The Amtower B2G Market Report

The Amtower B2G Market Report
Volume 3, #17, April 26, 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)

In this issue…
1) Amtower Off-Center Observations
2) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: CAN-Spam Inaction
3) Events
4) One-Minute Marketing Clinic: Positioning GTSI

AMTOWER OFF-CENTER OBSERVATIONS

Item: When I returned from the first leg of the Government Market Best Practices road show, I inadvertently erased all email (499 messages) from Sunday, April 18, through Wednesday, April 21. I hate when that happens! So if you sent a message during that time, I did not see it. If you sent something I need to react to, please re-send. Thanks.

Item: Appended to the Do Not Call legislation was the provision on Do Not Fax, which included B2B and B2G faxing. My friend Gloria Berthold of Marketing-Outsource.com requests that anyone familiar with these issues that would like to have their opinion heard call Helen Hillegass of the FCC (202-418-0613) and/or Jade West (of the National Association of Wholesale Distributors (202-872-0885). They are both very interested in the issue of government contractors experiencing problems faxing government agencies. CALL TODAY if you have an opinion and want to register it before the closing date, which is this week.

Item: Amazon has a new search engine, A9.com. I tested it and it works well, and has some features I like. If you register at the site, you can archive your searches. For my work, that could be helpful. If this becomes a popular feature, I assume Google and the others will replicate it.

Item: Government Executive magazine (re)announced in this issue that they are going bi-weekly as of the next issue. They also re-stated the next issue will be more visually appealing. I know they labored over the wording of Tim Clark’s letter to readers, but the excessive verbiage boils down to more frequency for the publication and a more commercial look. Both of these, if executed properly, will be good, so just do it and let the readers decide if they like it. My wager is it will be a hit.

Item: Equity International had the last minute email (Thursday morning) touting “Top Speakers for Monday's Briefing - Register Now!” I can relate. Getting attendance at any venue is becoming more difficult. Time is scarce for all of us, and what differentiates any event from others? Differentiation is key in the message, then you have to reach the right audience. Nobody said it was easy!

Item: Is it me, or does the AT&T television advertisement calling itself “the world’s networking company” have a very hollow ring (pun intended)? Now, if it would run an advertisement calling itself the “slam king of the universe”, or the “world’s worst managed brand” I would whole-heartedly endorse that well-deserved title. But “world’s networking company” borders on delusional.

Not that I have an opinion.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY: CAN-SPAM INACTION

About two weeks ago I received an unsolicited email (read: spam) from Federal Schedules for a government marketing seminar. I like competition, but I thought it was ironic that the email was not CAN-Spam compliant. It did have an interesting “opt-out” message, to wit:

“We have your email address because you attended a related tradeshow or conference in the past and provided your email address for future contact. In addition, you may have opted in to hear from organizations in a field related to your own. If you wish to be removed from future correspondence, simply respond to this e-mail with the word REMOVE in the Subject Line.”

Okay, so you think if I registered for anything, anytime, you can use my email address? Not according to the law, Federal Schedules.

I received the same message, with a slightly more sophisticated look, a week later. And it was closer to being CAN-Spam compliant, as it did have a physical address. But it still was not totally compliant.

So the irony remains: why attend a marketing seminar from a company that cannot properly employ what is currently the most popular marketing tool?

This is especially important in light of pending legislation regarding the related issue of blast faxing, and the advent of CAN-Spam.

EVENTS

FEDERAL CHANNELS: Selling and Marketing to the Government

Date: July 19, 2004
Time: 8:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.
Location: Fairview Park Marriott, Falls Church, VA

The Federal Marketplace has undergone significant change in the past few years. Federal Channels 2004 will feature sessions on the most recent changes to the federal business environment and the best methods for using those changes to your advantage.

Sessions will include presentations covering the following 3 key areas.
1.Agency Focus - The Federal Landscape
2.Gaining Entry and Access Methodology
3.Procurement and Contracting
See full details at
http://www.fbcinc.com/federalchannels/default.asp

This is a really good informational and networking event, with something for people of any skill level, novices and professionals alike. The FBC staff spends lots of time putting together a good program.

ONE-MINUTE MARKETING CLINIC: POSITIONING GTSI

GTSI is rolling out its first major positioning/branding campaign in memory. The theme is “I rely on GTSI”, and it started at FOSE with the big white bag which had a big red dot (did anyone think of the Land of the Rising Sun when they saw this?). GSTI personnel were all wearing big buttons with the “rely” slogan at FOSE.

In the April 1 issue of Government Executive, GTSI has a full page ad (with Hewlett-Packard) elaborating on the position. It starts with the red button (“I rely on GSTI”) and the headline continues with “and HP because their symphony of solutions moves me.” The background is reddish-brown (too soothing), and has a row of violinists playing. Although the text is less than 100 words, which is not too much for an ad, I find this ad to be less than compelling. The ad references the “unparalleled GTSI HP Technology Team” (which is trademarked) and the GTSI Agility Mobile Office (also trademarked). These are not strong differentiators, as the devoted team approach is not new or unique.

The look and feel of the ad seems more consumer oriented to me, and I would wager that the ad agency has solid business-to-consumer experience, but less in business-to-business and none (until now) in business-to-government.

Is the ad designed to convince government buyers, channel partners, Wall Street? And is GTSI trying to position itself further away from reseller status and more in the integration arena? And if so, what are the consequences? I would love to see the research that drove GTSI in the “Rely” direction, though.

It is a good move that GTSI is trying to define its position in the market and proactively manage the brand. So far, I would rate this a C+, with a note that they need to differentiate with a message(s) that resonates with buyers and the channel.

I will be watching and commenting on this as this campaign unfolds.

Aside: I am really getting tired of the overused “solution” that everyone seems to have. In the same issue of Government Executive, “solution” or “solutions” shows up in the ads for MasterCard, Dell, SAP, Borland, GSA, SAS, SBC, CSC, USDA Graduate School, HP-in an ad without GTSI, Siemens, ESRI, Juniper, Bank of America, and Appian. What is the value of “solutions” if everyone has one? The ultimate differentiator is one claimed by all. “Solutions” was also used by SkilCraft in its JWOD ad, but that was real, as it was for “cleaning solutions” – like glass cleaner. My thanks to Michael Brown, the Business-to-Business by Phone guy one of my advisors for bringing this to my attention on several occasions.

**

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.


Site maintained by Dragonfly Design