The Amtower B2G Market Report

The Amtower B2G Market Report
Volume 3, #09, March 1, 2004

(Sign up for your free subscription at http://www.FederalDirect.net and if you like this, please pass this along to your colleagues. To unsubscribe, email me at amtower@erols.com). Past issues available at http://www.federaldirect.net/newsletterarchives.html)

1) Amtower Off-Center Observations
2) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Ad Commentary
3) Government Marketing Best Practices Spring 2004 Road Show
4) SmartPay Update
5) One Minute Marketing Clinic: What is Up with ASAP

Amtower Off-Center Observations

We still have tens of thousands of troops overseas, and sending a little something to the USO (www.uso.org) or donating some of your frequent flier miles to HeroMiles (www.HeroMiles.org) would be a great gesture of support and thanks to these brave men and women. Keep these people in your prayers.

Off-White Paper 23, VAR Wars 2004, is now posted at www.FederalDirect.net. This paper has been in the incubator for a long while and it promises to have a point-of-view. My views will not please everyone, and I look forward to the feedback.

With less than four weeks to go FOSE is still selling exhibit space. Will Best Buy come in? Circuit City? (Off-White 23 will tell you why this could happen.) My prediction from December that FOSE would rescind the $50 fee for industry attenders was wrong. They are still charging, so I anticipate non-exhibitor industry attendance to be down. Even if this lowers the overall attender numbers, this is not bad. It will weed out some tire kickers, people looking for jobs and others who would attend but not exhibit. Some of these are people who would waste the time of exhibitors.

Another FOSE note: outside of putting another media sponsor up, also owned by the Washington Post, can anyone tell me why Newsweek is a FOSE sponsor? Has Newsweek started covering IT issues in the executive branch? Is Newsweek going to start looking at FOSE exhibitors as advertisers? No big deal, just curious. But I would like your thoughts.

Yet another FOSE note: Booth 3400 will be the “Freedom” booth, representing FDRs Four Freedoms. It will host cartoonists from around the world, including Mort Walker, to benefit Fisher House. Fisher House Foundation builds homes next to military hospitals where family members are allowed to stay free-of-charge when visiting a sick or injured military relative. Autograph signing by these cartoonists on Wednesday March 24 should be popular, and will benefit a great cause.

FederalDirect.net has a new feature – articles from experts. While currently there is only one article posted, I anticipate having many up in the near term, mainly from my personal Board of Advisors or from the Advisors to my Government Marketing Group. These are professionals at the front lines of various aspects of marketing, and their articles will be well worth your time.

Government Computer News (2/23/04) headline: OMB announced it was withholding new IT funds from agencies where IT projects have stalled or otherwise not delivered. As they have already taken a look at the Federal Prison Industries (no longer mandatory in some situations), they should take a closer look at Emall and GSA Advantage. Cumbersome at best, these purchasing “portals” (read: fiefdoms) continue to frustrate most buyers and vendors.

Not that I have an opinion.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY: AD COMMENTARY

All comments are from the 2/23/04 issues of Government Computer News and Federal Computer Week.

In their respective 2/23/04 issues, both Federal Computer Week and Government Computer News have Homeland Security supplements. The supplements fill out what had been rather skinny magazines of late. I hope this is a sign that ad dollars are freeing up. Both supplements are well-done.

On the inside front cover of Federal Computer Week is one of the most unintentionally funny advertisements I have ever seen. GovConnections ad for Disaster Recovery could well be the headline for itself in its quest to regain a GSA Schedule. The irony is so thick, even GSA might get it.

Equally amusing is the tip-in in Government Computer News for DLT Solutions and Quantum. Read Off-White Paper 23 and you will understand the full ironic impact of “The Sky is Falling” headlines. Suffice it to say the original management team has been abruptly replaced, and the vendor partners of DLT may well feel like the sky IS falling!

I really like the custom 8-page newsletter Juniper Networks placed in Federal Computer Week. Volume one, number one has interviews with Richard Clarks (lightning rod for computer security) and with Juniper’s own CTO, a case study, and their own ads. I have been a fan of informational newsletters in our market since I spotted the Cullinet Federal Newsletter in the early 1980s, then the Bohdan tech letter in the late 1980s. Hardcopy or e-news, these are good marketing tools.

I would be remiss if I did not mention how the mid-article headlines in Federal Computer Week’s new format can work to the benefit of some companies, like Symantec (see page 27). I have to wonder though, if McAfee spent as much as Symantec, if this would have occurred. I am not protesting, but I want this exposure for my clients!

I really like the new format for Federal Computer Week, though. It makes it much more reader friendly, and gives FCW more flexibility in highlighting aspects of the stories. It is simply more fun to read.

It is nice to see the government publications getting a little fatter, though.

GOVERNMENT MARKETING BEST PRACTICES SPRING 2004 ROAD SHOW

The government marketing man in black is going on the road again, maybe to your town. Registrations are coming in and seating is limited at each venue - register today!

Government Marketing Best Practices will be in
Vienna, Virginia, April 14
San Jose April 20
San Antonio April 22
Denver April 28
Chicago April 29

This 3-hour seminar covers proven tactics that work in the government marketplace.

best web site characteristics for attracting Feds
eight tips for successful Federal direct mail and email
tried & true methods for event identification, selection and marketing
identifying, creating and exploiting press opportunities
the role of special interest groups and how to find the best one for your niche
and more - with lots of new examples.

Once again, this will include new material (version 4.1). Our 2004 sponsors are DM News, the Federal Business Council, Federal Computer Week, Government Security News, Carroll Publishing and the Public Sector Institute. If you have suggestions for city selection for the fall, 2004 Road Show, email me!

Information is available at http://www.federaldirect.net/bestpractices2004.html

SMARTPAY UPDATE: FIRST 4 MONTHS

First quarter FY 2004 results are in for the government SmartPay purchase card, and through the first four months usage of the card is about $500 million ahead of last year, at $5.183 billion for the first third of FY 2004. There have been about 225,000 more transactions for the same period, with 64,000 fewer cardholders. The growth is still there, though we may suffer some setbacks if DOD forces cardholders to use Emall or some GSA Advantage-like web site.

ONE MINUTE MARKETING CLINIC: WHAT IS UP WITH ASAP

ASAP Software is a significant player on GSA Schedule (17th in FY 2003 with $133 million), yet we do not read about it often, do not see too much from it in space ads, or run into it at the “usual” places. ASAP will be at FOSE (booth 2419), but otherwise Chicago-based ASAP keeps a low profile. It is owned by Buhrmann (NYSE:BUH), which also owns office supply vendor Corporate Express. Under the experienced guidance of Randy Lee, ASAP pursues larger deals, Volume License Agreements, as opposed to shrink-wrap sales.

Its web site (www.asap.com) is easy to use and has a good e-news program (including audio at the site). It also includes a daily Industry News option, allowing ASAP to target specific news to customers and prospects in a voluntarily pervasive way. That is a great way to stay in front of your customers and get them addicted to you as a news source. It is interesting to note that its web site has yet to add Homeland Security to their list of Federal agencies.

One of the things Buhrmann could benefit from is cross-pollination. As both ASAP and Corporate Express sell to the Feds, it would be cheap and smart to link these sites directly. There are many things that tend to get lost in the shuffle for companies this size. This is one of the reasons with my Federal Marketing Audit is popular. We look for these synergies not only inside larger organizations, but for among our clients when they target the same audience for non-competitive reasons. Linkage raises your visibility overall on the web, including in search engines. One goal with the Federal Marketing Audit is to find the no-cost, low-cost high-return tactics. ASAP could benefit, but in the meantime, they are definitely doing some things very right.

Maybe the linkage is what FOSE is doing for Newsweek. But I did not see a FOSE link at Newsweek.

**

As always, your comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks
Mark Amtower

The Amtower B2G Market Report is published and copyrighted by Amtower & Company. It combines our former newsletters into a single, bi-weekly newsletter for companies targeting the government marketplace. Contact us at Amtower & Company, PO Box 339, Ashton, MD 20861-0339 (301-924-0058). This material is copyrighted and may not be duplicated, reprinted or otherwise replicated without written permission of the publisher. EMAIL subscriptions are free by request: sign up at www.FederalDirect.net.


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