Top Five Habits of High-Growth B2G Firms

By Elizabeth Harr, Partner, Hinge | April 13, 2020

What does it take to deliver at least 20 percent organic revenue growth year after year?

Just released, the Hinge 2020 High-Growth Study – which includes government contractors – uncovered marketing habits and priorities of firms that post impressive organic growth vs those that have average growth, or even no growth.

While there are admittedly dozens of marketing techniques firms can choose to invest in, we found that high-growth government services firms prioritize these 5 above all others. 

Priority 1: High-Growth Government Contractors Create Valuable Thought Leadership

Not so long ago, creating educational content was enough to help firms stand out from the competition. But things change quickly online, and what used to be exceptional is now a non-negotiable. As more and more firms develop sophisticated content marketing strategies, the demand for high quality content has risen to a new level.

Today, standing out means doing more than simply addressing your audience’s pain points. High-growth firms understand the value of establishing themselves as the industry leaders, offering an authoritative perspective on important topics in their marketplace. The process of building that authority is sometimes called “thought leadership marketing.”  Why the uber focus on content? Isn’t there enough noise out there, where every firm has a blog and posts in social media? While the digital universe allows us to fake many things, you can’t easily fake expertise. You can certainly try. Just because you have a blog for example doesn’t mean your blog is informative.

Priority 2: High-Growth Government Contractors Are Well Differentiated

According to our research, high-growth firms are three times more likely than their no-growth peers to have a strong differentiator.

Differentiation is the way in which a business separates itself from other similar firms. Usually this difference is expressed in the language a contractor uses to describe itself or its services. But there is more to a differentiator than lip service. It has to meet three criteria. A differentiator must be:

  1. True
  2. Relevant
  3. Provable

And of course, it must be different from most of your competitors. See Priority 5.

Priority 3: High-Growth Government Contractors Are Good Social Citizens

Being active on social media is another non-negotiable. Will you win a contract because you’re on LinkedIn? Probably not. But social channels are all part of the visibility-building equation, and being absent raises more questions than not and plays an important role in a firm’s overall marketing strategy for networking, promotion of thought leadership (not just yours, but other non-competitive sources of content as well), SEO, and recruiting.

Priority 4: High-Growth Government Contractors show up in online searches

If producing well-written, relevant thought leadership is the #1 priority, ensuring visibility around that content through SEO (search engine optimization) is essential. However, SEO is one of those strategies that can be an expensive investment without much to show for. Not only is Google constantly changing the way it indexes and ranks pages in search results leaving firms unsure of strategic direction, but finding the right keywords is a fluid process, always changing depending audience intent, search volume, and a firm’s ability to rank for certain keywords. That aside, unless content includes keywords, that content remains essentially invisible to the outside world.

Priority 5: High-Growth Government Contractors Are Experts on their Competition

Habit 2 is all about differentiation. And the point of a differentiator to be different. Unless firms understand the experience their audience has when looking for solutions to their problems – i.e. which firms show up (and rank high) in online searches, which firms have presence at highly-networked events, who speaks regularly etc – it’s hard to know how to show up differentiated from those players. Regular competitor analysis rounds out the 5th habit of high-growth government services firms.

Of course determining the best priorities for your own firm is predicated on people and financial resources, as well as growth goals you have in mind. Basing decisions on hard data rather than anecdotes and gut feelings — data that describes how the best-performing firms invest their marketing dollars, will help you model your marketing program on the most successful companies in the industry.

About the Author

Elizabeth Harr, Partner at Hinge, is an accomplished entrepreneur and experienced executive with a background in strategic planning, branding and growth for professional services. Elizabeth co-founded a Microsoft solutions provider company and grew it into a thriving organization that became known for its expertise in Microsoft customer relationship management. In her role as Partner at Hinge, she leads the advisory provided to technology consulting and government services firms.