Situation

With revenue shrinking and demand for services growing, governments must do more with less—including software. This threatens Microsoft’s public sector market for software licenses.

Goal

Microsoft wanted to engage government agencies nationwide. While it’s relatively easy to focus marketing efforts on high-population states, it’s much more difficult and expensive to reach the entire country.

Solution

To efficiently reach a geographically dispersed audience, Strategic and Microsoft developed a “Bright Side of Government” program to showcase best practices in the use of information technology (IT) by government. Elements included a social media portal, Twitter stream, blog, and user-generated videos, which also appeared on a “Government Star” channel on YouTube.

Results

Microsoft’s “Bright Side” content shows agencies how to get more use from existing software licenses—a free benefit. This gives Microsoft a sales opening to show how spending a little more on new licenses can yield a lot more functionality—a value proposition that boosts sales.