With a $276.6 billion IT budget across federal, state, and local governments, and more than 25 million employees, the GovTech market is enormous. The opportunity is real, but it’s a challenging market to break into unless you master one key motion—repeatability. Establishing a repeatable approach to your sales and marketing efforts helps reduce costs and shorten sales cycles. It also builds a foundation for long-term growth and scale in the government sector.
What is repeatability and why does it matter?
Most companies don’t staff or resource the average public sector team like they do the commercial teams, so when tackling a market the size of the U.S. government, it’s critical to scale strategies, campaigns, and tactics. It’s the key to achieving sustainable growth and saving time and money. But, scaling is only possible when you architect repeatability from the very beginning.
Like all sales and marketing efforts, repeatability starts with identifying your audience. We’re not talking about identifying “Line of Business” (LOB) or “I.T.”, although those categories are important. We’re advocating that you go deeper. It might seem odd, but the more specific you can be with your persona development, the more repeatable you can be with it!
Start at the title level, and then dig deeper. It helps to consider the government sub-vertical you’re targeting. For example, if you want to target the Veterans Administration (VA), don’t settle for “LoB” – consider the Health sub-vertical, along with the title and psychographics of your primary buyer. If your solution helps to protect health data, you might be targeting the “Director of Health Information Management”. Understand what keeps them up at night, and what problems they’re trying to solve today. What and who are they influenced by? Learn what policies and mandates they must adhere to. Much of this is readily available in their agency’s strategic plan (which is available online), or you can have GBR build it for you.
Then, once you have your persona built out, create and develop your marketing campaign or sales pitch. Evaluate the performance and optimize where it’s needed. When you’re ready, you can re-deploy it with just a bit of tweaking. Here is a partial list of possible Civilian agencies that also have employees with this same title:
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
- Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
- Indian Health Services (IHS)
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
- Bureau of Prisons (BOP)
The same play or campaign that you build for the VA can easily be used for these agencies. This is the power of scaling and repeatability. Could you repeat the campaign without doing the detailed personal work? Yes, but it won’t be nearly as effective. And what is repeatability or scalability without effectiveness?
Now that you’re done on the Civilian side, you can adapt the material for the Defense and Intelligence (DoD/IC) side. That title also exists for the Department of Defense, and IC agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Adapting to the DoD/IC will take a bit more effort, not all of the painpoints will line up as easily as they did on the Civilian side, and the terminology may need to be adjusted. But it’s nowhere near the same amount of effort as creating a net new set of campaigns and programs from the ground up.
What’s the payoff of repeatability?
Here’s how repeatability can make a big impact in your B2G marketing and sales efforts.
Market strength. Even when you narrow your focus to government sectors like the Department of Defense (DoD) or intelligence communities (IC), the workforce is still enormous. This vast landscape means you may be trying to gain ground with them in a scattershot approach which can be expensive and inefficient. With repeatability, you can streamline and strengthen your market expertise by focusing on one sub-vertical at a time.
Diverse missions, similar needs. Government agencies may seem wildly different, but many share common workflows and pain points, even across sub-verticals. That means you don’t have to reinvent your sales approach with every prospect. Instead, find and address commonalities across agencies. This can lead to significant efficiency gains, shorten the sales cycle by a third or more, and position you as an expert who understands agency needs.
Message consistency. Government decision-makers value reliability and consistency. Having repeatable processes ensures that your messaging remains consistent across various campaigns, touchpoints, and audiences. A consistent message builds familiarity, trust, and confidence in your brand or solution, which is critical when dealing with long government buying cycles.
Data-Driven Optimization. When you repeat campaigns or tactics, you gather a more reliable set of performance data. Over time, patterns emerge that help refine and improve your efforts. Repeatability allows you to compare key metrics (e.g., engagement rates, conversion rates) across multiple campaigns, which helps optimize your strategy for greater effectiveness over time.
References build trust. Government agencies are mission-driven, and the stakes are high when selecting new technologies. Agencies want to see that your product has been successfully implemented in a similar agency or mission. Having a solid reference can make or break a deal. Repeatability allows you to showcase relevant and mission-specific references. This makes it easier for other agencies to take the leap and trust your solution.
GovBuyer’s Journey™ Mapping. If you have a repeatable process for mapping and tracking each step of the GovBuyer’s Journey™, it ensures your team knows where to focus efforts at any given stage. Repeatable processes give your team the tools to engage with your government buyers more strategically, providing the right information or support at the right time to facilitate the decision-making process.
Tips for Success
Plan for repeatability from the start. Identify the specific target personas and sub-verticals early, and make sure your team is aligned on the plan.
Focus and discipline. It’s tempting to chase every opportunity or develop “one-and-done” marketing campaigns. But spreading yourself too thin across too many sub-segments will dilute your efforts. Stay focused on your core use cases.
Marshal your resources. Ensure that you have the right team in place to support your repeatability strategy. This includes marketing, pre-sales, and technical resources.
Use the momentum. Once you build repeatability into your GovTech business model, you’ll see shorter deal cycles, reduced costs, and toeholds across numerous agencies. Most importantly, you’ll gain valuable, referenceable case studies that fuel further growth.
For B2G tech businesses, repeatability is not just a growth strategy, it’s the foundation for sustained success. Understanding market scale, how to leverage shared agency pain points, and building use cases create momentum that propels you to the top of the GovTech market. The rewards are clear: shorter sales cycles, lower costs, and a steady stream of valuable references. Develop repeatability today and watch your government business thrive.