Expert Panel Serves Up Tips and Techniques for B-to-G Marketing

At the recent Amtower Summit on Selling Products to the Government held in Baltimore, a panel of multichannel marketing experts provided the audience myriad tips and opinions on how to best find and sell to government employees. The panel consisted of David Powell, vice president of sales and marketing administration at FBC, a company that produces trade show events and conferences at federal government locations throughout the U.S.; Linda Pickering, senior vice president of B-to-B list company MeritDirect; Jim Garlow, director of advertising and marketing operations at computer equipment multichannel marketer CDW; and Peter Long, CEO of MCH, a compiler of business-to-institution (B-to-I) databases and mailing lists. Here are some of their thoughts and observations.

Powell pointed to three unique challenges in trying to market to the government:

1. Access

2. Identifying the person responsible for buying what your company sells

3. Contacting that person.

That’s why face-to-face meetings take on such importance in marketing to the government, he said. The mailing is a precursor to a face-to-face marketing opportunity.

To get this relationship and trust from a government buyer, Long advised marketers show they know the industry they’re operating in and not just selling a product. He recommended that in addition to catalogs and other advertising materials, marketers should produce and distribute company-published research papers and whitepapers, which provide a service to the government. Long noted this as a way of getting around the contract obligations that restrict many government officials from accepting lunches/meals as meetings with the marketer.

Garlow advised creating long-term relationships with federal government customers. He stressed it’s about getting to know them and how your product/service is a solution for their particular government problem.

Pickering suggested creating a niche book that you can market to a targeted government audience. She reasoned that with the postage increase affecting direct marketers, it’s becoming more important than ever to make each catalog or mail piece yield better results. She cited seasonality as a major factor in selling to the government, especially the end of the fiscal year (Sept. 30), when government agencies like to spend the funding they’re allocated, in hopes of securing more budget dollars next year.

Attending Events
Being able to display your products at government events is a major factor in whether or not you will succeed in the government market, the panelists said. But not every event is worthwhile and needs to be attended. Powell advised asking yourself the following questions before spending your time and money at an event:

* Is it mission-driven?

* What is the pedigree of the company hosting the event?

* Is the context and segmentation of the event itself appropriate for your product?

Powell noted that most government events won’t give you an attendee list ahead of time. So you need to do your homework and choose the ones that will benefit your company. “It’s not a numbers game,” conference host Mark Amtower said in regards to attending government events, “it’s a quality game.”

Long noted that with the recent postal rate increase, robust, highly relevant Web sites are the best tools today for many targeting government employees. He advised integrating your marketing techniques, such as scheduling e-mail campaigns around catalog mail drops.

One technique CDW has employed is customer surveys to find out what its audience wants, Garlow said. Webinars also have proven to be a very effective marketing technique for CDW in reaching the government customer, he added.

Amtower noted that no matter what the vehicle is, the key is “to provide information in a way that your audience will devour.” In the government market, new media appears to be the vehicle leading the race.