Public Sector Basics, Part One: Know your audience

November 5, 2021 by Leave a comment

By Jimmy Baker, Public Sector Marketing Strategist

Understanding your government customers and how they gather information about technology solutions is vital for anyone involved in business development, capture efforts, marketing and selling. This blog looks at the differences between audience demographics at the federal, state and local government level, and how to address your marketing message accordingly.

First, however, I’ll let you in on a great resource. Market Connections publishes their Content Marketing Review, which is among the best surveys I’ve seen elaborating on what types of information the public sector needs to make decisions and where they go to get it.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Mari Canizales Coache from Market Connections about the study results and have had some riveting conversations. Here are some insights I’ve gleaned that should help you understand your audiences a little more.

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Most valuable types of information you can provide to government IT decision-makers

September 23, 2021 by Leave a comment

By Jimmy Baker, Public Sector Marketing Strategist

The last federal fiscal year was truly one for the history books and COVID-19 has changed the way government decision-makers receive and monitor information.

Like many marketing professionals around the country, I stay up to date on the latest trends in government policy, spending and marketing. With a FY22 technology budget of approximately $95B, I want to make sure the assets I create deliver value and resonate with government stakeholders.  

For the last several years, Market Connections has published the Content Marketing Review. This study is truly one of the best surveys out there on what and where the public sector is going for information. This report takes the time to break down the differences (in terms of content preference) between the federal government, state and local government and the education marketplaces.  

Here are the top three things I learned about the federal government from the 2021 Content Marketing Review:  

  1. 81% of government leaders will read research reports 
  2. 72% of government leaders will read white papers 
  3. 61% of government leaders attend webinars 

We have all heard the phrase “content is king.” However, the government needs some precise information before looking at a vendor’s content. This report provides vital insights and details that is a must read to anyone that markets and sells technology products and services to the public sector.  

Please make plans to read my blog next month as I interview Market Connection’s Mari Canizales Coache and go deeper into the results of the latest surveys on where government decision-makers go to learn more about technology products and services.  

Keep on top of the latest trends in government IT. Subscribe to immixGroup’s Government Sales Insider blog now!

Learn more about Market Connections’ 2021 Content Market Review.

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Is Content King in B2G Marketing? (Part 2)

September 26, 2014 by Leave a comment

Photo of Allan RubinAs I discussed in my last blog post, new research from Starfleet Media summarizes the importance of content, social media, and sales/marketing collaboration in the business-to-business (B2B) marketing world. What conclusions can business-to-government (B2G) marketers draw from these stats? Do government audiences consume content in the same ways as B2B buyers? What types of content work well in the B2G world, and how can we measure their effectiveness?

I’ll dive much deeper on these topics on November 20 at the Government IT Sales Summit. Until then, consider the following facts.

Market Research firm Market Connections surveyed 3,700 government employees and found that federal employees are more likely to seek out information online, with government decision-makers accessing information in increasingly complex and fragmented ways. In reviewing a summary of their 2014 Federal Media and Marketing Study, these data points jumped out at me:

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More Event Cancellations + Something to Share with the Corporate Office

June 12, 2013 by 4 Comments

photo_Allan-Rubin_65x85by Allan Rubin, Vice President, Marketing

First, here’s some news on continued government event cancellations. Word on the street is that GFIRST 2013 will not take place this year “due to all of the budgetary/travel restrictions.” Scheduled from August 25 to 30, the Government Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (GFIRST) “is a group of technical and tactical practitioners from incident response and security response teams responsible for securing government information technology systems and providing private sector support.” There’s no official posting yet, but expect one soon. That’s too bad, as this has been a successful event for many of our clients in the past. Hopefully it will be again in the future.

Even Fredericksburg can’t escape the bloodbath.  According to the event manager, “due to the severity of the fiscal climate within DoD and the associated policies that now govern and constrain professional events such as XC4, the 2013 Expeditionary C4 Users’ Conference scheduled to occur from August 6 to 8 at the Fredericksburg Expo and Convention Center in Fredericksburg, Virginia is cancelled.”

Mark Amtower asked me if I’m keeping a list of cancellations. Unfortunately I can’t type that fast.

On a brighter note, my last blog post covered the Top 10 Tips we’ve encountered at immixGroup as we’ve dealt with changes in the federal event marketing landscape. Our friends at Market Connections responded with a great infographic that summarizes the current government event landscape. Even though I added that to my last article after-the-fact, I thought it was useful enough to warrant a new post so it wouldn’t get missed.

Many of our clients share their concerns (OK, frustrations) that the “folks back at corporate” don’t always understand the inner workings of the federal government and the unique marketing challenges that come with it. It occurred to me that this is a great tool to share with them. In a minute or less you can communicate some of the issues you have to deal with as you plan your government marketing strategies, budgets, media spend, and more.

So here it is:

Government_Events_for_Contractors

In fact, we’ve heard from many clients that they use our Government Sales Insider blog, our Public Sector Business Alert newsletter, and our market intelligence briefings to help keep corporate up to date on information that affects their federal sales and marketing plans (and, yes, budgets). I hope you’re taking advantage of these free resources to do the same.

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New Research: Best BD and Marketing Practices of Winning Government Contractors

June 8, 2012 by 1 Comment

by Allan Rubin, Vice President, Marketing

With all of the news about tightening budgets, travel scrutiny, and possible ethics reform, there’s no doubt our business environment is going to be more competitive and restrictive over the next few months (and years).

As the market for winning new contracts and holding onto existing ones becomes more difficult, our friends at Market Connections are about to release some new research on the state of the government contracting community. The results of their new Government Contractor Study will be presented at an event on June 21, and we expect some of the findings to be surprising and informative for government marketing, business development, and sales professionals.

The study will explore what winning government contractors are doing to differentiate themselves.  Sample findings include:

  • How crucial is thought leadership marketing for contractors?
  • Are companies with higher win rates using more white papers or webinars?
  • Are winning contractors doing more speaking engagements or writing more bylined articles?

If you’re interested in learning the answers to these questions and more, you should register to attend the Government Marketing Forum’s 2013 Contractor Outlook Event.  Don’t miss this opportunity to learn what it takes to be a winning government contractor. immixGroup is proud to sponsor this event and support the Government Marketing Forum. We look forward to seeing you there.

Reserve your seat now.

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New Study on How to Reach Government Buyers

April 18, 2012 by 1 Comment

by Allan Rubin, Vice President, Marketing

Our friends at Market Connections just released a new study on media consumption habits of government decision-makers. One thing that jumped out at us from the summary report, which they presented at an event on April 12, was the continued importance of event marketing in the B2G marketing mix.

With increased oversight of government-hosted events over the past few months and more expected in the future, we’ve projected that attendance and marketing ROI from trade shows and hosted events may begin to suffer. It looks like we’ve got some timely benchmark data that will allow us to see how things progress over the next year.

According to the Market Connections 4th Annual Federal Media & Marketing Study, 49 percent of federal decision makers said they prefer to attend live events, citing the networking aspect as an important factor. More than half of this group attends between one to three events per year. We’ll monitor this closely to see if it changes in the wake of MuffinGate, ClownGate/VegasGate, budget cuts, etc.

Other key findings include:

  • Close to 60 percent are using Smartphones with Blackberries leading the pack for business use and Androids and iPhone for personal use
  • Blogs are taking off, with 37 percent reading them; NextGov, GovExec, and Federal Times are leading the way
  • Social Media continues to be a resource with 58 percent using Facebook to conduct business; LinkedIn usage nearly doubled from last year (from 18 to 35 percent)
  • While print took a slight dip, it’s not completely dead; 63 percent of the respondents prefer to read publications as a combination of print and online

Of course, the devil is always in the details, so if you plan on dedicating a significant part of your budget to government marketing, you may want to check out the study. For more information contact Market Connections or click here to download the report.

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