… turn it into your own little study guide. You will feel like the smartest kid in class in no time. And let us know if terms are missing as new ones are emerging every day.
2015 is upon us and it’s time to start acting on those resolutions we have set for ourselves in the new year. One goal we should all have on our list is to make sure our websites and networks are as secure as possible. With sources reporting as much as a 75% increase in cyber attacks this past year alone, this is the time to ensure that your company’s website and data is safe and secure. Below is a list of tasks that will help you get a jump start on hackers and ensure that your website starts the year off right.
Update Your CMS
Whether your website is running an open source content management system (e.g. WordPress, Drupal) or a proprietary one (e.g. Adobe CQ5, ExpressionEngine), it’s important that you update your install with the latest releases and patches promptly. Software providers are constantly pushing out updated features and functionality, but you will likely find new and updated security patches and safeguards sprinkled in as well. You should get in the habit of reviewing your software providers change log as new versions are released so you know what security updates are being included.
It’s important to note that updating your CMS can sometimes cause unforeseen issues and should be done on separate copies of your site first, to ensure that they don’t adversely effect your set-up, and then deployed to your live environment.
Maintain Your Server
Your CMS isn’t the only way attackers can gain access to your website. The environment your website is hosted on must also be secured to prevent attackers from gaining access to your websites raw data and files. If you are using a fully managed hosting solution like WordPress VIP or a shared hosting environment like GoDaddy then you are covered as your provider will take care of your servers updates and security for you. However, if you are hosting your site on a cloud environment or dedicated/virtual private server (VPS) then the responsibility is yours.
As with your CMS, your server should also be updated regularly. Operating system patches are constantly being released and should be made to your server on a regular basis. Firewalls (software or hardware) are another good way to protect your servers by giving you fine grained control over who can access your website or server and what they can do. And finally, you should scan your server for vulnerabilities on a regular basis. Attackers commonly scan servers looking for weak spots, like open ports, they can exploit so it’s important for you to have the intel first so you can beat them to the punch.
Restrict Access
Hackers can only attack what they can gain access too. One of the more restrictive, but effective, steps to take is to limit access to your websites server or CMS to select IP addresses. This means that only requests coming from a certain IP (like your offices) will be able to access your websites or servers controls. While this is an effective defense it’s important to mention that most internet access comes from shared IP addresses which means your trusted users won’t be able to access your systems from home or other locations without a dedicated IP.
Create Strong Password Policies
Every user account you create in your CMS or server adds one more potential vulnerability to your infrastructure. Once a hacker has determined a username they can easily run a dictionary attack and determine simple password without much trouble. Make sure that your users are doing their part to keep things secure by creating secure passwords. Policies can be created in most content management systems and servers requiring users create passwords of a certain length, containing symbols and special characters and that don’t contain common terms found in the dictionary.
Review User Permissions
One preventative measure to take, in the event that an attacker gains access to your website posing as one of your users, is to ensure that all users have only the permissions that they need. Too often users are given more permissions than they require to complete their jobs, being assigned admin or greater permissions. While you may trust the user you have given these permissions too, an attacker who gains access to this account now has more than enough permissions to take down your site. When adding users to your system you should always follow the principle of least privilege.
Enable Dual Factor Authentication
As an added layer of protection on the user side you should also enable dual factor or two-step authentication. Enabling this requires that users not only enter a password but also provide an additional credential (typically a numerical code) which is sent to them via SMS or email before gaining access. This requires that attackers posing as recognized users must also have access to that users phone or email account in addition to their password. Many content management systems have modules or plug-ins available for this or you can use a full service provider like Duo.
The DC tech startup community has a chip on its shoulder. That’s not a bad thing; it motivates entrepreneurs and area leaders committed to advancing the interests of the DC tech community to fight for respect. This respect can assume many forms, including funding, an available pool of highly educated, skilled workers, or just positive publicity and attention relative to Silicon Valley, New York, Boston and other tech hubs that seem to glisten more in the eyes of venture capitalists and industry pontificators.
As I networked and dined at MAVA’s annual holiday luncheon last week and reflected on the week that was in the local tech space, a scene from Jerry Maguire popped into my head. It was when Tom Cruise and Kelly Preston feed each other breakfast in the buff. Ok, that’s not the scene, but figured I’d throw it in there to make sure everyone is paying attention. It was Jerry Maguire racing home after the football game, bearing his soul to his wife, and exclaiming, “Tonight…our little company had a very big night. A very, very big night.” The flurry of venture capital raise announcements by local companies last week in fact represents a very, very big week for the DC tech community.
The three venture capital raises undermined a prevailing but increasingly antiquated notion that technology innovation emerging from the nation’s capital is government-skewed, exclusively b2b or, for lack of a better word, boring. Optoro, a startup that caught my eye approximately five years ago as a presenting company at a MAVA event, announced a $50 million funding raise on December 10th. The company stood out to me that day because the business model was simple (heck, even I could understand it which is no easy task) and it was clear to everyone in the room what the industry pain point was (retailers were not efficiently and cost-effectively able to sell excess and returned inventory), and that Optoro has developed a very clever way to address it (a cloud-based, multi-channel selling technology enabling retailers to optimally manage their reverse logistics).
The day before Optoro announced its massive funding raise, marketing software firm TrackMaven snagged a $14M Series B round from NEA, Bowery Capital, Silicon Valley Bank and others. TrackMaven is striking a chord with overwhelmed digital marketers seeking products to help better track and act on relevant data related to earned media, SEO, ads, content marketing and social media efforts.
The final venture capital raise last week is a company I’ve been privileged enough to call a client for the past several years – Canvas. The Reston-based company, which raised $9 million, has quickly emerged as the global leader in mobile apps for collecting and sharing business information. Canvas is truly disrupting how work gets done by enabling businesses to replace expensive and inefficient paper forms and processes with customizable mobile apps for smartphones and tablets, with no programming or IT required. There are also now more than 15,000 apps in the Canvas mobile business application store – apps that can easily be downloaded, customized and shared by Canvas’ growing community of partners and subscribers.
Not only do these funding raises reflect the diversity of startups and challenger brands that now call the DC area home, but also strengthens the region’s global position. Canvas’ Jason Ganz reaffirmed as much in his recent blog post that analyzed every startup funding round the last ten years. Among several compelling pieces of data, Ganz calculated that the DC region has 138 funding rounds listed so far in 2014 – making it the 7th highest region for startup funding globally. For the sake of comparison, there were 52 area funding rounds in 2009 and 157 funding rounds last year.
It was a very, very big week for the Greater Washington technology community, one that holds the promise for even greater activity and growth next year.
We love to tout the great work we are doing for the major, market-leading brands like Adobe, CA, CSC, Cisco, Google, Intel and McAfee. All one-time challenger brands in their own right, each came to us because they recognize that our more progressive, digital-first approach to brand engagement allows them to deliver the kind of real-time customer experience that so perfectly meets their goals. These companies need to continue to feel very now…hot, innovative and culturally relevant…and stay one step ahead of the new generation of brands challenging their dominance.
This becomes increasingly more difficult – and as a marketer…equally more exciting – as these original mavericks of technology begin to slow with age and become mired in bureaucracy. It’s the challenge to make a difference within such a tight box that fuels our creative firepower to think outside of it and deliver game-changing results for even the most established brands.
It is, however, for quite the same reason that we love to keep our thinking fresh with a healthy client mix – and working with less established, but well managed startups and challenger brands is a key part of that. Their nimble and enterprising character allow our teams the freedom to create and rally around new ideas and deliver the forward thinking digital and creative strategies to help our clients in this category disrupt and realign market perceptions and redefine the boundaries of the category to challenge, deposition and ultimately displace the number one brand in the market. Here are some recent examples of that work:
Canvas
Canvas has rapidly established itself as one of the fastest growing mobile business application services in the world, with thousands of organizations leveraging Canvas’ cloud-based, “as-a-Service” mobile app platform to replace cumbersome paper forms with highly customizable mobile business apps that work on nearly every smartphone and tablet on the market.
When Canvas first turned to the Bluetext team as its global PR agency of record, Bluetext put in place a public relations program designed to support high growth and market leadership, penetrate target verticals and also support expansion into global markets. Bluetext has supported Canvas the past two years through triple digit revenue growth and the opening of international offices in Sydney and London.
The media relations and thought leadership program developed and executed on behalf of Canvas represents how Bluetext successfully elevated Canvas’ brand and services to business and national press. It accomplished this by honing in on this through multiple strategies, including a unique use case for Canvas technology that would hold appeal to a new set of media. In this case, it was the use of Canvas by an African reserve to combat Rhino poaching. Bluetext focused on messages that would still communicate the technology’s value proposition, and placed Canvas-centric articles with Associated Press, Bloomberg Business Week and The Washington Post. This coverage snowballed into dozens of additional global articles and led directly to new customer acquisition.
Gamescape, the brainchild of two die-hard fantasy sports enthusiasts and marketing entrepreneurs, came to Bluetext with a clear mission: create a gamification experience leveraging daily fantasy sports that drives customer loyalty as a brandable solution for bars, restaurants and other venues nationwide.
Bluetext took this concept and, with the Gamescape team, and did every aspect of their branding, marketing, and platform design and development. Gamescape wanted to create a sophisticated application that included a robust sports fantasy system, a messaging system for patrons to interact together, and profile creation with location-based geo-fencing. On top of all of that the new platform had to be visually striking, extremely intuitive and easy-to-use.
From loyalty-building rewards points to new ways to communicate with your customers, the mobile-first digital platform Bluetext developed for Gamescape offers an impressive suite of features focused on increasing the opportunities to interact and connect with your guests while offering them new entertainment options. Gamescape’s geofencing technology requires players to be in your establishment in order to join a game.
HelloWallet
HelloWallet, a financial services provider for large enterprises backed by AOL founder Steve Case, wanted to make a big splash in the national media with the value it brings to the market. Bluetext helped package original research on 401k challenges, and crafted a media rollout strategy that leveraged the research and pitted competing publications for the best coverage. The result– a front-page article in The Washington Post followed by major network coverage and more than 50 separate articles in national and business publications including Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Bluetext is an equal opportunity branding, digital marketing and strategic communications agency – from leaders of global industry to the upstarts that may one day threaten them.
On its 10th anniversary of connecting communicators, Capitol Communicator determined that to continue to grow and be a vibrant part of the Washington, D.C., marketing and communications community, its next 10 years would be built on a new digital strategy and complementing user experience strategy. As a central hub for news, events and information for communicators in the mid-Atlantic, Capitol Communicator wanted a more modern platform.
Capitol Communicator selected Bluetext to partner with for this complete digital overhaul. Bluetext has delivered an enterprise-level WordPress implementation with comprehensive CMS publishing technologies that are integrated to allow Capitol Communicator to get best-in-class SEO, content management and smart, modern design.
Said Paul Duning, publisher of Capitol Communicator, “After a very exhaustive review, Bluetext had the energy, creativity, digital savviness, and firepower to be our new digital partner, and they really delivered. Our community has spoken, and they all love the new site which is helping us further validate that we are taking the brand in the right direction with a new digital platform as the centerpiece.”
Capitol Communicator is dedicated to bringing together the vast spectrum of communications professionals who influence and educate the Mid-Atlantic region and the world by providing news; trends; education; and opportunities for networking, career enhancement, business exchange and showcasing great work, Capitol Communicator serves as a resource to the region’s communications community. Capitol Communicator focuses on building a community that encompasses professions that include public relations, advertising, marketing, media, creative, video, photography, printing, digital and the multitude of other professions that support this region’s multi-billion-dollar communications industry. And, Capitol Communicator is a proud supporter of many organizations that share in their mission of providing professional development to the communications community.
2014 has been a year of amazing changes in the world of marketing, where micro-targeting via social platforms is now mainstream, banner ads are becoming passe, personalized content is in, native and sponsored ads are growing in popularity, video is getting shorter, and a wide range of other evolutionary marketing trends are exploding on the scene–all designed to help companies and organizations identify and reach their customers. And guess what? The sky hasn’t fallen, at least not yet. But looking at 2014 is almost, well, old news. As fast as digital transformation has hit us this year, it will move that much faster next year. So we at Bluetext thought this would be a good time to start looking ahead to 2015. We asked a wide range of senior marketing executives–including technology leaders, information services providers, financial industry start-ups, and even top trade associations–to gaze into their crystal balls and share with us their Big Bet for 2015. We’ve compiled those below, and think you’ll find their insight provocative and challenging.
BET #1. PREDICTIVE MODELING
by NICK PANAYI of CSC Director, Global Brand & Digital Marketing
As we look forward to next year and beyond, I can tell you honestly that the “next big thing” in marketing has never been clearer to me. What I believe will separate good marketers from exceptional ones is the exploding field of predictive intelligence.
We all have abundant data now. And we all have real-time marketing dashboards that act as a high-definition rear-view mirror of our customers’ digital footprints. That’s table stakes. What gets real interesting moving forward is the ability to leverage increasingly powerful predictive modeling tools to peer into the future and optimize your marketing efforts before they even start! Predictive modeling allows you to extract maximum value from the investments you already made in your digital ecosystem and the knowledge you’ve gathered about your customers’ digital body language…..
Read more about Predictive Modeling, and what top executives from organizations such as Georgetown University, NetApp, and others think is in store for 2015 by registering below.
In the ever changing world of digital marketing the phrases we hear from our clients more and more are around the “Customer Journey” and achieving pinnacle SEO success for their brands.
In order to address this lets first break down the two ingredients:
Search Engine Optimization Best Practices:
- Define Your Target Audience and Their Needs
- Categorize Keyword Research
- Find Gaps and Opportunities
- Define Competitors
- Learn From Your Competitors
- Customize an SEO Strategy & Recommendations
- Create must-have SEO Recommendations
- Prioritize and summarize
Customer Journey Best Practices:
These are five points any company contemplating, planning, or already undertaking a customer journey initiative should consider:
- Define the Behavioral Stages
- Align Customer Goals with the Stages
- Plot Out The Touch Points
- Determine If Your Customers Are Achieving Their Goals
- Create Recommendations for Change
Now that you have your SEO and Customer Journey Best Practices in place, here is your roadmap to creating an SEO Customer Journey:
1) Create your own customer journey map.
2) On your map, identify the specific points at which a user is conducting one of the three types of search queries (navigational, transactional, or informational).
3) Make a list of keywords/queries for each point in the customer journey that involves a specific query type.
4) Connect each keyword to a specific method of SEO strategy.
Now, take those keywords and plug them into your SEO strategy. How? Let’s take one keyword from the above example — “how much storage can I afford?” Here’s what you might do:
1) Create a page on the website
2) Page title: “How much storage can I afford? | Storage Planning”
3) H1: “How much storage can my business afford?”
4) Article: Discuss answers to this question in the article, and provide a clear Call to Action (CTA) at the end.
5) Create a series of four evergreen blog articles that deal with this question. Use this keyword and any long tail variations of ”how much storage can I afford?”
6) Create an infographic that answers the question “”how much storage can I afford?”
7) Interview several experts on storage affordability, and post a video series on YouTube.
Today CSC launched the 2.0 version of its Digital Briefing Center. CSC’s Digital Briefing Center is where customers, partners and prospects from across the globe can come to learn more about the key technology conversations and shifts CSC is driving into the market.
The center is driven with immersive 3D video technology that is completely interactive through html 5 overlays throughout the user journey.
Following launch, Bluetext’s collaborative creation with CSC’s Digital Marketing team became the top performing component of the csc.com global web presence, a huge feat for a Fortune 500 corporation.
Version 2.0 features new capabilities spanning:
- Multi-floor scalability
- Triple screen experience
- Dynamic social media integration
- Triggered infographic visualizations synched with briefing videos
- Chaptered video interactivity
The following video of CSC’s head of global brand and digital marketing talks about this project:
Contact us to learn about how we create innovate digital experiences for brands like yours.