When it comes to reaching and selling to government agency decision-makers, a colleague of mine often smartly reminds our clients and prospects of the following: there is no “government.” By that, he means there isn’t this single, monolithic entity you can build B2G PR and B2G Marketing campaigns around.
It is far more nuanced; not only between DoD, civilian, homeland security, intelligence, federal, state, and local but often down to specific agencies. Or in the case of DoD, specific Bases, Programs, and Offices you may want to reach, such as The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), Project Convergence 21, Army Futures Command, DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), StateRAMP and so many others.
The Account-Based Marketing (ABM) approach (which encompasses Account-Based PR as well) has been around for decades – often a core concept for B2B enterprises to leverage data on a prospect’s specific needs and priorities that they can then build highly customized lead generation campaigns around. ABM and ABPR are also relevant for government contractors, Federal IT providers, and others selling to the “government”, because as we noted each stakeholder target is driven by different needs and priorities.
In my last blog post I looked at B2G PR and Marketing strategies for government contractors involved in M&A activity. Today’s post is more broadly geared towards organizations looking to develop a highly targeted B2G Account-Based PR strategy to effectively reach, influence, and sell to specific government stakeholders.
Before embarking on this effort, consider these 6 strategies:
Tailor efforts to government acquisition cycle.
Sounds basic, but when you are working backward to build out a multi-month strategy it matters. If you build a PR campaign that starts too late (or early) you will not be hitting decision-makers at the optimal time when they are primed to be thinking about buying new products and technologies.
You know the Federal fiscal year by heart (Oct. 1 – Sept. 30), and that State fiscal years vary slightly state-to-state but most run July 1st-June 30th). Recognizing that agency decision-makers will cycle through various stages of the buyer’s journey during these months, PR programs should tailor content and PR efforts to align with that calendar. Depending on how well known your brand is to the decision-maker(s) you want to reach, winter and spring may be better suited to awareness and education campaigns. Thought leadership in the form of speaking, byline articles, ads, and sponsored content can start the process of making your brand more present to relevant audiences. As summer approaches the buyer mindset shifts more to decision mode, so pushing PR efforts further down the funnel can mean case studies, webinars, white papers, and lead gen paid social campaigns speaking to highly specific target pain points and solution benefits make more sense. PR during this time should also call out clear differentiators relative to competitors. As September approaches and agencies accelerate buying, PR can be utilized to really hone in on specific individuals to make sure they have the full brand and solution story.
Account for contract vehicle structure
Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ), GSA Schedules, Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), BPAs, Small Business Set-Asides and, well you get the picture. There is no shortage of contract vehicles that a B2G organization is pursuing at any given time. Each vehicle has its own requirements, which means that decision-makers may be looking for different messages. For a single-award IDIQ, you may need to center PR activity around your own capabilities and ability to deliver as a single vendor. For other vehicles, PR needs to account for the strengths of multiple vendors. Each account or agency-based PR campaign should account for contract vehicles if your efforts are specific to one vehicle.
Approach B2G PR as you would advertising
PR and advertising are not the same. But they share commonalities when it comes to effective campaigns. For one, you can’t just hit agency decision-makers once or twice and expect those efforts to be sufficient to make an impact that lasts weeks or months through the buyer’s journey.
Like advertising, repetition matters. Unless it is the Super Bowl, brands don’t just buy a single ad and then return to regularly scheduled programming. For B2G, you have to not only hit prospects over time but do it through multiple channels. If you are targeting a specific Army base, a PR campaign can develop messaging and content around specific programs at that location. These efforts can be buffeted by paid media campaigns that are geo-targeted around the base locations.
Finally, despite COVID-19 and expanded remote work, your buyer is likely to still be commuting to and from government offices, bases, or facilities at least part of the time. Beyond reaching decision-makers through earned and paid media, consider Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising on billboards, transportation, and public transportation in the early brand awareness phases of your ABPR campaigns. The diversity of channels you can push messages across – in addition to the frequency – is a powerful combination if correctly targeted.
Participate, differentiate, dominate
If you are a well-known commodity within the public sector great, PR to support contract pursuits won’t require a lot of focus on establishing brand credibility. But there are thousands of firms selling to the government, and even if one agency or DoD unit knows you, others may not. Or they may know you for some products and services but not others.
The point is, securing inclusion in articles in government publications about trends and challenges of interest to agency decision-makers can be critical. So if you are a lesser-known brand, step one is to participate: start participating in conversations even if it is alongside competitors. “No one gets fired for buying Microsoft” is an enduring adage, but if your brand is listed alongside larger competitors and multi-billion dollar government contractors, it can raise brand credibility. Then, once you start participating in media articles, there is an opportunity to differentiate your technology from competitors. What makes you different? How are you better positioned to enable mission success? Finally, you can start dominating conversations, driving the conversation as a market thought leader and innovator.
Tailor PR content for top-down and bottom-up approaches
The straightest line to securing government contracts often leads to the senior-level leadership involved in direct buy-in for vendor products and services. But depending on what you are selling, bottoms-up PR and content development can have value. Think about the ultimate users for services like DevOps, technical audiences that can get exposed to your brand and capabilities. If a team of developers or developer managers pushes senior leadership to evaluate your solution that will carry significant weight.
As you develop a PR and content strategy, consider the level of content to reach varying audience levels. Technical content that resonates with product/technology users won’t have the same impact with senior leaders more focused on mission success and doing more with less.
Get creative
Account-based PR for B2G has been upended by COVID-19. In-person conferences, events, and demo days that offered an opportunity to reach agency decision-makers directly pre-COVID are gone and will be slow to return in full force. At the same time, large chunks of the sales process have shifted from physical to digital.
B2G firms that have succeeded over the past year stayed nimble and creative in reaching these audiences. Some are evaluating and deploying Digital Briefing Centers as a way to surround prospects with thought leadership, rich content, and interactive UX and recreate the in-person premium briefing experience lost during the pandemic. Elevating your brand and solutions above the crowd is always a challenge, even more so in a digital world where the barriers to entry drop dramatically.
If you are a B2G brand interested in exploring integrated PR and marketing campaigns that target specific government agencies, programs, or decision-makers, give Bluetext a holler as we’d love to chat.
Developing an effective Business to Government (B2G) marketing strategy to reach decision-makers in the public sector requires a handful of marketing tactics, perhaps the most impactful of which is a well-founded public relations program. However, before diving headfirst into a multi-faceted digital marketing campaign, it is critical to recognize that government agencies have many different challenges than private-sector organizations, and therefore doing business with these agencies requires a much more tailored approach.
Many government agencies, especially at the state and local level, work in silos — meaning that it is often difficult for these agencies to get the technology, resources and expertise they need to efficiently serve their citizens. One recent survey found that more than 80% of U.S. government officials feel their agency is technologically behind where it needs to be in order to handle the new challenges it faces.
In order to effectively engage federal, state, and/or local government agencies, businesses must first understand the perspectives and challenges those entities face and where to best reach them. Once you’ve gotten a grasp on the barriers and challenges agencies face in working with you, you can begin to build out a content strategy that addresses those challenges and helps you get a foot in the door. Luckily, experienced PR agencies are well-versed in how to help cultivate messaging that will resonate with both government-oriented media outlets as well as the decision-makers themselves.
Target content at agency decision-makers
In order to speak the language of government decision-makers, contractors need to develop content that speaks directly to agency decision-maker pain-points. Government agency contractors must also understand that government decision-makers are driven by different motivators than in an enterprise environment.
Everything does not necessarily revolve around profits for them, therefore content must speak to decision-makers’ primary pain points. Messages that pivot away from the bottom-line, and refocus on unique challenges of the targeted government agencies will earn attention. Timing is also critical — organizations must hit decision-makers at the right time in the procurement process with content and knowledge that stands out in what is a very commoditized market where government-contractor and tech company messaging all seem to blur together.
Establish expertise in your market category
Understanding your organization’s existing and aspirational market footprint is the first step in carving out a niche that you can own as a thought leader. For example, there are countless cybersecurity vendors in the public sector, all of which sell a variety of security solutions that promise relatively similar results e.g. “visibility, detection, the response against evolving threats.” To gain real traction as a thought leader in the public sector, you must drill down into your specific two to three areas of expertise.
Once you’ve laser-focused on the arena in which you’re planning to own, a PR team of consultants can help you build out an editorial calendar of topics and discussions you want to participate in to align your content with quarterly and annual sales goals. This process of self-vetting and prioritizing will result in an organized and unified message about your company and its areas of knowledge when featured in editorial and published content.
Identify and prioritize your future-oriented solutions
Many organizations in the B2G marketplace make the mistake of getting stuck in the ruts in which they have always operated. They may have one or two solutions that sell well to their target audiences, so they become complacent in innovating new product lines or messaging.
For example, in the 1960s and 70s tech-giant, IBM’s top-grossing product was a typewriter. It may have seemed safe at the time to streamline their operations and prioritize their top-grossing product as opposed to developing and pitching new products and technologies to their customers. With the benefit of time we now realize that typewriters were soon made obsolete by keyboard computers, meaning that if IBM would have centered its business model around typewriters, they would not be the tech giant with a global footprint they have today.
All this goes to say, it is imperative that businesses selling to government agencies consider that their top-grossing products may soon be eclipsed by newer, faster, stronger, and more advanced solutions. Keeping an eye and ear toward future government agency needs will help organizations stay on the cutting edge of tech demands in government. Cultivating relevant, thought-provoking content that stands out to public sector decision-makers is one of the primary in-roads to conducting business with the government. If you want to learn more about how we have driven successful B2G content programs through PR and digital campaigns, get in touch with Bluetext.
Amidst all of the business uncertainty in 2020 due to COVID-19, one area that remained relatively stable was a healthy volume of M&A activity for government contractors and government IT service providers.
You would be hard-pressed to find a tech PR and marketing agency that has helped to support the number of successful M&A events in the public sector space as Bluetext. It’s a big reason government contractors and Federal IT providers – along with private equity firms – turn to us to develop B2G PR campaigns that are designed for this very purpose. Thirty-four times in fact, Bluetext clients have been acquired within 24 months of an engagement with our agency.
I recently put together an op-ed for Washington Technology with 5 key PR strategies for B2G firms to consider before, during, and after an M&A transaction event. You can find the article here.
To learn more about our work with B2G clients in the M&A arena and how we may be able to help you achieve your own M&A goals, contact us today.
A fantastical idea, a powerful pitch, and energetic enthusiasm from all sides of SonicWall stakeholders. Only one task remaining: execution of the over the top Boundless Campaign.
SonicWall came to Bluetext with one main objective: bring their Boundless Cybersecurity campaign to life. As such, the SonicWall team needed creative assistance in bringing the campaign visuals up to par with their brand value. The Bluetext team was asked an age-old question of B2B companies, “How can we make this campaign memorable?”
Especially in the saturated cybersecurity market, it can be challenging to differentiate from strong competitors and help visual abstract brand promises. So the Bluetext team presented a thought-provoking approach to the campaign’s new creative and campaign taglines.
“When cyber threats are limitless, your defenses must be Boundless.” Break free with SonicWall Boundless Cybersecurity.
To communicate and contextualize this message, Bluetext presented a creative direction that would showcase the end-user in a gravity-free surrealist state, which literally breaks free of the constraint of cyber threat. The creative would be scaled across main industry verticals in order to personalize and target advertisements. The idea was over the top, innovative, and ambitious but well-received with client buy-in. Next came the challenge of execution, which was overcome using a custom photoshoot complete with realistic costumes, props, and even a trampoline. In order to achieve the effect of floating in an anti-gravity state, professional ballet dancers were hired to jump on the trampolines. Photographers captured the dancers posing mid-air, then flipped the photo 180°.
Once the in action shots were captured, the images were edited to remove the backgrounds and impose on industry-specific scenes. Related props were also imposed onto background images to make the scene appear as if person and objects had been magically released from the pull of gravity while the world remains grounded around them.
At the time of the new Homepage and campaign landing page launch, these static images truly came to life with a subtle parallaxing effect.
To drive users to these newly premiered pages, SonicWall needed eye-catching advertisements that viewers would — no pun intended — gravitate to. Bluetext designed a variety of verticalized static banner ads and further animations to drive page traffic.
Transitioning a company that specializes in a product or service from working in the private sector to one that wins government contracts is no easy task. Negotiations can take months as organizations have to jump through a plethora of hoops to get contracts and budgets approved. Governments also favor companies with whom they’ve worked before or who have had experience operating as a government contractor in the past.
This begs the question — how does a company, perhaps one who doesn’t have as much experience working in the public sector, catch their attention and earn a place at the table? The answer is Content Marketing. You, as a government contractor, can offset your inexperience in the government contract realm via content production. This content can range from blogs to white papers; from videos to infographics; anything and everything that demonstrates your expertise in a given subject and gives you the upper hand over your competition. Most contracting officers, when looking for the right company to reward a contract to, will conduct research, looking at different options with three main criteria in mind: risk mitigation, brand reputation, and visibility.
Getting noticed by contracting officers doesn’t happen overnight, however. Building brand awareness and gaining reputation takes time and effort, and the content you produce must be created with the contracting officer in mind. Knowing who those specific agencies are that you’re targeting and specializing your content for them can set you on the right path from the outset and get you closer to winning those highly coveted government contracts.
Risk Mitigation
When a government agency decides to partner with a new government contractor, the biggest concern they have is mitigating the risk of working with a new partner. Their main goal is to get their contract fulfilled promptly without going over budget. Risk is usually mitigated by choosing to work with a partner they’ve previously worked with, or by working with someone who has a reputation for doing good work on government contracts. If you don’t necessarily have the experience of working in the public sector, you can mitigate as much risk as possible by proving to the client, through content that you produce and they are exposed to, that you have the expertise to handle the work and that you’re able to fulfill the contract and meet the government agency’s demands.
Brand Reputation
Ensuring that your company’s brand is being communicated to your desired audience in the way that you want is crucial when looking to attract government contracts. Although you should not aim to win every contract that comes along, you can set yourself up to showcase your abilities in the shop window using content on your website to prove your worth and show that you do have what it takes to work with government agencies and provide them with the products or services they require. Believe in yourself, your company, and your brand to get the job done, and make it known that you are the go-to company in your field. Create content that showcases your work in the commercial industry and educates readers on how that same success can translate to the public sector.
Visibility
To prove your reputation, you must be visible to your potential clients. You may have the best product or service in the business, but if you don’t have an active presence online, and you’re not showcasing your expertise, it’s not going to get you anywhere. Creating content on your site and sharing it through your social media channels can have a remarkable effect on your brand’s visibility. Sharing news and blog posts to your email subscribers build your brand awareness and attract potential new clients. Do everything and anything to increase the visibility of your brand and drive contracting officers to your site and to the content that you’ve created to show off your products and services.
Bluetext: your leading government contractor branding agency
That’s where Bluetext comes in. With years of experience working with government contractors, Bluetext is your one-stop-shop branding agency for content production. When NetApp, a cloud data services and data management company, had grown its offerings within the market, they turned to Bluetext to partner with and help inform public sector decision makers of the capabilities of their new solutions. Bluetext helped NetApp develop news stories, authored by NetApp experts, to key publications that both educate readers and inform decisions. Through our combined work, we helped position NetApp as a recognized thought leader within the government space.
Content production for experienced government contractors
Bluetext also has a background of working with large, experienced, well-known government contractors. Take our work with ManTech, for example. ManTech is a multibillion dollar public company that provides subcontracted technological services to the government. We partnered with them to produce a series of branded videos for their new website, highlighting their capabilities in one cohesive and powerful story.
Showcasing your abilities to government agencies
Cisco turned to Bluetext when they were looking for help showcasing how their solutions directly address the global networking requirements for the U.S. Federal Government’s integrated intelligence and operations functions. We worked with them to develop a visually appealing storygraphic, which included an interactive wheel to demonstrate the integration and impact of Cisco’s solutions across air, land, and sea to help the government achieve end-to-end mission success.
From veteran-owned SMB to big-time government contractor
One of our more recent projects involved Invictus, a cyber and national security firm, who turned to Bluetext to embark on their next mission: grow from a veteran-owned small business to full-service government contractor. Not only did we update their logo, reimagine their corporate visual identity, and design a modern website, we also created a corporate video that showed their clients exactly who they are, what they stand for, and what they can do for them.
Proving expertise through content
Showing potential end-users proof that your company possesses the grit, determination, and expertise to successfully execute contracts is vital for any company that wants to win government contracts. Expertise is often shown through experience; however, experience can be supplemented with relevant and actionable content on your website. If you can prove that you know the subject matter, agencies will treat you like a veteran government contractor and have faith in you to carry out their contracts. Partnering with a branding firm like Bluetext, who has the experience and expertise in working with government contractors both large and small, can help you achieve your goal of getting your company’s name on the shortlist for that government contract.
To view more of our work with government contractors and how we can partner with you, visit our website today.
B2G public relations is a difficult challenge under the best of circumstances. Both technology companies for which the government is an important vertical and those that are solely focused on government agencies struggle to find customers who are willing or able to participate in media outreach on behalf of their vendor. In many cases, the programs themselves may be confidential or classified, while in other situations, program officials are reluctant to be seen as endorsing a specific contractor.
At Bluetext, we’ve found B2G public relations workarounds for our clients who sell to agencies at the Federal, state, and local level: Talk about the government customer as a hero and innovator rather than pitching a story about the contractor’s solution. While agencies might not want to talk publicly about a contractor’s software or cybersecurity platform, they are much more willing to talk about how their own team members have found innovative ways to solve agency problems.
This was exactly the challenge – and solution – Google’s public sector team was facing when it wanted to broaden its base of federal, state, and local business. Bluetext created a comprehensive “Gov Transformers” program that identified program managers at all levels across the United States who were solving technology and program problems with state-of-the-art technologies, “transforming” the way their agencies were doing business.
Our first step was to design a series of promotional “cards” that could be both physical for trade shows and digital for online marketing campaigns. Each card displayed a provocative statement on the front and included a stylized image of the individual on the back together with a description of the challenge and solution. The stylized image was a visual treatment that rendered photographs into a similar type to attract attention and – more importantly – to “standardize” the images in order to compensate for different cameras and quality of each image.
The next step in our approach was to create a microsite repository of customer “hero” stories in the form of a lead-generating campaign with several interactive features. Each case study was tagged by type of solution and location so that searching was easy and intuitive. We sent our professional photographers to capture each individual with a more formal approach and made those images the homepage of the website:
The website was not only used for driving leads among government customers, but it was also pushed out to media as a bank of customer case studies that were packaged together and ready to go. The Gov Transformers campaign achieved several important goals. First, it presented a way to get the Google technology story out without violating any restrictions. Second, it made the government customers feel proud about they had achieved, and gave them the recognition they most often never get. And third, it built up a bank of media-ready customer case studies to power B2G public relations activities.
Learn how Bluetext can help you leverage your B2G Public Relations Program.
Government marketing, whether to the federal government or to state and local agencies, poses a whole set of challenges for brands and organizations not familiar with the government sector.
One of the immediate and most apparent challenges is that the customers of a government contractor are wide-ranging and not easily defined, including Federal, state and local decision-makers responsible for purchasing technology products and services. It’s a discrete set of decision-makers – with job titles ranging from CIOs and CTOs to program managers, IT managers and procurement officers – that offer limited channels through which they can be reached. These government customers have firm sets of rules about how they can interact with contractors that make marketing even that much more challenging.
Government customers have mission requirements and set budgets, so the traditional return-on-investment messaging that works well in the commercial enterprise space may not resonate at all with government agencies. Buying cycles are long, procurement requirements extensive, and budgeting is uneven. But the rewards can be great, with a steady stream of revenue lasting years. That’s what makes government marketing both challenging and rewarding when it is successful.
It is these challenges that have led us to issue the following guidance for navigating this often bureaucratic and rarely straightforward environment with tips for marketing to government entities. Here are Bluetext’s top tips for reaching this audience:
Focus on agency needs, not yourself
This is a well-founded marketing principle, but particularly in the government contracting sphere. It is critical that marketers focus on the issues that government agencies face rather than trying to impress potential customers with their own solutions. This means identifying an agency’s particular challenges and crafting your communications to let the government stakeholders know you understand their issues and how you can help solve them.
Highlight previous successes across industries
While demonstrating your fluency in the public sector to a potential customer is critical in winning any government contract, do not be afraid to illustrate successes that are not government-specific. Bringing new and diverse ideas to the government landscape is a big selling point for these customers, as they look to effectively achieve their missions in new and creative ways.
Reach decision makers through compelling digital experiences
Many government decision-makers crave information that stands out in a world of monotonous white papers and unfounded promises of “unprecedented innovation.” We recommend investing in government-focused micro-sites or landing pages with messaging that appeals to the government customers rather than the commercial audience.
Identify specific contracts and targets
Micro-targeting your marketing tactics to specific government verticals, agencies or even decision-makers can make the difference in winning a potential contract. By tailoring your messaging and problem identification to the agency that is soliciting bids, your proposal will recognize the user needs and therefore become increasingly attractive to the buyer.
Government marketing is unlike any other in terms of identifying audiences and influencers, in addition to the lengthy timeline of buying cycles from initial engagement to execution. However if properly packaged, the benefits of winning what are often multi-million dollar contracts can provide contractors years of monetary security as well as the opportunity to assist in solving the nation’s toughest challenges. But it takes the right marketing – and messaging – to reach the government audience.
Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of your government marketing strategy.
If you’re a brand that sells and markets to the Federal agencies, the floodgates are about to open. Because of the Appropriations bill that was signed into law earlier this year, Federal agencies have $140 billion more than they thought they would before the legislation was agreed to. That’s funding that agencies need to spend before September 30th, the end of the Federal fiscal year. That’s an additional $80 billion for defense and $63 billion for civilian agencies. Those funds are “use-it-or-lose-it”- whatever they don’t spend goes back to the Treasury.
As a result, as Professional Services Council (the trade association that represents Federal contractors) President David Berteau recently told NextGov.com, “(i)f agencies are going to spend the extra money in fiscal 2018, it’s going to have to be at a much higher percentage in the fourth quarter than it has been historically.”
According to NextGov, “only two of the 10 largest federal agencies have managed to spend 70 percent of their projected discretionary budgets by the beginning of the fourth quarter.” Analysts believe the Federal market will see a mad scramble by procurement officials to spend as much on contracts as possible.
This influx of money is both an opportunity and a challenge for companies that see the Federal marketplace as a key vertical market. The opportunity is to present their solutions that can help solve agency problems and help government executives meet their mission requirements and make some key sales before the end of the year.
The challenge is finding the right marketing mix and messaging to get in front of government decision-makers quickly, before the fiscal clock runs out. Here are our recommendations for getting your brand message out to Federal agencies before the end-of-year deadline:
- Federalize the Message. Remember, Federal officials think differently – and react differently – than commercial clients. Because agencies have fixed budgets, ROI (return on investment) is less important. Government officials have mission requirements to meet and want solutions that will achieve those.
- Fit In. Government officials don’t want to see campaigns that aren’t relevant to their needs. Nor do they react to campaigns that don’t look like them. Don’t simply recycle commercial marketing materials – develop new campaigns that look and feel like government solutions.
- Speak Directly to Government Executives. Create a government-targeted landing page that is easy for them to find on your home page. Otherwise, they won’t spend much time hunting around hoping to find marketing materials that talk about their challenges and mission requirements.
- Market to the Whole Audience. It’s easy to think that there are only a handful of Federal officials involved in purchasing decisions. While that might technically be true for the final decision, there are lots of people involved throughout the process. These include top officials who set the policy and goals, program directors who have to implement those policies, project managers who run the actual programs, researchers who might be tasked with exploring options and evaluating choices, and procurement officials who make sure the entire process is followed to the exact letters of the Federal Acquisition Regulations. Make sure your marketing appeals to every step of the process, and every part of the sales funnel.
Need Help Marketing to the Federal Government? Bluetext Can Help.
The Federal government Buying Season is right around the corner. That means that any company that has the technology to help government agencies meet their mission requirements needs to start getting in front of those buyers quickly. The Federal Buying Season begins in August and runs through September as agency procurement officers will make their final selections to meet end-of-year spending requirements. With the government, allocated funds are often “use-it-or-lose-it,’ meaning they won’t carry on through the next fiscal year. Anything unspent becomes out-of-reach.
For government contractors and global brands who consider the agencies a key vertical, putting in place a comprehensive marketing campaign to reach these decision makers starts now. As we pointed out in our previous post, government agencies respond differently than commercial markets. For their Buying Season, they have mission requirements to meet and are looking for the best solutions that will help them do that. That’s why a marketing campaign needs to speak their language and not simply rely on the same campaigns targeted to the commercial sector.
Here are some of the key elements to consider when designing your Federal Buying Season marketing campaign:
- Start with Messaging. As we noted in our previous post, messaging targeted towards the needs of the government buyer is critical. Make sure that messaging talks to their pain points, their mission requirements, and the past experience you have in the market. Those are the three top components that this audience needs to see.
- The Creative Needs to Match the Market. Cutesy, humorous, out-of-the-box campaigns are ok, but within limits. Stay away from the controversial, but adding a little humor can be effective. We recently did a campaign for Intel that included a guy wearing pajamas on the bottom with a suit on top to demonstrate how its technology helps Federal telecommuters. It was clever, cute, and got people thinking while keeping far away from anything offensive.
- Go Directly After the Market. Programmatic campaigns, relying on sophisticated email workflows and paid banner and social media can be effective for driving leads if done in a way reaches those audiences in an intelligent way. Bluetext has had significant, measurable success with well-constructed campaigns targeted at government decision-makers and buyers.
- Coverage in Government Publications Gives Air Cover. A strong media relations component of the campaign can provide thought leadership, wide exposure, and air cover for the sales team. Many government tech trades are happy to publish submitted bylines from industry experts provided that they explore market needs and trends, and are not simply marketing pieces disguised as a news article.
- Drive Time is Prime Time. In the D.C. region – the home to most of the nation’s Federal executives – commuting is a fact of life. That means a captive audience twice a day every day during morning and evening rush hours. We are big believers in radio spots as well as broadcast interviews to reach this audience when they are most receptive.
- Leverage All of Your Company Assets. Every company has a number of Members of Congress that represent their employees. Turn these legislators into advocates for your brand. They can help open doors across the government.
Learn how Bluetext can help your brand with a successful Buying Season campaign.
Technology and defense companies who include the public sector as an important market view mid-summer as their time to get busy. For marketing to the Federal government, whose fiscal year begins October 1, we call this the “buying season,” because in August and September agency procurement officers will make their final selections to meet end-of-year requirements. With the government, allocated funds are often “use-it-or-lose-it,’ meaning they won’t carry on through the next fiscal year. Anything unspent becomes out-of-reach.
That’s why a sound marketing strategy tailored specifically to the Federal agencies is so important starting after the July 4th holiday. Giving program managers and those in procurement your best effort to select your products or solutions for their purchasing decisions is essential during these next several months. Here are our top tips for marketing to the Federal agencies during the Buying Season:
- Federalize the Message. Big brands who sell to many different sectors often don’t have the in-house knowledge or expertise to deliver a message to Federal agencies that will resonate with their decision-makers, instead simply repurposing marketing and messaging developed for the commercial markets. Big mistake. Federal officials think differently – and react differently – than commercial clients. Because agencies have fixed budgets, ROI (return on investment) is less important. Yes, budgets can be tight and the best value is important. But that’s a little different than ROI. Government officials have mission requirements to meet and want solutions that will achieve those. Telling them how your product will do that will have a far greater impact than how much money they can save.
- Look Like You Belong. Government officials don’t want to see campaigns that aren’t relevant to their needs. Nor do they react to campaigns that don’t look like them. My favorite mistake that I see all the time is campaigns that use stock images of executives in ultra-modern glass office high-rises. That’s not what government offices look like, and it’s hard to see the connection.
- Make Them Feel Like They Belong. Create a government-targeted landing page that is easy for them to find on your home page. Otherwise, they won’t spend much time hunting around hoping to find marketing materials that talk about their challenges and mission requirements. Use images and color palettes that fit in but also leverage accent colors to stand out. But… give the Feds some credit. They won’t jump at a jet fighter unless there is something about that jet that means something to them. Find the right images, not just ones that you think look patriotic.
- It’s a Big Audience With Lots of Input. It’s easy to think that there are only a handful of Federal officials involved in purchasing decisions. While that might technically be true for the final decision, there are lots of people involved throughout the process. These include top officials who set the policy and goals, program directors who have to implement those policies, project managers who run the actual programs, researchers who might be tasked with exploring options and evaluating choices, and procurement officials who make sure the entire process is followed to the exact letters of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (the voluminous procurement Bible that includes all of the complicated purchasing rules). Make sure your marketing appeals to every step of the process, and every part of the sales funnel.