Traditional methods for generating Federal leads include trade shows, seminars, direct (junk) mail, email blasts (spam) to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and print and media advertising. These outbound methods are where firms push out the message to the four corners of the country hoping that it resonate with that needle in a haystack. Those techniques are very expensive…and are far less effective than they used to be, especially in Federal marketing, for a number of reasons. First, Federal employees, like all of us, are inundated with marketing interruptions an estimated 2000 times per day. In order to cope, Federal buyers have constructed creative means to block those messages:
-
Caller ID limits cold calling effectiveness
-
Spam filters limit direct email campaign efficacy
-
Shrinking budgets limit seminar and tradeshow participation
-
Tools like RSS are minimizing print and display advertising effectiveness
-
Tivo and Sirius Radio minimize media advertising results
-
Anti-terrorism and security programs delay direct mail and limit broad disclosure of the names of key personnel, especially in the national defense sector.
Even when those outbound methods work, they are still interruptive in nature and cause annoyance and anxiety – not the best way to start a relationship with a client.
Technology changes have made it far less expensive and more efficient for Federal buyers to find solutions and qualified vendors on the Internet. Because of this, new methods have been developed over the past few years to help attract prospective Federal buyers. These methods include methods such as content marketing (blogs, white papers), search engine optimization, webinars, feeds, RSS, and as appropriate for the federal space, social media such as LinkedIn.
The reason these methods work is that they are attraction based. You are not forcing prospects to interrupt their day to consider your solutions. The Federal buyers are actively seeking information in your knowledge domain and you are simply providing many opportunities for them to find you to access your knowledge and start a conversation.
Federal Inbound Marketing
TurboGSA specializes in applying Inbound Marketing to the Federal market so that clients can vastly expand their Federal presence. For a free assessment of your marketing goals and whether our Federal inbound marketing program will work for you.
Related Articles:
