Are you a 2021 GAINer?

Government marketing leaders are tasked with a dizzying variety of indispensable responsibilities. From leading industry strategy, formalizing refined actions to driving innovation—all to prove the value of marketing to the client.

It all comes together in a smart, detailed integrated marketing plan. But how does one start?!

Episode 1: It starts with Strategic Marketing. The right plan will unlock some of the best ways to ensure that your next government marketing strategy is the most effective one yet. The best strategic marketing plan leverages marketing’s expanded role while supporting career growth and accelerating government marketers’ foundational contribution to the inevitable evolution of any organization.

Build a Lasting Career with a Seat at the Table: Kid’s Table No More

KEYNOTE SESSION

Rao Unnava, Dean and Professor, University of California, Davis 

Rao Unnava of the American Marketing Association and Dean of Graduate School of Management at University of California at Davis understands how to secure a seat at the table. He is a marketer just like us and understands the value that marketing has within an organization. His research focuses on issues related to brand loyalty, consumer response to advertising and sales promotions and consumer memory. Unnava is also one of the founders of Angie’s List.

• Leverage Your Personal Brand
• Prove Your Marketing Value
• Lead Strategic Initiatives

Key Considerations for B2G Marketing

FIRESIDE CHAT

Amber Hart, Co-Owner/Founder, The Pulse of GovCon

Lisa Shea Mundt, Co-Owner/Founder, The Pulse of GovCon

What You Need to Know Now
Sit down, grab your notebook & get comfortable…In this fireside chat, our team of experts describe the key differences of doing business in B2G and how to effectively leverage these nuances in your marketing strategy. As an advisory firm dedicated to the empowerment of Government Contractors, The Pulse shares what you need know about the government contracting ecosystem and bridges the fundamental gaps surrounding federal procurement. This is exactly the kind of know-how that will help you build your business, and rest easy.

• Learn the Top 5 Considerations for B2G Marketing Strategy
• Understand the Elements of the GovCon Ecosystem
• Fill the Gaps in Federal Procurement

Market Intelligence

PANEL

James Hanson, Group Publisher, Federal and Technology Markets, GovExec

Nate Nash, Co-founder and Executive Vice President, GovTribe

Troy Schneider, General Manager for Government Technology Brands, Washington Technology

Matthew Cornelius, Senior Professional Staff Member, United States Senate

Moderator: Brian Chidester, Head of Worldwide Industry Strategy, Public Sector, OpenText

Don’t miss out on the public sector market! Get expert advice from industry leaders who provide different perspectives on which market dynamics shape this market—from policies and initiatives to procurement and technology trends. And, of course, with an ever-evolving marketing, you’ll also learn ways to stay on top of this intel for your own marketing strategy.

• Manage Changing Market Dynamics
• Benefit from Inside Intel on Evolving Markets
• Get Multiple Expert Perspectives on a Key Market

Rethinking Your Playbook: Setting a Cohesive Annual Strategy

PANEL

Moderator: Lou Anne Brossman, Founder and Strategic Advisory, GMarkU

Panelists:
Stacy Outlaw, Senior Vice President, Marketing, WAEPA
Lorena Montes-Virag, Director of Marketing, Public Sector, World Wide Technology
Lisa De Luca, Senior Manager, Public Sector Marketing, Cisco

How to Achieve Your Goals
Now that you’re armed with knowledge of the B2G Market and the latest market intelligence, as well as set with well-defined objectives and goals aligned to your organization, you’re ready to develop your strategy!

In this roundtable, Public Sector marketing experts provide a government marketer’s POV as they discuss strategies that have achieved real results using the building blocks of holistic government marketing strategy including: brand & product marketing, competitive environment intel, creating demand with pipeline generating activities, working with industry partners, analytics and more.

• Winning Content Strategy
• Tools for Enabling Sales
• Event & Community-building Through PR

Did Ya GAIN?

Jeffrey Wolinsky, Director of Federal Sales for WTOP and FederalNewsNetwork.com

The genesis of the idea generation I used was based on “A lot has changed since the last time we “GAIN”ed together in person but what hasn’t changed is that the goal of our marketing is designed to influence peoples decisions. In these 3 short length thought provoking and slightly comedic episodes Jeffrey will get you to think about what hasn’t changed about the goal of your marketing and how to stay focused on influencing decisions.

Gone are the days of front-loading your budget on blasting a generic message across channels and hoping for results. Customers today expect their marketing to know exactly who they are, what they want and delivered when they want it.

So how do you craft meaningful, useful, and valuable campaign messaging that people will respond to?

Episode 2: Government Personas help you immediately understand your audience: who they are, the challenges they face, and – most importantly – how you can help them solve their problems. Fortunately, government marketers have many resources and tools available to drive greater precision and more cost-effectiveness in campaigns. We share these with so you can build the best strategic plan for your business.

The Joy of Finding the Right Person(alization)

Andrea Mohamed, Vice President of Strategy, Innovation, Marketing and Communications, RTI International

Blake Eckert, Director of Marketing & Communications, Geocent

The foundation for any successful marketing campaign is knowing your audience. Identifying and defining a target audience is crucial as it is impossible to reach everyone at once (remember, those days are gone!). Marketing to the right people at the right time ensures personalized messaging that speaks to a particular consumer’s current buying situation.

Personalization not only grows your sales and helps you plan resources more efficiently, but it will also quickly position you as an authority in your niche, be it crowded or sparsely populated.

• Understand how and when customers like to receive information
• Learn how to mine and use public data to develop personas
• Craft personalized messaging for effective use of resources

Public Sector Persona: Drill Down to Your Target Audience

Aaron Heffron, Market Connections

Aaron Heffron, president of market research firm, Market Connections, shares how data can help government marketers refine their strategies and maximize ROI. Knowing that the more you refine—such as modifying commercial marketing messages for mission-focused government audiences to further differentiating between Federal, SLED, Civilian and Defense markets—the more you need to know.

Aaron will highlight key findings and insights that help B2G marketers identify their target, learn what motivates them, their preferred content, and where they go to get information from recent annual and biennial studies of the public sector market, including the Federal IT Personas Study, Federal Media & Marketing Study and Content Marketing Study. These studies serve as the tools you need to drill down to the audience you want to reach.

• Gain Insight from Respected Market Studies
• Leverage Study Insights for Your Advantage
• Identify and Customize for Your Target Audience

Expedition: Engage Your Target Audience

PANEL

Moderator: Steve Vito

Panelists:
Joanne Woytek, Program Manager, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Jamie Holcombe, Chief Information Officer, USPTO
Luwanda Jones, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office of Strategic Sourcing, Department of Veterans Affairs

The B2G buyer’s journey can be quite complex—from appropriations funding to agency budgeting to procurement solicitations and RFP responses to recompetes. It’s enough to have you going in circles! In the public sector marketing world, it is critical to understand the complexities and nuances of each step along the way to ensure a successful campaign.

THE question for B2G buyers is how to engage targeted audiences with the right messages based on where they are in their journey?

Steve Vito, an influential Senior Communications Executive with 26 years of experience building innovative programming, business development and sales solutions for the media and public sector, leads a diverse panel of experts exploring solutions to this crucial question.

• Influence the critical moments in the buyer journey
• Understand the Typical Government Procurement Cycle
• Get Informed About Personas in Journey Mapping

Level Up: A Bootstrapped Playbook to Validating Your Personas

CASE STUDY

Shayna Williams, Sr. Industry Marketing Manager, Public Sector, Qumulo
Mark Amtower, Managing Partner, Amtower & Company
Melea Dixon, Director, Marketing and Communications, RTI International
Alexandria Thompson, Marketing Specialist, RTI International

Audience research can be challenging, and costly. The hardest part of audience research? Plan validation based on data, not hunches. As much as marketers can make presumptions when it comes to audience insight, it can’t compare to data-supported planning.

Oh, you don’t have a million-dollar budget dedicated to market research? Not to worry! Our case provide several ways to “bootstrap” the substantiation of your audience presumptions. Different perspectives teach you how to use your strengths, tenacity, and guile to ensure you’re targeting the right audience, all without a fancy budget.

• Find out Where to Get insights from Third-party Data
• Learn How to Leverage Your Own First-party Data
• Translate Real-life Examples to Suit Your Needs

Did Ya GAIN?

Jeffrey Wolinsky, Director of Federal Sales for WTOP and FederalNewsNetwork.com

The genesis of the idea generation I used was based on “A lot has changed since the last time we “GAIN”ed together in person but what hasn’t changed is that the goal of our marketing is designed to influence peoples decisions. In these 3 short length thought provoking and slightly comedic episodes Jeffrey will get you to think about what hasn’t changed about the goal of your marketing and how to stay focused on influencing decisions.

Now that you have established your strategic perspectives and understand your buyer personas, let’s talk about execution.

Building an effective campaign strategy is one of the most important things you can do to make your campaign successful. A good strategy provides a strong foundation and guides your campaign tactics as you work toward achieving the established campaign goals.

Episode 3: Campaign Strategy takes you in the trenches as you learn from the best to brush up your skills with specific campaign examples and best practices through a series of real-world case studies. Studies include:

• Marketing campaign components
• The tools, techniques and tactics that’ll help you build better campaigns
• How to create content experiences 
• What government marketers are doing today to engage audiences
• And more!

Follow the money: Map Your Budget to Where the Money is Flowing

KEYNOTE SESSION

Kevin Plexico, Senior VP, Information Solutions, Deltek 

The new Administration and Congress have teed up several spending measures that could have a major impact on the government contracting landscape for years to come. Join this session to learn what is in store for the public sector market and how companies should prepare to support the evolving priorities of government agencies.

• Government contract spending trends and impact
• Competitive and contracting trends impacting company operations
• How to prepare and support government agencies in their evolving priorities

Visionary View of 2022

FIRESIDE CHAT

Craig Abod, President of of Carahsoft Technology
Tim Hartman, CEO of GovExec

Join us for a fireside chat with Craig Abod, President of of Carahsoft Technology and Tim Hartman, CEO of GovExec on how the landscape is changing for Business Development and Marketing. They’ll be talking:

• Trends that companies need to be planning around
• Changes in the vendor ecosystem
• Buying behaviors during COVID
• What’s working? What’s not working?
• What companies are models of great innovation and growth during this time?

The Tools You Need to Build a Solid Campaign

Stephanie Geiger, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, GMarkU

Clear goals and objectives form the foundation of any successful government marketing campaign. And the best way to establish strong goals and objectives is by putting it all together with a concisely drafted Creative Brief that can help harness your thoughts on campaign ROI expectations, messaging, audience, assets, content, call-to-action, budget and more. Creative Briefs presented to key stakeholders before a campaign gets underway will typically make marketing budget approval easier. So get your tools ready, and let’s get building!

• Establish Clear Goals & Objectives
• Learn to Draft a Winning Creative Brief
• Increase Your Odds on Early Budget Approval

Leader of the Pack

PANEL

Moderator: Carrie Drake, Director of Government Marketing
Maxar

Panelists:
Janet Waring, CEO and Founder, ArtForm Business Solutions
Ben Ingham, Director of Brand and Marketing Communications, Peraton

Your reputation and credibility are everything when it comes to your business. But how do you use your government marketing to establish your authority? It isn’t always about marketing hardware and software—there’s more to it than that. Led by Carrie Drake, Director of Government Marketing at Maxar Technologies and a champion for women’s voices linking technologies and missions, this panel discussion will focus on leveraging marketing services and capabilities to influence government contract opportunities.

• Establish Your Authority in Your Field
• Leverage Marketing Services & Capabilities
• Positively Influence Government Contract Opportunities

Level Up: Marketing Best Practices from Your Peers

CASE STUDY

Brian Murphy, Partner Strategist, AWS
Stephen Ellis, Government Solutions Lead, ZOOM
Adam Palmer, Executive Director, Strategy and Sales Operations, GovernmentCIO Media & Research

Want to know how your peers tackled successful government marketing campaigns? Hear first hand about how they set their strategy, what tools they used, messaging and how they determined and exceeded their metrics. Get ready to take notes, as these government marketers have seen great success in bringing these campaigns to market.

Five Top Tips for Working with Government PAOs

PANEL

Moderator: Mike Smith, SVP Public Relations, Yes& Agency

Panelists:
Lucy Caldwell, Director of Communications, Fairfax County Health Department

Olivia Humilde, Dynamic External Affairs Specialist for Disaster and Crisis Management, FEMA

Jennifer Ivey-Harper, Chief, Public & Congressional Affairs at US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Aviation & Missile

A Marketers Best Friend
The development of target personas is an important part of a comprehensive marketing strategy. PAOs are one of those key personas that are often overlooked but one which government marketers should pay special attention to as they plan communications to key agencies. A public affairs officer acts as the face of the agency they represent and manages the relationship between their agency and their industry counterparts (and the public). Understanding who they are, what they do, how you can best engage etc. will help you build a better marketing communications plan to this distinct group.

This session will provide GAIN attendees invaluable insights on how to best nurture these strategic relationships. And answer some of these questions:

• How can you support PAO’s seeking industry information or new technology to complete their public service work?
• What are some of the success strategies they have seen from industry in making sure they are aware of your organizations and your work at their agencies?
• What advice can they give industry marketing professionals to help nurture relationships with their office? And how can you help PAO’s support the mission of their agencies?
• Why is multitasking and ability to prioritize vital in the PAO role and what role can industry play to support these priorities?

Additionally, panelists will answer some of the most common tactical questions you have about how to best collaborate with PAOs: Do you need an agency official to speak at your event? Are you seeking a quote about past performance or ability to share a case study in your capture management? Are you interested in compliance rules around use of government logos? How can you best engage with the office of the PAO at your target agency? And much more!

Did Ya GAIN?

Jeffrey Wolinsky, Director of Federal Sales for WTOP and FederalNewsNetwork.com

The genesis of the idea generation I used was based on “A lot has changed since the last time we “GAIN”ed together in person but what hasn’t changed is that the goal of our marketing is designed to influence peoples decisions. In these 3 short length thought provoking and slightly comedic episodes Jeffrey will get you to think about what hasn’t changed about the goal of your marketing and how to stay focused on influencing decisions.

GAINer Awards – LIVE @4:30 p.m. ET!

Stephanie Geiger, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President, GMarkU

Tom Suder, Chief Executive Officer, ATARC

Grab your favorite beverage and join us as we celebrate the best in government marketing. U.S. Public Sector Government Marketing Campaigns that have raised the bar with Growth, Acceleration, Innovation and Networking will be recognized and awarded the 2021 GAINer Award. We are excited to have our government marketing community come together at GAIN to recognize government marketing superstars from across government and industry. Learn more at https://www.gmarku.com/connect/government-marketing-awards/.