What is Government Contracting Branding?
A company’s logo, fonts, and colors, are often considered its brand. But, while these key elements are part of a company’s brand, it’s not the whole story.
What’s in Your Brand?
Your brand should communicate the passion that drives you to deliver value to your prospects, customers/clients, teaming partners, and recruits/employees.
Your brand should be the sum of your mission, vision, values, philosophy, and essence—who you are, what you do, and why you do it. It should convey how your company makes people feel and their experience when interacting with you.
Whether you intentionally focus on it or not, your brand is a perception of every representation of your company—internally and externally, online and offline. It pays to be intentional. Companies big and small, young and old, are all vying for the same allocated government budget, top talent, and best teaming opportunities.
Effective branding that resonates with your target audience is critical in the highly competitive GovCon marketplace.
6 Government Contracting Branding Tips
1. Define and invest in your company’s brand.
There is a good reason why top government contractors are successful. They deliver great results and have strong brand awareness. They understand brand matters and invest to elevate their brand visibility.
Building a brand takes a lot of time and work. Every year GovExec, the leading sales and marketing intelligence company for government leaders and contractors, conducts a Leading Brands study.
They consider brand awareness, product delivery, and client satisfaction as key measures in their determination of top brands in the government contracting space. Unsurprisingly, companies investing heavily in their brand over time made the top 9 in 2023.
Defining your brand requires a company’s leadership to answer critical key questions. Here are just a few in a long list.
- What gaps in the marketplace does your expertise fill?
- What is your why?
- How is your company different from your competitors?
- Who are your best customers?
- What problems do you solve for your customers?
- What is the experience you want your target audiences to have?
When a government agency thinks of your organization, you want them to know you understand their mission and problems and how your solutions can help them.
When defining your brand, you also want to consider your teaming partners and employees (current and future). You want anyone interacting with your company to feel confident in the experience they can count on when working with you.
2. Align brand messaging with government priorities.
Explain how your products and services are the ideal solutions for your client’s problem and clearly articulate how your solutions and experience differ from your competition.
Invest the time to evaluate which government agencies you best serve and how. Research their mission and clarify how you can help support it.
Brand messaging should clearly articulate answers to the following questions.
- What do we do?
- Who do we do it for?
- Why do we do it?
- What are the benefits of working with us?
- How are we different from our competition
Download the 6 Messaging Must-Haves To Close More Deals.
3. Focus on outcomes, not offerings.
It’s about them, not you!
- What are your target agency’s pain points?
- What problems do they need to solve?
- What risk factors are they trying to manage?
- How can you help them support their mission?
- How do you help them meet deadlines?
Avoid focusing on what you sell, or providing a laundry list of your technical capabilities to showcase your solutions. Instead, focus on results and how you help your clients.
Far too often, lowest price and technically acceptable (LPTA) wins out over best value and best solution. A better way to communicate your value is to tell the story of how you helped another company/agency with the same or similar problem. This could be through a case study, press release, article on your website, a social media post (linking back to your website), or a presentation.
4. Treat your employees as brand ambassadors.
Share your brand messaging with your employees. Supply them with the tools they need to communicate what your brand represents effectively.
One good way to do this would be to create a series of support materials that are clear and concise about who you are, what you do, who you do it for, and why you do it. The better your team understands your company’s purpose and mission, its values and principles, and how they can serve, the better they will communicate your brand’s value.
The more your employees feel they are part of the mission and their voice matters, the more they will advocate for you. Employees who advocate for their company build stronger relationships and help build trust and credibility.
When properly nurtured, your employees will be your best brand ambassadors and your biggest asset.
5. Build trust through consistency.
Messaging inconsistency leads to confusion, loss of trust, and damage to brand credibility. People buy from people and companies they know, like, and trust. Federal buyers and decision-makers are highly risk-averse. If your message isn’t consistent across every touch point with your company, a federal decision-maker may see you as a risk they cannot afford to take.
Apply your brand messaging across all communications. Create a content plan to disseminate your brand messaging across all communication channels—internal and external.
When engaging in government marketing, it’s critical that messaging be consistent throughout all sales and marketing communications. This includes your website, social media platforms, sales collateral, proposals, press releases, and verbal communications. Clarity and consistency amplifies brand awareness and helps build brand trust.
6. Consider getting an outside viewpoint.
Bringing all the key stakeholders together to have these conversations internally and creating a strategy for improving branding is a great first step. But ultimately—talking only amongst yourselves, you may be too close to be objective. Getting outside opinions and guidance can be of great value.
An experienced government marketing agency will help GovCon companies craft and refine branding and brand messaging—building consistency through strategic planning and execution—taking the heavy lifting off of internal resources, offering a fresh external perspective, and ultimately supporting business development and HR success.
Working through the nuances of contracting with the federal government requires creativity and a deep understanding of the government sector and branding principles. Make sure you work with an agency that specializes in marketing and branding for government contractors.
Remember, a compelling brand narrative can set government contractors apart in a crowded marketplace, making them more attractive to agencies seeking reliable solutions providers, teaming partners, and top talent.
Are you considering working with a government marketing agency to help your growing organization with branding and brand messaging? Reach Out to speak with one of our government contracting branding experts.
Government Marketing with Ocean 5 Strategies
Ocean 5 provides consulting and marketing services to government contractors. Most engagements start with an assessment of the existing brand messaging, digital presence, or website status.
The services we are hired for the most:
We help our clients modernize their branding, clarify their messaging, redesign their website, and build visibility and trust with government decision-makers, teaming partners, and top talent. We help B2G companies clearly communicate their services, differentiators and the value that they bring to these critical audiences using modern marketing best practices and techniques specifically refined for the GovCon industry.
Related Blogs:
- Top Branding Tips for Government Contractors from Website Design Companies
- Government Marketing is Crucial for Government Contractors—Brand Matters
- Government Marketing Best Practices for Government Contractors
- The Best Website Design Companies Include Messaging
- My Government Contractor Website Doesn’t Look Like a Grown-Up Company
