How to Use Thought Leadership to Win B2G Contracts
Image by Riccardo Annandale from Unspalsh
If you or your company has ever worked with local or state government, and especially if you’re a small or mid-sized business, you know how challenging it was getting to the finish line with a signed contract in hand.
From identifying the correct decision maker, deciphering procurement rules, keeping track of timelines, to competing against large corporations and primes, the B2G market is unlike the more predictable B2B and B2C markets.
Challenges Facing Small Businesses
While small businesses have been somewhat disadvantaged in landing big government contracts in the past, local and state governments are beginning to realize the benefits of contracting with smaller vendors including responsiveness and price.
Historically, large corporations have been the predominant service provider to governments. Part of the reason is the capability large corporations inherently have to provide services at scale that the government demands.
Large corporations remove many risks government buyers have when committing to work with a vendor. But advancements in cloud technology are making it much easier for smaller vendors to compete in sectors formerly reserved for large corporations.
It’s likely we’ll see the B2G market expand in the coming years as local and state governments contract with small and mid-sized businesses capable of solving niche, department-level problems at a more palatable price point compared with corporate solutions that require large contracts.
Additional Challenges in the B2G Market
But while SLED organizations are doing more business with small to mid-sized vendors, there are still hurdles to jump in order to land contracts successfully. Here are just a few:
Government buyers are more inclined to conduct their own research prior to issuing RFPs.
Instead of waiting for RFP responses or another more formal point in the procurement process to get their questions answered, some government buyers are getting that information upfront by simply going online.
This means that vendors can no longer rely on the traditional procurement process to land contracts. If your RFP response is the first time you’re engaging with the government, you’re already too late.
Smaller vendors now compete with larger corporations for contracts, but they also need to grab the attention of primes that need subcontractors with specific qualifications.
Prime contractors will often need to meet MBE or small-business requirements as part of their contract, so this is a great way for small businesses to gain initial experience that will help land future government work as the prime.
Depending on the buying threshold, local governments may not advertise for certain procurements.
Rather, the buyer sends out the RFP to a certain number of known vendors for response. For this to happen, buyers not only need to know your service exists, but they also must trust you enough to put your service on a vendor short list.
The challenges for government contractors are varied and layered, but there is one marketing strategy that can help overcome them all.
The Importance of Thought Leadership
It may be on the verge of becoming a buzzword, but thought leadership has proven to be a valuable marketing strategy for government contractors.
Sometimes the process of getting a contract signed can take months to years. Potential contractors must have patience and persistence to stay top-of-mind and relevant to buyers. This is where thought leadership comes in handy.
Thought leadership is typically created in the form of content like white papers, articles, or webinars, and usually helps to solve a specific problem while also displaying expertise. But it can do so much more.
Thought leadership can inform and educate audiences on a problem they don’t know exists, provides value with free and helpful information, positions you as an authority in your industry, and builds trust with your audience.
That’s a lot to pack in. That’s also why thought leadership usually comes in longer formats. Here are a few examples of thought leadership content:
5 Examples of Thought Leadership Content
White papers
White papers are a great way to inform readers and demonstrate your unique expertise in a certain area. White papers can build trust in your solution, and they are a great platform to explain your solution at length especially if it’s technical in nature.
From a business growth perspective, white papers can be used to build email lists by simply requiring an email address prior to download access. You can generate a list of people interested in a very specific topic that are likely ideal customers. Content like this is a great way to gauge where your audience’s interests lie.
Webinars and Online Courses
Offering an online webinar or online course is a powerful way to show up as an expert in your industry. By teaching, you’re demonstrating how you solve problems, which is key to building trust with prospective customers. Government leaders and practitioners are always looking to learn new skills and find innovative solutions to bring into their work.
Webinars and online courses can also be used as lead generating tools and can easily be advertised online or at conferences. Like a white paper, email capture is effortless with webinar registration.
Blogs
Maintaining a blog on topics of interest to your ideal buyer is helpful to assert your authority in an industry. Blogs are also a great way to quickly publish new information that would benefit your audience.
Blogs can generate steady web traffic if content is optimized to do so. Blog content is usually versatile and can be scaled to longer content like an article or white paper or into shorter formats like social media posts or memes.
Articles
Unlike blogs, articles have the ability to be syndicated and published in peer led magazines or on relevant industry websites. Being published increases your credibility and builds trust with your potential buyer.
Articles can expand your reach and visibility by appearing on many different platforms. As long as you educate and solve problems, articles can be an efficient way for your thought leadership to get in front of prospective buyers.
Case Studies
Of the types of thought leadership listed here, case studies are perhaps the most impactful in a B2G marketing strategy.
It was mentioned earlier, but it’s worth repeating: government buyers are risk averse. This means that anything new or innovative will be discussed and vetted thoroughly. In these instances, many government leaders look to their peers in other localities to see what’s worked for them.
Case studies come in handy regardless if you’re a veteran contractor or fresh on the scene. Case studies show prospective buyers exactly how your solution solved a specific problem for someone just like them. They give your solution an emotional factor that’s easy for your prospective buyer to remember.
Here are a few ways thought leadership can help contractors win government work:
Thought leadership strengthens relationships with buyers.
If you ask any B2G marketer or government contracting consultant, they’ll tell you that relationships are extremely valuable and an important component of the government buying process.
One way thought leadership builds relationships between vendors and buyers is the value provided by long-form content. Thought leadership by definition is informative and insightful, but it also provides a glimpse into the personality of a vendor that stale RFP responses won’t necessarily contain.
Business 101 tells us that prospective clients need to know, like, and trust a provider before they buy. A piece of content that is injected with personality can check off the first two pretty easily.
2. Thought leadership builds trust with buyers.
We said it before and we’ll say it again, government buyers tend to work with vendors they already know and trust, which can be frustrating for new or smaller vendors without a track record.
This narrow preference makes sense for a few reasons, but it all comes down to ensuring vendors can meet all regulatory and policy requirements. Buyers need to make sure that new vendors, especially small businesses, have the capacity to follow through with contractual commitments.
If your company or solution is new to them, thought leadership is a way to demonstrate your expertise, express exactly how you can solve their problem, and build buyers’ trust in the process.
3. Thought leadership can shape buyer thinking and decision-making.
Thought leadership, especially in an innovative or emerging market, has the ability to go beyond simply educating buyers to potentially influencing how an RFP is written.
This is especially true if relationships have been maintained and trust has been built along the way. In order to influence how an RFP is written, you must demonstrate and prove your solution in context to their specific problem while clearly differentiating yourself from other bids.
Consistently offering value in the form of thought leadership has the power to put you in a position where the RFP is written with you in mind.
The Return on Investment of Thought Leadership
While thought leadership and long-form content can be incredibly useful in B2G marketing, sometimes it is difficult to measure the ROI on this type of content.
One of the most common objections of thought leadership is how long it takes to create.
On a recent episode of the Government Huddle Podcast, when asked what public sector marketers can expect in the next few months, Marc Hausman, CEO of the Strategic Communications Group, suggests that leaders will have less time than they did during the pandemic to create thought leadership content and to help marketers with this type of content creation.
The economy and market is picking back up and leaders will generally have less time to devote to creating thought leadership at scale. This means that while thought leaders themselves may be strapped for time, content marketers may need to generate more of this type of content for the companies and leaders they serve.
Hausman also stated that some of the best performing content right now is six months to a year old and is considered ‘evergreen’, meaning it’s not time-bound and stays relevant over long periods of time.
This is exciting news for public sector marketers, because any new thought leadership content can be intentionally created as ‘evergreen’. This saves time and money and keeps your always relevant content circulating.
It’s also great news for content markers with limited access to new thought leadership content. Long pieces of thought leadership that are still relevant can be reformatted into smaller forms of content to fill up editorial calendars. Evergreen content is an efficient way for government contractors to meet their marketing goals during long government buying cycles.
The government buying process is certainly layered with challenges and complexities that are hard to overcome for many businesses. By committing to quality thought leadership content, government contractors can distinguish themselves from competition, stay top-of-mind, and prove their solution is the only one for the job.
Thought leadership is truly a winning strategy.
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