Top 7 Questions about eBuy Opportunities
After winning a GSA contract and uploading their price list to GSA Advantage, many GSA contractors are excited to access the myriad of RFP’s (Request for Proposal) and RFQ's (Request for Quotation) posted in GSA’s eBuy system. While it is a boon to many a firm, you can spend all of your time responding to these opportunities with little to show for it. So let's answer the top questions you should ask before responding.
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Topics:
Government Marketing,
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Marketing
How Small Businesses Use Innovation to Thrive in Federal Contracting
I recently read an article in USA Today about how federal agencies are coming to realize that small businesses are innovation hubs whose creativity allowed them to deliver better solutions more cheaply. The article discusses how NASA used a small, 40-person firm, Honeybee Robotics, to develop a robotic lab assistant for the Mars Curiosity Rover. Some very important lessons can be learned and applied to small businesses seeking federal contracts in other industries.
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Topics:
Government Marketing,
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Marketing
Market Connection released its excellent 2012 Federal Media and Marketing Study, which presented facts and figures on how senior Federal decision-makers and employees obtain their news and information. The purpose of the report is to aid subscribers in designing federal marketing campaigns and selecting media outlets that are appropriate to the buyers preferences. I really like the demographics of the report, as 82% are aged 45 or higher, which suggests that these respondents are likely to have lots of authority or influence in their respective agencies.
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Topics:
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Marketing,
Federal Inbound Marketing
Numerous federal marketing experts such as Mark Amtower have been encouraging government contractors to increase their use of social media for several years now, and for good reasons. Social media marketing helps you connect with agency users and buyers, establishes your firm as a thought leader, helps build brand, and generate leads.
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Topics:
Government Marketing,
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Marketing,
Federal Inbound Marketing
GSA has recently done some soul searching to determine why so many of its vendor partners (a.k.a. GSA contractors) are failing to thrive under its GSA Schedules program and what can be done to help firms better succeed. It could not come at a more opportune time as a perfect storm of numerous firms entering the federal market are encountering outdated business assistance programs.
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Topics:
Government Marketing,
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Inbound Marketing
For years government contractors have been using traditional marketing techniques to gain the attention of Federal clients. Email blasts, direct mail, conferences and exhibitions, brochures, advertising have all been used to varying degrees of effectiveness. But about ten years ago, the effectiveness of these traditional methods began to decline. And in the past few years, their effectiveness has declined precipitously. But what has caused this decline?
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Topics:
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Marketing,
Federal Inbound Marketing
What influences an agency to take action, to launch new programs, to do more training, to buy your products? Agencies act for many different reasons including but not limited: response to presidential directives and initiatives, congressional mandates, inspector general reports, technological change, trade association meetings, and articles in the media. I encourage all my clients to routinely review media that focuses on Federal business (See FedBiz: Stay informed via Federal Magazine).
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Topics:
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Marketing
Marketing leads to sales, and sales drives revenue to company coffers. But where should you focus your efforts?
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Topics:
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Marketing
Finding Federal Business Opportunities or Creating FedBizOpps: Which works Best?
The vast majority of articles in magazines and on the web provide tips on how to set up your business to receive federal contracts and how to search for opportunities. Most provide advice about where to search agency web sites for procurement plans and forecasts, how to use FedBizOpps to locate current opportunities, or, if you are a GSA Contractor, using eBuy to find still more opportunities not available on FedBizOpps (see the eGuide link below for a guide containing this information). But in searching all of these databases, are you missing out on the greatest opportunity of all; the opportunity to create your own opportunities with Federal agencies?
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Topics:
Government Marketing,
Attracting Federal Clients
Federal buyers contend that they rely on the internet more than ever to research vendors. For this reason, it is essential that your web site provides all of the information that a Federal buyer might need,. It does not take much to accomplish the bare minimum, and I suggest you modify your web site to include information about your GSA Schedule and how your firm can help solve Agency problems and challenges.
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Topics:
Attracting Federal Clients,
Federal Marketing