One Way to Create Highly Effective B2LG Content: Speak Directly to Your Reader

Okay, sure.  Providing local governments with a product or service that is the highest quality, lowest cost, or fastest in the market, is very cool.

Keep up the good work, product developers!

But marketing content that only focuses on those things is ineffective. It’s a waste of your marketing resources.

Product attributes are about YOU, your product, and your company.  But your audience’s world doesn’t revolve around any of those.  Like any other audience, local government officials who engage with your brand care about relatability.  Their worlds revolves around THEMSELVES.

Create a bridge to your brand on an emotional level in order to stand out from the crowded, impersonal, online space.

So how will these officials stay engaged until the end of your message?

Speak directly to them.

Speak to Them Like People

*Gasp!*  Speak directly to them?  As if they were people?  Not users?  Or subscribers?  Or traffic?

You got it.  The marketing equivalent of looking the person right in the eyes.  While technically you’re marketing B2LG, at the heart, you’re marketing H2H.  Human to human.

In our digitized world of machine learning and bots, a living, breathing human being is the one making purchasing decisions.  And in local government, often it’s several people making those choices, all at once.

So speak to your audience directly.

Examples of Great H2H Marketing in Local Government

We reviewed the marketing materials of 35 local government suppliers to easily pull examples of H2H marketing. 

It wasn’t so easy.  

We studied landing pages, webinars, emails, case studies, checklists, whitepapers, blog posts, workbooks, videos, social media, and infographics.

We thought there would be DOZENS of content examples that speak directly to local government officials.  LOTS of examples that sounds like one human being speaking to another human being, uncontrived. 

There aren’t.

So when we uncovered these rare gems from the superstar marketers at Granicus, Tyler Technologies, and OpenGov, we had to share them with you.

Example 1:  The Workbook

Granicus knows all about placing local government officials front and center by speaking directly to them.  Their 2018 marketing tool, A Strategic Workbook for Modern Gov, offers content to help local government officials assess their digital situation, (screenshot below), meet citizen expectations, manage the digital lift, and increase transparency. 

Local government officials will feel personally supported in their individual efforts to use technology to shape local government priorities. Granicus inquires about “your team’s primary goals” in a way that invites the reader into the brand on an emotional level.

Example 2:  The Case Study

Tyler Technologies’ resource, 4 Inspired Communities: Local Government Leveraging Existing Technology, shares stories of communities leveraging software to streamline operations and deliver effective service.  Read for yourself their approach to communicating with a local government audience.  Tyler Technologies’ marketers clearly wrote this content for the very human local government official who is reading it.  See how they address the reader directly? 

Example 3:  The Landing Page

When OpenGov asks its readers to explore their suite of products, the language speaks directly to local government officials.  In the Budgeting and Performance section of the OpenGov website, OpenGov encourages building “your budget book faster and more accurately.” In the Communications and Reporting section, they offer a solution so your team can maximize collaboration.

This approach ensures that the reader feels seen, and important.  This style of marketing strengthens the relationship between you and the local government official the same way you’d aim to when meeting him or her for lunch.  You’d look the person right in the eyes.

B2LG is H2H

One highly effective tactic to reach your local government official at a very personal level is simple, but not easy.

What’s easy is to fall back on industry jargon, and think of your audience as target segments, or personas.  But there’s a real person behind that persona.  And a real local government official reading your content.

So speak to your readers like people, and address them directly. It’s a great way to nurture a long-lasting relationship, don’t you think?