How to embrace leading government marketing practices and strategies to deliver customer-centric services

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of digital marketing as consumers were forced to pivot from in-person activities to online. As the government urged people to stay at home and businesses closed their doors, the demand for goods and services available online, like medical appointments, vastly increased. As of April 2021, 84% of physicians offered telehealth visits and 57% preferred to continue offering virtual care¹. Across a range of industries, both providers and consumers have grown accustomed to the convenience of e-services. Now, people look to the government to offer the same personalized experience, ease of use, and value they find online from their favorite companies.

Federal and state governments offer a wide array of services to citizens - from health insurance (e.g., Medicare) to government assistance programs (e.g., Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). Multiple touchpoints with citizens place a premium on providing user-friendly websites that offer outstanding customer service. However, government entities generally have smaller budgets for marketing, compared to the private sector which on average allots 11% of total company budgets for marketing efforts, according to this Wall Street Journal article. Limited resources aside, the government has an opportunity to forge stronger, more trustworthy relationships with their citizens by leveraging the latest marketing trends to inform customer-centric services.

Here we explore seven trends in government marketing to help public sector agencies rethink how they relate to people, use data, and improve the customer experience to forge stronger relationships with citizens.