Capture marketing is a strategic approach used in government contracting to position your business to win specific opportunities before the Request for Proposal (RFP) is even released. It involves identifying potential government contracts early, building relationships with key decision-makers, and tailoring your offerings to align with the agency’s needs and mission.
Essentially, it’s about ensuring your business becomes the preferred choice when the opportunity goes live.
Why Should Capture Marketing Be a 2025 GovCon Goal?
In 2025, competition in the government contracting space will continue to grow, making it critical for you to be proactive and differentiate yourself. For example, as the government continues to shift more opportunities to the task order model instead of the open market, they will award more projects under multi-year contracts and the number of new requests for proposals tends to shrink.
Steps to Take:
- After research, create a marketing plan and automate an outreach strategy to ensure you regularly connect and build relationships with the agencies. Depending on the agency, this might look like email(s), matchmaking, white papers, phone calls, Capability Briefings, etc.
- Set up notifications on SAM.gov that will notify you of opportunities as they are posted.
- Create strategic partnerships with other businesses that offer complementary services. This can help you to be competitive on an RFP that might include some products or services that you don’t normally offer but would allow you to offer a full solution. This would also be beneficial when marketing a full-service solution.
- Don’t forget to pursue small purchases that won’t be advertised on SAM.gov. Your marketing plan should incorporate capturing these purchases as well.
- Don’t target everyone, even if everyone could use your service. Choose your initial targets carefully i.e. based on agency needs, wants, preferences (SDVOSB, 8(a), for example). Remember your research should help determine your targets. Also important to consider your firm’s capacity and capabilities.
Taking these steps now is essential to winning contract awards in 2025.
