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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

Need Help Marketing to the Federal Government? Bluetext Can Help. 

What’s in a name? Perception.

For federal contractors, your brand is likely delivering an undersized impression. Find out how we help GovCon stand out in D.C. and play a full-sized federal marketing game in a series brought to you by Bluetext & Baird.

Is your brand name down-sizing your federal market presence?

Your company’s name is its ultimate first impression.

As it turns out, who you say you say a lot about who people think you are.

After all, which brand is more intriguing? Aegis Solutions, a company with an arcane, hard-to-spell or pronounce name or Blue Halo? A slightly dated Quantitech or Axient?

In the competitive pool of hundreds of thousands of federal contractors, your name is your first opportunity to stand out from the crowd. Early on, it’s an opportunity most companies miss, settling for a bland description of the company or an assortment of initials. 

They’re conventions so familiar, they simply make your business feel smaller than it is. If you have a name like any other business, you’ll be perceived like any other business.

And while brands themselves do not win or lose work, or attract investment or employees, they certainly make all three easier or harder.

Why You Should Consider Rebranding

A corporate brand is the professional veneer that creates interest, conveys excitement, and sets you apart as something different, something special. As a growing company, it is among the best investments you can make for brand perception.

It lets you play bigger. 

Brand to be the company you want. The names that are initialisms, descriptions, or dated names (say, as a general rule, anything with ‘Net’ as a suffix or ‘e’ as a prefix.) make companies seem like an also-ran.  They generate less brand equity as the names themselves are simply forgettable. Any three letters will mostly sound like any other. An IT Solutions Company and an Agile Technologies Incorporated do little to stand out from the thousands of other companies selling a concept as broad as “IT” or who have agility in their win themes. 

Break free from the convention. What sounds bigger? Integrity Applications Incorporated or Centauri?

It sets a feel for your company like nothing else. 

Bland descriptions and initialisms simply create the stuffy feel of an also-ran federal contractor, of rows of dingy cubicles and coffee-stained cost volumes. Bold names start your brand story with the feeling you choose. Be bold and expeditionary like TorchLight or approachable and expert like Tria. Brand for excellence with Stellant. Lead the feeling you want to convey, the sense of what it’s like to work with you, not a description of who you are.

Employees, customers, and teammates all make snap decisions.

As a federal contractor, you are one of many. And while a brand itself may never win or lose your business, it will help your impression and inclusion into downselects. It’s not just customers, either. It’s the teammates who will be intrigued by your brand story, the candidates who will have their corporate name as a part of their identity, and the full ecosystem of your programs who will see it on lanyards, PowerPoints, and desk toys. Your brand may be forgotten if you do it wrong, but it will never be anonymous. Work with a name that starts your brand conversation on your terms.

How to Choose a Brand Name

With the size of the competitive landscape, choosing a brand name is never as simple as picking a word you like. Which is fine. Competition forces us to think harder, to find more compelling ways into our brand story.

Focused sells in branding too. Pick a name that leads into your brand story and doesn’t obscure your high value work.

Pick a Name That Intrigues

Above all, start with a name that draws an eyebrow raise. Maybe it’s a creative spelling or a combination of two words that aren’t typically used together. Perhaps it’s a word that borrows on a literary allusion or combines roots from Greek or Latin to create a new word with a good brand story. Whatever you choose, be sure it catches your attention. As an exercise, take your potential name and put it in a list of awardees for a recent ID/IQ. See if catches your eye.

Pick a Name That Leads Into Your Brand Story

But don’t tell your full brand story. Limiting yourself by capability or even category can cause problems down the road. Moreover, it can be marketing thought-ender. As marketers, we thrive on the tension created by wanting to know the rest of the story. Pick a name that begins to tell the story but doesn’t complete the idea. Blue Halo tells a story that relates to its protective capabilities in space and air.

After all, marketing is a practice of creating demand, not providing all the answers. 

Spelling or Pronunciation: Choose At Least One

While the largest federal contractor in existence breaks this one, as a general rule, get creative, not complex. Be sure your name is either easy to pronounce when you see it or easy to spell when you hear it. Otherwise, you’re asking a lot of those you want to reach … and you.  And if we opt for creative spelling at Bluetext, we stick to a one-change limit per brand name.  

Avoid Dated or Extraneous Additions

Brand names, like fashion and music, are constantly changing. Companies now with -Net extensions sound like remnants of the late 90s. We’ve avoided Cyber in names as it is likely headed for a similar fate as the practice of “cybersecurity” is just as wide as “information technology” is now. Extraneous modifiers (Services, solutions, group, or the most bothersome, Incorporated), which often are added to appease the trademark lawyers, just ask potential customers and employees to remember more to build brand equity. Focus on your brand name as much as possible.

Pick What You Love, Not What You Dislike the Least

There is nothing inevitable about a brand. There is no inherent magic in the name Facebook that the name MySpace didn’t also provide. Brands are what you make of them. For every brand, there is an objection to it. Sony was once a made-up word, Nike once an obscure allusion, and Apple a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Find something you love and build around it aggressively.

Because what you’re called will define you like nothing else.

“Baird’s Government & Defense team is a leading M&A advisor to the sector. Since 2018, we closed 64 transactions totaling over 23 billion in value.”

About Bluetext Bluetext provides integrated communications services designed to help clients connect with key audiences, reach new communities, enhance their brand and protect their reputation.  With deep expertise leveraging many diverse marketing strategies, we utilize every channel to attack the most critical challenges facing our clients.  From repairing damaged reputations to connecting with key government decision-makers to driving product demand, our clients know that the team at Bluetext will help them achieve their goals with measurable results every step of the way.

About Baird Baird is a leading global investment bank with more than 400 banking professionals in the U.S., Europe and Asia. We provide corporations, entrepreneurs, private equity and venture capital firms with in-depth market knowledge and extensive experience in merger and acquisition, restructuring, debt advisory and equity financing transactions. Committed to being a great workplace, Baird ranked No. 23 on the 2023 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list – its 20th consecutive year on the list. For more information, please visit Baird’s website at www.rwbaird.com.

Does GovCon need marketing? Or is it really all in the proposal?

Find out how why we think marketing the single most important tool federal contractors have to play big in D.C. and leave small-sized perceptions behind in a series brought to you by Bluetext & Baird.

Is your marketing making your D.C. presence seem smaller than it is?

“Why do we need marketing? Everything that matters is in the proposal.”

While possibly an odd question, it isn’t out of line for the way contractors operate. After all, awards are decided by very specific and very transparent evaluation of proposals, and, not once in a debrief has any evaluator ever said the difference was an incredibly impressive display ad on Washington Technology. 

But it’s exactly the type of thinking why most federal contractors squander their single most important opportunity to step out of the sea of sameness.

Because in government contracting, marketing isn’t just important. It’s absolutely essential.

And most of us are doing it completely wrong.

Why We Get It Wrong

Perhaps the reluctance to embrace marketing is that most contractors do it wrong and don’t understand how to make marketing most effective when marketing to the core audience of federal contractors. The marketing isn’t full cycle and aligned to the pipeline. It’s insular. It’s more customer-following than demand-generating. It’s focused on the safe and the bland, not the intriguing.

And generally speaking, it has all the variety of a Baskin Robbins that’s out of 30 flavors. Everybody is innovative, everybody is a great partner, and everybody solves the most complex challenges of the federal government. Every company is exactly what you’ve asked for in the proposal, whether we’ve actually done it or not and whether we can even find the client site without Google Maps.

Why? Because we market to say we are what the prop says and what we think the government wants repeated back to it.

But there is nothing more valuable than thinking a level deeper than the bromides, thinking not about just how you answer the mail, but what makes you you.

In federal contracting, market to stand out. Not to fit in.

Why Marketing Matters in Government Contracting

By design, federal contracting is a market designed to create commodity. 

The government doesn’t want a single bidder for any services, nor does it explicitly want to disadvantage any competitor. (At least, this is the way the system is designed). As a result, procurements are much longer and more transparent than B2B. Federal contractors all respond to the same RFPs, work with the same labor categories, same general pricing targets and promise to deliver against the same statement of objectives. Contractors talk to the same small handful of people that sit on the evaluation board and we repeat all the post-contact factors.

And this is where marketing matters most. When you get squeezed into commodity and differentiation is all but impossible, distinction matters.

Marketing Is Your Biggest Opportunity Stand Out

“You may have any attributes you like,” the famously rigid Henry Ford might’ve quipped if he marketed contractors rather than made cars, “so long as it’s innovation, partnership, and commitment to mission.” 

Because contractor marketing is often so insular and customer-following, we recite the bromides of the government. Innovation is important. Partnership. Mission above all. These are category factors. Things true of everyone in your category. After all, have you ever seen a company position as proud Luddites, terrible partners or only driven by the SOW? 

So, no matter how much you spend, all you’re doing is telling the market and your own company that you’re just another contractor.

But in marketing, you can be distinct. 

The big tagline. The great brand name. The incredible brand promise. The forward design makes you stand out from the sea of templated design. The customer-focus on what you enable them to do, not the recitation of your biography of more than X years.

In marketing, federal contractors can be distinct, the live musician in a sea of elevator music, even though they’re not differentiated on capability.

Marketing Means You Start Ahead 

Because the first question the evaluation board ponders when a prop is reviewed shouldn’t be ‘who?’ 

Marketing builds an identity, and a feel for your business. If you do it right, it makes you seem larger than you are.  It makes you distinct, so your prop gets read with a positive feeling of your company, not the prove-it-to-me approach to an unknown bidder. 

At least at the current time, evaluation boards are people, not AI. People can be influenced. The small handful of people who will decide awards may control millions or billions, but they’re influenced into buying major programs just as they are peanut butter. Evaluators, like everyone else, are comfortable with the brands they know. Building that relationship starts with building your brand. (And of course, if your marketing is focused on the RFP, you’re already behind the curve. We’ll get further into how to align your marketing to your pipeline and how to influence perception well to the left of the RFP later).

Be the company they want to award, not the company they have to be talked into.

It Creates an Identity for Your Company

It’s not just the government that pays attention to your marketing.

It’s potential investors, too.

Marketing is the most important expression of how you want your company to be perceived. No one will ever consider your company more exciting and impressive than you do. Your marketing should set the highest bounds of how you want to be thought of.

It’s not just for your customers and your teammates. It’s your current and future employees, those invaluable assets that actually do the work for federal contractors. The same ones you are unlikely to be able to pay much more than anyone else bidding for the experience and qualifications, due to the commoditization of labor in federal contracting. Offer them an opportunity to work in something that’s meaningful in a way that doesn’t sound like everyone else. (And if the phrase, “It’s more than a job, it’s a career,” appears on your website, please stop what you’re doing, delete it, and then return.)

It becomes a clear statement of who you are, what you’re trying to achieve, and how they’ll play a part in incredibly big stories. Most employees, particularly those that want to support the government, want to be a small part of a small story. Marketing is where the big story gets defined.

Because in a sea of sameness and industry lifers, the ability to be distinct is the single greatest opportunity any contractor has.

“Baird’s Government & Defense team is a leading M&A advisor to the sector. Since 2018, we closed 64 transactions totaling over 23 billion in value. ”

 

About Bluetext Bluetext provides integrated communications services designed to help clients connect with key audiences, reach new communities, enhance their brand and protect their reputation.  With deep expertise leveraging many diverse marketing strategies, we utilize every channel to attack the most critical challenges facing our clients.  From repairing damaged reputations to connecting with key government decision-makers to driving product demand, our clients know that the team at Bluetext will help them achieve their goals with measurable results every step of the way.

About Baird Baird is a leading global investment bank with more than 400 banking professionals in the U.S., Europe and Asia. We provide corporations, entrepreneurs, private equity and venture capital firms with in-depth market knowledge and extensive experience in merger and acquisition, restructuring, debt advisory and equity financing transactions. Committed to being a great workplace, Baird ranked No. 23 on the 2023 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list – its 20th consecutive year on the list. For more information, please visit Baird’s website at www.rwbaird.com.

If any industry vertical is a prime opportunity for metrics-driven PR, it’s the public sector. Government agencies are a massive opportunity for technology and other companies that can help supply the products, services, and solutions that agencies need on a daily basis. Yet, many brands struggle with how to market to the public sector, especially at the Federal level. How purchasing decisions are made, the way agencies issue contracts and the buying cycles they follow are much different than the commercial sector.

More importantly, the messages that resonate with Federal executives are different. Return on investment, a key marker in the commercial world, isn’t as much of a factor in the public sector. Agencies have fixed budgets; and while they have downward budget pressures, they don’t have to answer to investors or the stock market. Instead, they focus on mission requirements, staying within budget parameters, and meeting legislative and policy mandates. They are risk-averse and look for solutions that will enable them to accomplish their goals without jeopardizing their own careers.

For these reasons, it takes a different approach to public relations to execute an effective campaign that will reach, educate, and motivate government buyers. There are fewer media outlets that cover the vertical, and fewer reporters available as the size of the publications have shrunk. Because of this demanding market, metrics-driven pr in the public sector is essential for implementing a successful media relations program.

One of our clients that has the public sector as one of its key target markets is Cloudera, an industry leader in open-source Hadoop big data solutions for enterprise organizations to leverage the intelligence in their systems. When Cloudera wanted to expand its presence in the Federal market, it turned to Bluetext to design and execute an effective metrics-driven public relations program.

Some of the key elements of the program, in addition to plain old-fashioned nuts and bolts media relations, was to “Federalize” Cloudera’s messages and news. This included:

• Identifying customer advocates early in their relationship to secure customers that would share their results with Cloudera for media relations purpose;
• Identifying Cloudera-specific messages and differentiated angles on news topics;
• Streamlining the pitch review cycle, especially for rapid response; and
• Enlarging the spokesperson bench to establish early on the topics and areas of expertise that each expert could talk to.The results of this program have proven the point that when a sophisticated program is linked to metrics, it has the best chance of achieving the program goals.

Here are some of the results of the program over the previous 12 months:

• 39 stories, surpassing the target goal
• 18 target publications hit, including American City & County, FCW, MeriTalk, The Hill, Federal News Radio, and NextGov
• 7 bylines placed in NASCIO, FCW, GovLoop, American City & County, SIGNAL, Fifth Domain

More importantly, we were able to garner a more than 44 percent Share of Voice in the market against Cloudera’s main competitors.

Need help implementing a metrics-driven PR program in the public sector? See how Bluetext can help.

On Monday, the Trump Administration released its budget plan for the 2019 Government fiscal year. In its introduction, the President writes, “the Budget reflects our commitment to the safety, prosperity, and security of the American people.” (Efficient, Effective, Accountable: An American Budget, Office of Management and Budget, US Government Publishing Office, 2018; 2)

As any Washington insider will tell you, the President’s budget is usually no more than a pipe dream. Congress controls the actual spending of the Government. However, we can discern the priorities and plans of the administration through what it releases in its budgetary approach. So, what can we learn about the priorities of the current administration? What is the impact of those priorities on the Government contracting community?

A Slight Investment in IT Modernization

The budget requests $45.6 billion in civilian federal IT spending. This is a 2% increase over the amount allocated in 2017. Included in this number is $210 million for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), authorized by the Modernizing Government Technology Act last year. According to the budget document, “Modern information technology will function as the backbone of how Government serves the public in ways that meet their expectations and keep sensitive data and systems secure.” (8) The Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and the Census Bureau all see increases in their IT budgets.

For Government contractors, this means there should be ample opportunities to bring new solutions and offerings to agencies across the Government. The passing of a 2-year Federal budget allows the funding of new programs. In addition, the TMF is specifically set up to provide funding for alternative, modern solutions like cloud and shared services. Providers who can focus on these offerings, and new ways of thinking, will find themselves well-positioned for new work.

The Focus on Defense and Border Security

Anyone who has followed the Trump Administration should not be surprised by the requests for the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Homeland Security (DHS). DOD sees a 13% increase in requested funding, or $80 billion, while DHS sees an 8% ($3.4 billion) increase. This request demonstrates the continued focus on “Peace through Strength” and securing America’s borders.

For hardware contractors, the Trump budget represents a massive opportunity for growth. The budget specifically calls out the need for investments in new hardware for all branches of the military, including the procurement of 10 ships and 258 Air Force F-35 fighters during FY 2019. The budget request specifically allocates $1.6 billion for the construction of the much-talked-about border wall, including high-tech solutions. However, the increased funding for DHS includes a $1 billion request for increased cybersecurity efforts across Federal agencies and increased coordination with State, local, and tribal governments. The increased funding for cybersecurity priorities provides another way for IT-focused contractors to gain new work. This could be critical to the survival of mid-sized firms who, continually, face pressures on their very survival.

Decreased Emphasis on International Relations, but Options Remain

As easy as it was to foresee increased funding for DOD and DHS, it was perhaps even easier to predict the hit on American diplomacy. The 26% reduction in the budget for the Department of State (DoS) and US Agency for International Development (USAID) is, rightly, concerning for firms well-connected with those agencies.

Despite the bleak prognosis of this proposed budget, it is important to note two key things. First, it is highly unlikely there is any chance of such draconian cuts to either DoS as a whole or to USAID in particular. There are too many Congressional allies of international aid and diplomacy who will protect those budgets. Secondly, even in the face of such changed priorities, there will continue to be opportunities at both agencies. Both DoS and USAID need continued IT modernization to better meet their modern missions and their reduced overall budget. The budget also continues robust funding of key global health needs. Contractors can find funding and projects if they know where to look.

Conclusion

A Presidential budget is not meant to be the end of the conversation. Instead, it serves as the starting point for negotiations and prioritization of funding. No matter what happens in Congress, it is clear that the Trump Administration continues to change what the Federal Government funds and how the Government Contractor community will react.

Rapid response is a core component of Bluetext’s public relations services. We focus on having messages and media targets teed up when there is an opportunity for our clients to contribute expertise to breaking news events, whether it is a cyber attack, tech policy development, or in this case the horrific wildfires raging across Southern California. As the leading Emergency Mass Notification Services (EMNS) provider, Bluetext positioned client OnSolve’s CEO to speak about the challenge local officials face to alert citizens when wildfires, hurricanes and other natural disasters hit; ways for citizens to stay safe; and innovative new capabilities available through providers like OnSolve. Multiple interviews were arranged for OnSolve, including this live segment with The Weather Channel.

Need help with driving better PR results?  Bluetext can help!

The year was 2014. The new Apple Watch was all the rage; selfies weren’t annoying the bloody hell out of everyone yet; and The Ice Bucket Challenge had everyone soaking themselves for a good cause. It was also the year I examined some of the most innovative B2G marketing and PR strategies that were helping government contractors and IT providers stand out from the crowd and grow their public sector revenues.

This past February, I put together a brief update on B2G digital marketing ideas for 2017, looking at the emergence of B2G virtual reality initiatives, innovative go-to-market campaigns, as well as 3-D interactive experiences for lead generation. But as we approach 2018, the time is right for anyone selling technology products and services to the government to think about what will move the needle in sales, branding and market leadership next year. Yes, white papers, webinars, as well as traditional public relations and advertising all play a valuable role if executed properly, but it requires more to become top-of-mind with government decision makers – and to stay there.

Here are 5 innovative B2G marketing strategies to consider for 2018:

Geo-Fencing

Geo-fencing is location-based digital technology that allows you to select a geographic point using latitude and longitude and then to create a virtual “fence” around that point of a given radius in which your ads can be served up.

For contractors and Federal IT providers, there are multiple ways that geo-fencing can be utilized to reach government decision makers. If you are seeking to do business with a specific agency, you could pinpoint a single DC Metro station in proximity to the agency office, then  deliver a targeted ad to anyone who comes within a 1-block radius of that location. Ads delivered through geo-fencing typically yield higher conversions and better ROI for marketers since they’re highly contextual.

Geo-fencing can also make an impact reaching prospective buyers at key industry and government conferences. Geo-fencing at conferences:

• Uses GPS or Wi-Fi information
• Create a barrier around a location and target everyone within that location
• Usually a tight radius (around an event or storefront)
• Deliver display, audio, video ads or mobile app notifications

Bluetext recently completed a project for client ARQ at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference. The police body cam and digital evidence market is crowded with products that frustrate their users. So when a new player with a better, complete approach wanted to enter the market with a solution far ahead of the competition, it turned to Bluetext for a name, brand, corporate identity and website that would get attention and convey its value to law enforcement agencies. For the official launch, Bluetext executed a sophisticated outreach campaign including mobile geo-fencing to drive attendance to ARQ’s booth at IACP that included interactive product demo’s, and a comprehensive retargeting campaign pre and post show.

Mobile Retargeting

The government decision makers you need to reach – as well as government workforces if you are employing bottom-up marketing initiatives – are on mobile devices…a lot. Frost & Sullivan found that almost three-fourths of government organizations issue smartphones to at least some employees and more than half deploy tablets. Consumers overall spend 5 hours per day on mobile devices, so the bottom line is that if you want to reach government decision makers, mobile has to be a big part of the equation.

Mobile retargeting is now a key element in most any successful government-focused campaign seeking to increase reach and engagement far beyond other channels. There are six key strategies to get started with mobile retargeting:

1. Unsure on how to reach target audiences on their mobile devices? Think social media platforms. Today’s target audiences are more likely to browse their social media apps on their mobile than search websites. Take advantage of the tools that Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter offer for their ad campaigns.
2. Want to increase mobile traffic to your site? Optimize your website for mobile to fully take advantage of this platform. That means a design that is responsive for all devices, and features simple and concise headlines, titles and other text. More importantly, make sure that images are sufficiently compressed, reduce the number of redirects (nobody wants to wait for a new screen to load), and minimize code to maintain a high-performing experience.
3. Not sure how to design for mobile? Think like a government decision maker visiting your website via a mobile device. That means simplified designs and copy, but also calls-to-action that are clear about where the visitor will land if they click on that button. Viewers don’t want to leave the screen they are on unless they know there they are going.
4. Need to improve your reach on mobile? Safari is the leading browser for mobile devices, but leveraging Apple’s tool is not so easy. One simple trick: Make sure you are enabling Safari, which typically blocks third-party cookies in its default setting. Find a provider that is skilled at accessing Safari’s massive number of users.
5. Still not seeing the conversions you expect? It could be your landing page. Try to simplify the actions on the landing page to make sure there is no confusion or abandonment from that conversion point.
6. Want to get hyper-specific with your targeting? Try geo-fencing for conferences, events, shows and other gatherings of target audiences. Sophisticated new geo-locating tools allow geo-fencing to specific blocks around convention centers, hotels and other venues. Serving ads at the right time and place can pay big rewards.

Bluetext does mobile retargeting for many of its engagements, including:

• For a leading satellite networking services provider, Bluetext surrounded the perimeter of a major trade show to drive traffic to its booth
• For a leading cybersecurity company, Bluetext surrounded the perimeter of the RSA conference to drive traffic traffic to their booth featuring a cool virtual reality experience
• For a leading healthcare company, Bluetext coordinated with their sales team and surrounded medical centers where their prospects work to drive brand visibility when they walked into work everyday on their personal cell phones.

Account Based Marketing (ABM)

If you are an old-timer like myself who still buys clothes at actual physical stores, you know that the sales racks are filled right now with unsold summer inventory, probably the same summer clothes you paid double for just a few months ago. But no matter how enticing the sale, we often bypass the out-of-season sale items in favor of what we will wear in the here and now.

This comes to mind as I started thinking about how businesses market their products and services to the public sector. You not only have to hit prospective new customers you want to convert and existing customers you want to upsell with the right message, but it has to be the right message at the right time. The right time, as is the case with summer clothes on sale as the weather turns colder, often comes down to when prospects and customers are in the frame of mind to be thinking about your product or service. Catch them too early and they will get distracted and move on; catch them too late and, well, that’s self-explanatory I suppose.

This challenge becomes more difficult for marketers trying to blanket a large number of customers and prospects. The ability to personalize the message and the timing is why more marketers are increasingly intrigued by Account-based marketing (ABM). With ABM you concentrate efforts on a very defined set of target accounts – a single Agency or even units within an Agency – and then utilize campaigns personalized down to the single account level.

Marketing automation leaders are also looking at ABM to round out their services portfolio. Recently inbound marketing and sales leader HubSpot invested in ABM startup Terminus as part of a $10.3 million Series B round. In its blog explaining motivation for the investment, HubSpot talks about the fact that while inbound marketing is valuable for targeting an individual throughout the purchase process and beyond, ABM is useful when there is a need to build a relationship with multiple stakeholders at once. When done right HubSpot notes, ABM is about “precision and personalization not brute force.”

Embrace the Inhumanity of Content Marketing

For government marketers, it can be incredibly frustrating to create a compelling white paper or develop a webinar you know will be of value to agencies, but see that content sit untapped or underappreciated. The fact is that prospective customers may want your white paper or webinar but…they may not know they want it. You might have to sweeten the pot.

Cards against humanity, the self-described, “party game for horrible people,” has gone from kickstarter campaign to global phenomenon. It is also an example of how you can utilize the concept of game cards to incentivize key prospects to download and access marketing content – ideally using a more sanitized version of the game.

Think about your buyer persona. What is their typical age range, gender, title, geographic location, etc.? This can inform a creative content marketing campaign in terms of theme (Game of Thrones, professional sports trading card sets, or a variation of Cards Against Humanity like ‘Cards Against IT Complexity’ that could feature various challenges that Agencies face with their IT systems and available only to prospects who download an ebook or whitepaper, or participate in a webinar.

Virtual Reality and 3-D Interactive Design

Virtual reality can lead to real government contracts. For all of the noise surrounding virtual reality in the consumer market, it has emerged as an effective platform for storytelling with technology companies targeting decision makers in the government and enterprise markets. For a Bluetext virtual reality project with client Varonis, we enabled their marketing team to navigate a complex customer landscape and to share the Varonis story and product to a wider audience using innovative technology. The Varonis Digital Briefing Center launched at a major conference that many of their existing and prospective customers attended, and enabled Varonis to scale their demos concurrently by 6x, differentiate in a global trade show, and drive traffic to their booth.

To drive user engagement and leads, forward-thinking B2G companies are looking beyond white papers and webinars and towards immersive user experiences. Bluetext client NJVC was looking for a powerful new message as well as an immersive experience to engage and inform its global audience. Bluetext delivered a cutting-edge user experience that merged 3-D interactive design with thought leadership content marketing.

With 1,300 IT professionals deployed globally supporting 200+ sites on six continents, NJVC is the partner of choice for federal agencies, commercial clients and large and small businesses. The NJVC experience is integrated into a responsive Mission CrITical campaign microsite designed to enable users to easily access the content that best aligns with their needs. Bluetext also recently collaborated with XO Communications to develop a 3D “Etherverse” experience placed prominently in the site to drive user engagement and leads.

Are you interested in taking your marketing strategy to the next level. Contact us