Episode 2: Tips From The Pros For Strengthening Your Government Marketing

This content is provided by Government Marketing University.

Welcome to Market Chat – “Bringing Clarity to the Clutter in Government Marketing” with hot topics, best practices, exciting guests and innovative ideas.

Market Chat is an ongoing series that provides an open and collaborative interaction between government and industry to ensure that listeners will walk away empowered with greater knowledge on how to better market to their targeted federal audience.

In this episode of Market Chat, we will hear insights, tips and advice to enhance your government marketing efforts from 4 government marketing experts who are change agents and thought leaders in our market. They will provide their expertise on how to strengthen your government marketing efforts.

Today’s program will cover the following topics:

• Events: Small, large, geo – what is the best? What are the best practices for measuring ROI and success?
• Marketing Mix: How do you ensure you are getting the right marketing mix? What is the right percentage split for lead generation, brand awareness, events and sales enablement?
• Market research: Research has been around for a long time but in this day of social media and all the many new ways of capturing insight – how do you tackle this in your marketing?
• Marketing budget: Lessons learned and best practices for obtaining marketing funds from corporate, partners, alliances and other tips on finding dollars.
• Content is King: How do you maximize your dollar investment on content and what type of content works best? White Papers, Use Cases, InfoGraphics, Web, Social Media.
• Marketing Plan: We provide some good old fashion government marketing training – hear what your first steps should be in your plan development.
• Mentoring: If you are just starting your career or are new to their government marketing role are very interested in having mentors to help you develop and hone your government marketing skills that we invite you to get in touch with GMarkU at Mentor@governmentmarketinguniversity.com. Our panel of experts (and GMarkU Mentors) will share advice that all government marketers should know.

Federal Marketing Experts

Lou Anne Brossman, Founder and President, Government Marketing University

Lou Anne Brossman has over 30 years of public sector government marketing leadership experience gained while working for some of the leading companies in the market (Juniper Networks, immixGroup, EMC ). Her roots are in the manufacture world which enables her to better understand and relate to the corporate issues her federal marketing customers are facing. She is a sought out speaker on Government Marketing Best Practices and is well recognized and respected for her ability to drive Thought Leadership campaigns on relevant federal, state and local government policies and mandates. Lou Anne has served on numerous boards including immixGroup and Trezza Media and was a founding member of the Women’s Center Executive Council.   Lou Anne was honored with the Heroines in Technology award presented by Women In Technology and she was the recipient of the ACT IAC Dedication to Making a Difference award.

Lou Anne started Virtual Marketing in 2008 after realizing there was a need for experienced hands-on “virtual” government marketing experts who could provide an economical way for companies to have winning government marketing programs.  She most recently launched Government Marketing University, an innovative learning platform that applies a collaborative, community-based approach toward knowledge sharing and skills development in the field of public sector marketing. Government Marketing University will offer training, research, certifications, mentoring, and community resources all in one place. For more information about Government Marketing University, visit www.governmentmarketinguniversity.com.

Kim Hower, Director, Public Sector Marketing, Nutanix

Kim leads Public Sector Marketing at Nutanix, a Silicon Valley-based software company that is leading the hyperconverged infrastructure revolution within datacenters. In her role she drives strategy and execution of demand generation, awareness, and thought leadership programs across the U.S. public sector market, including Federal, Defense, State and Local government, as well as higher education. Throughout her career, Kim authored a variety of innovative marketing initiatives, including VMware’s Government & Education Innovation Summit, the Virtualization Expert and Federal IT Challenge programs on WTOP and a Federal Evangelist Development program that was instrumental in bringing the power of virtualization to U.S. government customers all over the world.

Prior to Nutanix, Kim worked in both the vendor and agency communities, building successful government marketing programs at VMware, Hewlett Packard, Peregrine Systems, and BMC Software and working with IT and government clients as part of Ogilvy Public Relations and ENC Marketing. She began her professional career at Arthur Andersen, where she was responsible for relationship marketing, as well as marketing for the Real Estate, Financial Services and Healthcare practices. She earned her B.A. in Political Science and French from Old Dominion University, and is an avid follower of college lacrosse.

Ginger Kessler, Director, Federal Marketing, Brocade Communications

Ginger is a seasoned sales and marketing professional with experience in the High Tech industry, employed by Fortune 1,000 and growth firms to market and to sell to government and commercial customers.  She has spent the lion share of her career focused on the Federal market aligning with senior sales executives to deliver and track successful marketing and sales campaigns for both reseller and direct sales organizations.

Prior to Brocade, Kessler was with Avnet Technology Solutions, supporting Federal resellers in their marketing and selling efforts.  She has held America’s Wide Field Marketing positions for both NetApp and SGI and started her career with IBM, selling mid-range computer solutions.

Kessler holds a B.S. degree from Pennsylvania State University. She is married with two daughters.  In her spare time she loves to travel, bike with her husband, walk her dog and take trips to NYC to visit her oldest daughter.

Kate Tong, Director, Public Sector Marketing, Cloudera

As marketing director, Kate is responsible for setting the strategic direction and implementation of marketing, communications, public relations and government affairs programs designed to increase awareness and demand for Cloudera solutions within the U.S. public sector markets.

She joined Cloudera in 2012 as a senior manager and during her tenure has been focused on working with the public sector team to identify, acquire, and retain government customers.  In support of this goal, she designs and deploys effective integrated marketing initiatives, manages the public sector marketing budget, and orchestrates production of a host of marketing materials online and in print, as well as a robust schedule of annual events to brand Cloudera as an essential and engaged IT leader in the public sector.

In recent years, she has designed the rapidly-growing Cloudera Government Forum, an annual gathering of government and industry professionals focused on data management and advanced analytics. In 2015, this program reached all-time goals for attendance and partner support and the 2016 Forum was expanded to include second program, Cloudera Technology Day, to further expand the reach of Cloudera in the mid-Atlantic region.

Kate has a thorough working knowledge in the cultivation and development of reseller and technology partnerships through a number of marketing and channel programs.  She is recognized in the Federal IT market for her creativity, tenacity, and ability to make key connections among influencers, clients and colleagues.

Prior to joining Cloudera, Kate held professional marketing positions focused on the public sector at Riverbed Technology, TANDBERG (now Cisco) and GTSI (now Unicom).  She is a graduate of College of Charleston, where she earned a B.A. in Corporate Communication with a minor in Business Administration.  She received the 2010 Distinguished Young AFCEAN award for her efforts supporting the AFCEA DC Chapter.

Rita Walston, Senior Director, Public Sector Channel Marketing, immixGroup

Rita Walston is senior director, public sector channel marketing for immixGroup, an Arrow company, leading a team that provides public sector strategic and tactical marketing planning, logistics, management, and support to immixGroup’s manufacturer suppliers and solution provider partners. Rita has extensive experience in the creation and management of lead generation and thought leadership marketing programs aimed at public sector customers and prospects. She also is the strategic and tactical lead on immixGroup’s annual Government IT Sales Summit, the industry’s preeminent event delivering market intelligence, expert content from industry and government leaders, and unparalleled networking opportunities for its 900+ attendees.

Prior to joining immixGroup in 2008, Rita was executive director of the NIST-funded Telework Consortium, which provided telework program consulting services and implementation support to federal agencies and other public sector entities. In addition to marketing, her 25-year career includes IT business development and sales, publishing, and media market research. Rita has a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, and a bachelor’s in communications from Wayne State University.

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