I was at a great Zone5ive session last week. "Public Sector Marketing: Aligning your strategy and tactics to market to government."
(Disclosure: I am on the Zone5ive organizing committee. I didn't propose or manage this one. That was ably handled by fellow committee member, Peter Lloyd. Also, I have, in the past, done a small bit of work for one of the presenting companies, TELUS, but I am in no way compensated for mentioning them in this post, nor do I have any other work pending with them).
I knew it was going to be good. I knew two of the three panellists, Gwen Avery, Director of Public Sector Marketing at TELUS (and a fine presenter), and Peter Andrews, CEO of Grantium. So I went, even though the subject matter is somewhat peripheral to me.
I learned lots. Here are my top three takeaways.
1. Marketing to governments is a death-defying thrill ride
You're thinking, marketing to governments = boring. Right?
Wrong. Marketing to governments (B2G marketing) is not for the faint-of-heart.
The length of the sales cycle when dealing with governments is legendary. But there's more.
Costs to a company of responding to an RFP (request for proposals) can be upwards of $50,000, and the details of bids (winning and losing) can be made public to competitors. In fact, Grantium recently spent tens of thousands in legal fees in the US to protect information in one of its lost bids from a competitor.
To be successful in marketing and selling to government, the company needs to have deep coffers (TELUS, as a result of its diversified national business, and Grantium as a result of outside investment). Or, it must start small, with deals below the $25,000 threshold that triggers serious scrutiny within the public sector, and earn a reputation as a solid supplier that over-delivers. This is how the third panellist, Louis-Paul Normand from Interis, described his company's start.
All of this is why one of the keys in marketing to governments is the bid/no bid decision. If the company has not adequately influenced the content of the RFP, through marketing and proper differentiation, it is often not worth it to pursue the business. (This may be true in all enterprise sales, but seems even more obvious in dealings with government.)
2. There is more to the marketing mix than "business development"
I also gained an appreciation for the thoughtfulness with which these successful government suppliers allocate their marketing dollars. My limited past experience had told me that most marketing to government fell under the category of "business development," and was as much a sales activity as anything.
I was wrong. All three panelists looked at their marketing efforts as having three thrusts. For TELUS these were described as:
establishing thought leadership driving incremental revenue, and increasing the addressable market
Interis and Grantium had also classed their marketing efforts, and Louis-Paul labeled Interis' efforts by corporate marketing (brand and reputation), capability marketing (skills and services), and contact marketing (direct marketing and other activities to drive revenue).
With respect to the mix at TELUS, Gwen pointed out the company has a great, well recognized brand, in particular among consumers, for handsets. The job of the public sector marketing team is to make sure the company is known for what it offers "beyond adorable frogs and monkeys." :)
(TELUS is Canada's largest security IT consulting firm, for instance, and has a leadership position in healthcare IT.)
So, it spends a significant effort on building thought leadership, with almost a third of its public sector marketing resources focused on that goal. (Aside: I'd be interested in talking more to Gwen on the metrics they use to measure success for this thrust.) This is meant to ensure it is known in government IT and operational circles, and known for the right things.
Marketing to drive incremental revenue accounts for about 50 percent of the effort, and increasing the addressable market accounts for the balance (20 percent).
(I love that Gwen comes to all of her speaking engagements with data in hand, for us numbers geeks!)
3. The toughest nut in B2G marketing: account penetration
The panellists were unanimous that the key marketing challenge with most government business is after the business has been won, to ensure adoption and penetration into accounts. It is vital to any company not to forget this.
Again, this is a challenge common to large enterprise sales, but my sense is that the nature of the procurement vehicles and annual budget cycles in government can complicate this and make it more acute.
Those are my top three takeaways. Were you there? Do you market to government? What have you learned?
