The Amtower B2G Market Report

The Amtower B2G Market Report
Volume 3, #19, May 10, 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: Advertisements for Business Partners
3) Events: One More Best Practices and Federal Channels Coming in July
4) One-Minute Marketing Clinic: Creating Gravitational Pull

AMTOWER OFF-CENTER OBSERVATIONS

Item: This newsletter has not been reaching our entire subscriber base for several weeks, so we are trying a different distribution method, still using Monday delivery, but some of you will get it earlier Monday, and some not until later, maybe even Tuesday. Email delivery, even with opt-in files, is becoming more difficult every week. This newsletter still goes out every Monday, so if you have missed any issues, they are all posted at www.FederalDirect.net/newsletterarchives.html. I hope you read any you may have missed! It may not always look it, but lots of thought and time goes into each issue (this being the 75th!).

Item: The redesigned Government Executive magazine has hit the streets. It is very good looking, is easy and fun to read, and it will be out more frequently. Now, if we could just get Tim Clark to stop writing about the redesign…

Item: One of the government publications, in a sales pitch to a significant vendor, apparently said direct mail is dead, at least in the government market. Don’t publications arrive in the mail? This comment came from an attender during a Government Marketing Best Practices session recently. In the current issue of Folio magazine (www.foliomag.com), the opposite argument is made: ad space is down, mail is up. My take: mail is difficult in Washington, DC for a couple reasons. First, the irradiation issue is ongoing. The second reason is there is so much mail targeting the agency headquarters. Outside Washington (with the exception of military bases) direct mail to Feds works well, and will continue to do so. In the most recent Market Connections (www.marketconnectinc.com) study, when 600 Federal senior IT managers were queried on where they get information on products, direct mail may have come in at the twelfth spot, but space ads came in thirteenth.

Item: GovConnection may be back in the news. After being unceremoniously removed from the GSA Schedule last year, GovConnection initially said it would be back on Schedule within two months. That did not happen. GSA apparently referred the matter to Justice, but it seems this was only an “FYI” referral, not a “please take action” referral. Recently GovConnection hired Ron Smith from Hewlett-Packard to manage contracts and last week they announced Jay Lambke from Gateway as president for GovConnection. GovConnection is rumored to be in negotiations with GSA, and may be back on Schedule as early as June. With the 9 month hiatus, though, I do not believe it will be in a position to ramp up in a significant way for this end of FY. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how it plans to announce their “re-emergence”, and the subsequent marketing.

Not that I have an opinion.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY: ADVERTISEMENTS FOR BUSINESS PARTNERS

All of my business partners offer excellent services. Here are some more examples.

Debbie Weil, editor of WordBiz Report and WordBiz.com, is presenting a blogging seminar on June 30 at the Tower Club in Vienna, VA. Seating is limited. Go to http://www.wordbiz.com/teleseminars.html#blogbiz for details. Her newsletter is a “must read” if you are into e-newsletters, blogging or any online communication.

My friend and occasional co-speaker Michael A. Brown owns and operates The Business Marketing Consultancy and Redwood Training Associates in Austin, Texas. Since 1986, the mission of both companies is to help business marketers find, land, keep, and grow customers via consulting, training, and seminars. He is internationally-known as the Business To Business By Phone® expert. Michael’s clients include a "who's who" of successful business marketers, from startups to the Fortune 100. He is a featured speaker at the Direct Marketing to Business conference, plus corporate marketing and sales meetings. His articles have appeared in Direct magazine, DM News, and Teleprofessional.

Free for friends of Amtower! Your complimentary subscription to Michael's Business To Business
By Phone® e-newsletter! Send an e-mail to michael@michaelabrown.net or call 800 373-3966. Our web site: www.michaelabrown.net.

EVENTS

GOVERNMENT MARKETING BEST PRACTICES – May 26, 7:30-11:00 AM, Tower Club, Vienna, VA
Info at www.FederalDirect.net/bestpractices2004.html

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.

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, and they have some great presenters.

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

ONE-MINUTE MARKETING CLINIC: CREATING GRAVITATIONAL PULL

My main task with my clients is to make certain they are at or near top-of-mind when a customer or prospect thinks of the niche that my client is in. The idea is that being pervasive in a niche creates mindshare, which translates to marketshare. Regardless of the size of the universe (niche), the goal is to create gravitational pull for your company – to make the prospect think of you positively and first.

Gravitational pull occurs when marketing tactics are successfully employed to make certain that prospects and buyers think of a specific company quickly when a specific topic or niche is discussed. Strong gravitational pull is necessary when you wish to dominate a niche.

A variety of tactics are used to accomplish this, but defining the current core buying audience always comes first. Most new clients already have some marketshare, so I determine if there is a government agency preference for the vendor, or if the buyers have some other attribute we can duplicate. In Government Marketing Best Practices, I reduce it to three questions: what do you read, what do you belong to, and what do you attend. If you ask these of your best customers, and you get similar answers, the tactics start defining themselves. If many of you current best customers read a specific publication, you need to work with that publication. The same applies to groups (associations or special interest groups) and meeting/conference venues.

The concept of gravitational pull is one I will be revisiting in more depth.

If you become more pervasive in these venues– especially without being intrusive – you will begin to create the gravitational pull required for niche domination.

**

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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