As mentioned in the previous post, the most effective way to market to the government is by knowing where your product/service is needed. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has broken the country into ten different regions. There is at least one SBA office in every state which provides resources for small business survival and growth. Each region offers the same standard resources package for small businesses; however, some are more prolific than others. When logging onto the SBA website, research shows that some SBA contracting regions are more active in the small business community than others.
Below are the states that are in each region.
Region 1 - Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island
Region 2 - New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands
Region 3 - Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware
Region 4 - Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi
Region 5 - Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota
Region 6 - Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico
Region 7 - Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri
Region 8 - Montana, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota
Region 9 - California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, Guam
Region 10 - Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho
There are over 2,500 government buying offices throughout the US. Being located in one region does not prohibit you from doing business in another; many businesses – even small ones – do business across several regions. One of the many things that a business owner needs to be aware of is that while his business may be in Region 1, their services might be needed badly in Region 4 as well. Marketing to the government can help expand the business nationwide and have a guaranteed check from Uncle Sam. Working with the government doesn’t mean that your business has to be right next to the Naval Yard that needs a new refrigerator. So long as you’re able to deliver the goods per their request, your business is the most able and appealing to the government no matter the location.
There is a flip side to this, though. If your business is relatively new to the contracting game, it is best to try local contracts first to test the waters. Being local and having the ability to meet face-to-face with a contracting officer will give your business preference. Developing a more personal connection with contracting officers can help give you a leg up over your competition. Once your business has completed several contracts, you will have a good feel for the process and branching out won’t be nearly as difficult.
In addition, what type of business you are really counts. For instance, if completing a contract requires you to be on a job site, don’t bid on contracts too far away. Stick to a smaller geographical region in order to make the job easier on yourself.
With Gateway to Government, your company can use our tried and true name to help jumpstart your government contracting career. Our name is established in the Washington, D.C. area and can go nationwide, making your location unimportant as you can share the benefits of having our certifications and name.
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Grabbing the Government’s Attention
Marketing is one of the most dynamic and ever-changing fields out there and all small business owners know it. It is the area most likely to change, on a whim, and one of the few areas that needs constant attention and research to ensure your message reaches the right crowd. Marketing to the government is different than other businesses or individuals. There is a certain way that you have to promote to Uncle Sam so you can be competitive in the government contracting arena.
One of the first things that needs to be done is market research. As we’ve mentioned multiple times, the government buys any- and everything. There is pretty much nothing that Uncle Sam has not purchased at some point and time. The main thing one has to realize is where to market your supplies and services in the country. If you’re in Georgia, you can sell your products anywherei n the US – not just that state. The federal government is looking for the cheapest vendor and if the business happens to be two states away, so be it. There are ten different regions that the Small Business Administration has created which encompass more than 2,500 buying offices throughout the US. To succeed, a contractor must research each region to see which one would be the most lucrative for their business to market to and participate in bids.
Unlike marketing to the public, there are certain rules and reglations about what you can and cannot say when selling to the government. For instance, the flowery, descriptive words one would use as a hook, line and sinker for the everyday individual aren’t allowed. What your company sells is presented in list format; there is no other description aside from the product/service title. A benefit of having every product and/or service your company offers in a list format is that the government will order more from you or select your company over another because of your larger selection. It makes more sense for Uncle Sam to purchase from one vendor, rather than multiple.
There are several different ways to let the government know exactly what products and services you have to offer. One way is to create a GSA schedule. This method allows a business to establish long-term government-wide contracts for specific services and products. Vendors with schedules are preapproved to contract with federal agencies at pre-established prices, automatically putting your company on a list of “preferred vendors.” However, these are not that easy to obtain and can take up to a full year to get everything in place. There are stacks of paperwork and red tape to go through, not to metion the research andother elements that go into having a GSA schedule awarded to your company. GSA schedules are not the right route for every company to take, but can be very beneficial to those companies making government contracting a major portion of their business.
Another way to let the government know about your services is to have and distribute a Statement of Abilities. Included are the classification codes for the company’s products/services, contact information, a statement about your company, and an extensive list of all the products and services that your company provides. Gateway to Government understands the difficulty in creating both the GSA schedule and statement of abilities – there are very specific formats and requirements for each. To make the process go smoothly, we have created a capabilities statement template for each business that participates in our program. We help you write effective descriptions about your company to help market and sell your services and products. With Gateway to Government, your foot isn’t just in the door – we’re holding it open.
One of the first things that needs to be done is market research. As we’ve mentioned multiple times, the government buys any- and everything. There is pretty much nothing that Uncle Sam has not purchased at some point and time. The main thing one has to realize is where to market your supplies and services in the country. If you’re in Georgia, you can sell your products anywherei n the US – not just that state. The federal government is looking for the cheapest vendor and if the business happens to be two states away, so be it. There are ten different regions that the Small Business Administration has created which encompass more than 2,500 buying offices throughout the US. To succeed, a contractor must research each region to see which one would be the most lucrative for their business to market to and participate in bids.
Unlike marketing to the public, there are certain rules and reglations about what you can and cannot say when selling to the government. For instance, the flowery, descriptive words one would use as a hook, line and sinker for the everyday individual aren’t allowed. What your company sells is presented in list format; there is no other description aside from the product/service title. A benefit of having every product and/or service your company offers in a list format is that the government will order more from you or select your company over another because of your larger selection. It makes more sense for Uncle Sam to purchase from one vendor, rather than multiple.
There are several different ways to let the government know exactly what products and services you have to offer. One way is to create a GSA schedule. This method allows a business to establish long-term government-wide contracts for specific services and products. Vendors with schedules are preapproved to contract with federal agencies at pre-established prices, automatically putting your company on a list of “preferred vendors.” However, these are not that easy to obtain and can take up to a full year to get everything in place. There are stacks of paperwork and red tape to go through, not to metion the research andother elements that go into having a GSA schedule awarded to your company. GSA schedules are not the right route for every company to take, but can be very beneficial to those companies making government contracting a major portion of their business.
Another way to let the government know about your services is to have and distribute a Statement of Abilities. Included are the classification codes for the company’s products/services, contact information, a statement about your company, and an extensive list of all the products and services that your company provides. Gateway to Government understands the difficulty in creating both the GSA schedule and statement of abilities – there are very specific formats and requirements for each. To make the process go smoothly, we have created a capabilities statement template for each business that participates in our program. We help you write effective descriptions about your company to help market and sell your services and products. With Gateway to Government, your foot isn’t just in the door – we’re holding it open.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Rockin' Robin - The Rise of Social Media in Business Marketing
Have you heard of tweeting? Twittering? Tweeps? All of these and many more are terms that have been added to the internet lingo by Twitter, one of a burgeoning group of free social media service websites now being used by more than six million people around the world. The basic principle is simple – network with other ‘Tweeps’ (users of Twitter) and express what you want to say in 140 characters or less – but the effects are proving to be far more wide-ranging than one would expect.
Twitter has recently become very well known due to a few key events: some of the first eyewitness reports of the U.S. Airways plane that landed in the Hudson River were from Twitter, prominent politicians have been seen using it during meetings, speeches, and conferences, and Twitter was heavily utilized during the most recent presidential campaign. Courtesy of this micro-blogging service, news is being spread even more rapidly.
People from all walks of life are now using Twitter every day. Entrepreneurs, news anchors, bands, politicians, artists, business owners, students … All of these and many more are utilizing tweeting (posting on the Twitter website) as a networking and information tool. Charitable organizations are using it - today there is a push for Share our Strength, an organization aiming to reduce child hunger. They are trying to raise $12,000 in 12 hours using Twitter alone - currently they are five hours in and they have almost reached they goal.
An increasing number of big corporations are using Twitter now as well – HP, Microsoft, American Express, and Dell are just a few. In fact, when a coworker recently tweeted about our recent post involving UPS’s ‘no left-turn’ innovation, she was contacted by a UPS employee whose job it is to monitor UPS appearing in social media!
In the three years since its creation, Twitter has become one of the go-to places for entrepreneurs and business owners to learn about, network, and market their businesses. Social media and marketing experts are cropping up all over the place with ways to help streamline this process. People co-promote with each other and people who give good advice, are entertaining, or have some other valuable service are generally recommended to more and more people.
I just started using Twitter about a month or so ago after having heard more and more about it. I currently have about 500 followers, from a wide range of groups – many are total strangers, some are friends or family, others are business contacts. It is easy to get lost in what Twitter offers; an endless stream of interesting stories, blurbs, and thoughts from hundreds of people can be difficult to get away from. Generally, I’ve found it best to simply play the fly on the wall and jump in with a comment if I hear something interesting, or to ask a question of my followers and the ‘twitterverse’ as they come up.
While Twitter and similar social media are becoming increasingly good ways to make business connections, you have to be careful to avoid some basic pitfalls. The hard sell is incredibly unpopular on the site and will lose your credibility faster than virtually anything else. Twitter is meant to be used in a more organic fashion – by building a reputation with other users, they will be driven to use your products or services over time. Another thing to avoid is considering the number of followers you have as a popularity contest; rather than quantity, try to go for the quality of the people you interact with and make better content.
All in all, Twitter is becoming a fairly powerful tool for marketing, networking, and business development. Websites are easy to promote, especially if they have good content. There are numerous external applications that make it even easier to use (for example, one program allows you to search for key phrases in recent tweets – you can find out who is talking about small business government contracting, for example, and start a discussion!) and these can help reduce the time spent on it each day.
Don’t get overwhelmed – Twitter isn’t something that has to be used 24/7! This dynamic word-of-mouth advertising format has made marketing even easier to do, as long as you monitor what you are doing. Just remember that to get anything from it, you will have to give time, effort, and a little bit of yourself, just as you would in any other format.
If you’d like, you can always find Gateway to Government representatives on Twitter. My name is JIstvan and let me know when you get on! LauraGuthrie, my aforementioned coworker, is also worth following - she is a social media expert!
Twitter has recently become very well known due to a few key events: some of the first eyewitness reports of the U.S. Airways plane that landed in the Hudson River were from Twitter, prominent politicians have been seen using it during meetings, speeches, and conferences, and Twitter was heavily utilized during the most recent presidential campaign. Courtesy of this micro-blogging service, news is being spread even more rapidly.
People from all walks of life are now using Twitter every day. Entrepreneurs, news anchors, bands, politicians, artists, business owners, students … All of these and many more are utilizing tweeting (posting on the Twitter website) as a networking and information tool. Charitable organizations are using it - today there is a push for Share our Strength, an organization aiming to reduce child hunger. They are trying to raise $12,000 in 12 hours using Twitter alone - currently they are five hours in and they have almost reached they goal.
An increasing number of big corporations are using Twitter now as well – HP, Microsoft, American Express, and Dell are just a few. In fact, when a coworker recently tweeted about our recent post involving UPS’s ‘no left-turn’ innovation, she was contacted by a UPS employee whose job it is to monitor UPS appearing in social media!
In the three years since its creation, Twitter has become one of the go-to places for entrepreneurs and business owners to learn about, network, and market their businesses. Social media and marketing experts are cropping up all over the place with ways to help streamline this process. People co-promote with each other and people who give good advice, are entertaining, or have some other valuable service are generally recommended to more and more people.
I just started using Twitter about a month or so ago after having heard more and more about it. I currently have about 500 followers, from a wide range of groups – many are total strangers, some are friends or family, others are business contacts. It is easy to get lost in what Twitter offers; an endless stream of interesting stories, blurbs, and thoughts from hundreds of people can be difficult to get away from. Generally, I’ve found it best to simply play the fly on the wall and jump in with a comment if I hear something interesting, or to ask a question of my followers and the ‘twitterverse’ as they come up.
While Twitter and similar social media are becoming increasingly good ways to make business connections, you have to be careful to avoid some basic pitfalls. The hard sell is incredibly unpopular on the site and will lose your credibility faster than virtually anything else. Twitter is meant to be used in a more organic fashion – by building a reputation with other users, they will be driven to use your products or services over time. Another thing to avoid is considering the number of followers you have as a popularity contest; rather than quantity, try to go for the quality of the people you interact with and make better content.
All in all, Twitter is becoming a fairly powerful tool for marketing, networking, and business development. Websites are easy to promote, especially if they have good content. There are numerous external applications that make it even easier to use (for example, one program allows you to search for key phrases in recent tweets – you can find out who is talking about small business government contracting, for example, and start a discussion!) and these can help reduce the time spent on it each day.
Don’t get overwhelmed – Twitter isn’t something that has to be used 24/7! This dynamic word-of-mouth advertising format has made marketing even easier to do, as long as you monitor what you are doing. Just remember that to get anything from it, you will have to give time, effort, and a little bit of yourself, just as you would in any other format.
If you’d like, you can always find Gateway to Government representatives on Twitter. My name is JIstvan and let me know when you get on! LauraGuthrie, my aforementioned coworker, is also worth following - she is a social media expert!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Offline to Online – The Marketing Migration
Whenever I’m talking to my friends about a news story and I can’t remember the exact source, I tell them to Google it. I don’t say it’s in the Free Lane Star or the New York Times; no, it is always Google it. With my parents, though, they always reference the local newspaper, The Journal. I think it only serves three very small counties. The other day I tried finding it online and when I did, the site was pathetic. No up-to-date status on stories; they literally posted the same thing that they put in their paper. The problem with this is that The Journal is only printed once a week. Usually the information is outdated or strictly local.
Most of these small town newspapers are failing in today’s internet journalism. Journalism is still alive and thriving; however, newspapers are dying rapidly. The Tucson Citizen in Southern Arizona will be closing it’s doors after 140 years this Saturday. They aren’t the only ones that are having issues keeping their paper afloat. The LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and Philadelphia Inquirer have all sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the past year.
The question shouldn’t be “Why aren’t people reading the news anymore?” but “Why aren’t newspapers going online?” My friends all have subscriptions to washingtonpost.com and it’s daily e-mails. I still get the real paper delivered to my apartment though. The only reason I have it isn’t habit, but because the subscription was free when I moved in. Now the only thing I use the paper for is kitty litter clean up. Fewer and fewer people still rely on newspapers as their go-to source. I know my Dad is one of them. It might be a generation difference, but more and more there are people in their fifties that prefer to go online and read the stories simply because it cost less.
Journalism won’t be a long-lost art because of the internet. If anything, it’ll make the job better because the information can always be up-to-date instead of eleven hours old. "The overall move to online has been big," IDG chairman Patrick McGovern said. "Print editions are yesterday's news. If it is news, people want to hear it as soon as they can." Journalism has evolved to fit this need of current news being, well, current. The newspapers that are failing aren’t following suit; The Washington Post and The New York Times are still doing well, serving both the traditional newspaper and one online with RSS feeds set-up to the most up-to-date information. These two companies have evolved with journalism; they took the leap from offline to online.
Newspapers aren’t the only companies that are faced with a decision to move online though. Radio made the move as well with sites such as Pandora allowing commercial free music channels that the user creates or iTunes. YouTube, Hulu, Break.com and other sites all have made television or funny videos available to you at any time. The digital age is upon us and being on the internet is critical to survival. Even if it is the simplest site ever, just having it up will help people find your business. I don’t use the phone book to look up businesses; I go to Google and look. The point is that if you don’t evolve, you’ll be left behind with the newspaper stands, yellowing in the sun.
Most of these small town newspapers are failing in today’s internet journalism. Journalism is still alive and thriving; however, newspapers are dying rapidly. The Tucson Citizen in Southern Arizona will be closing it’s doors after 140 years this Saturday. They aren’t the only ones that are having issues keeping their paper afloat. The LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and Philadelphia Inquirer have all sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the past year.
The question shouldn’t be “Why aren’t people reading the news anymore?” but “Why aren’t newspapers going online?” My friends all have subscriptions to washingtonpost.com and it’s daily e-mails. I still get the real paper delivered to my apartment though. The only reason I have it isn’t habit, but because the subscription was free when I moved in. Now the only thing I use the paper for is kitty litter clean up. Fewer and fewer people still rely on newspapers as their go-to source. I know my Dad is one of them. It might be a generation difference, but more and more there are people in their fifties that prefer to go online and read the stories simply because it cost less.
Journalism won’t be a long-lost art because of the internet. If anything, it’ll make the job better because the information can always be up-to-date instead of eleven hours old. "The overall move to online has been big," IDG chairman Patrick McGovern said. "Print editions are yesterday's news. If it is news, people want to hear it as soon as they can." Journalism has evolved to fit this need of current news being, well, current. The newspapers that are failing aren’t following suit; The Washington Post and The New York Times are still doing well, serving both the traditional newspaper and one online with RSS feeds set-up to the most up-to-date information. These two companies have evolved with journalism; they took the leap from offline to online.
Newspapers aren’t the only companies that are faced with a decision to move online though. Radio made the move as well with sites such as Pandora allowing commercial free music channels that the user creates or iTunes. YouTube, Hulu, Break.com and other sites all have made television or funny videos available to you at any time. The digital age is upon us and being on the internet is critical to survival. Even if it is the simplest site ever, just having it up will help people find your business. I don’t use the phone book to look up businesses; I go to Google and look. The point is that if you don’t evolve, you’ll be left behind with the newspaper stands, yellowing in the sun.
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