Effective Marketing - A Key Success Factor for Enterprise GIS

Greg Babinski, Finance & Marketing Manager
King County GIS Center
201 South Jackson Street, MS: KSC-NR-0706
Seattle, WA 98104
Voice: 206-263-3753; Fax: 206-263-3145;
Email: greg.babinski@metrokc.gov

EFFECTIVE MARKETING:
A KEY SUCCESS FACTOR FOR ENTERPRISE GIS

Abstract: A key challenge for city, county, and other local agency
GIS operations is to promote the use of GIS services across
organizational boundaries, in order to maintain the institutional
support that results in adequate and reliable funding for enterprise
GIS. This paper outlines the King County GIS (KCGIS) Center’s
strategy and methods to market enterprise GIS services for King
County, Washington. It also illustrates how these methods can be
applied by small local agency GIS operations. KCGIS Center
methods used to identify and describe the specific ‘service
offerings’ that provide value to potential customers are outlined.
KCGIS Center techniques used to identify the technical, business
operations, and management level decision-makers within a target
market are described. Finally, tactics used to get the KCGIS Center
marketing message to decision-makers and effective methods to
‘close the deal’ are reviewed. Branding, customer relationship
management, and the importance of developing a marketing focus
across the enterprise GIS organization are explained as well.

INTRODUCTION
Gaudet, Annulis & Carr describe the products and services that GIS organizations
deliver to customers, clients, or coworkers as ‘outputs.’ Examples of GIS outputs
include digital maps, data updating, data storage management, and training.
Within a GIS organization, employees perform a variety of ‘roles’ that are each
typically responsible for delivering a subset of those outputs. They identify a
dozen key roles, including data management, applications development,
visualization (mapping), training, marketing, and management. Within almost all
GIS operations each person typically performs multiple roles, as in a theatrical
troupe. Only the very largest GIS operations enjoy the luxury of assigning staff
to specialize in just a single role. Very small operations (one to three staff)
require each member to be ready to step into any role at almost any time.

Gaudet, Annulis & Carr describe marketing as “the role of identifying customer
requirements and needs and effectively communicating those needs and
requirements to the organization, as well as promoting geospatial solutions.”
They describe a number of technical, business, analytical, and interpersonal
competencies (knowledge, skills, and abilities) needed to perform the marketing
role effectively. But what is an effective marketing strategy for GIS and how can
it best be implemented? This paper will describe how the King County GIS
Center, a medium to large sized GIS organization, has developed an effective
marketing strategy as well as successful marketing methods and techniques. It
will also describe how the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe in Washington State has
used many similar techniques to market a very small GIS operation successfully.

KING COUNTY GIS CENTER
The King County GIS Center is the enterprise GIS service provider for King
County, Washington. The KCGIS Center is organized as an internal service fund,
responsible for providing GIS services to internal clients and external agencies.
As an internal service fund, the KCGIS Center is responsible for its customer base
and to obtain all necessary operating revenue and capital funding. The KCGIS
Center has a current staff of 31 GIS professionals. Other County departments
are free to establish and maintain their own department specific GIS operations.
The County ordinance establishing the KCGIS Center also explicitly empowered it
to provide GIS services to external customers.

GIS MARKETING STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
Effective marketing starts with knowing your agency’s business goals and
success indicators and defining specific marketing goals to support the agency
goals. In general terms, marketing strategy development centers around three
parallel processes. One is the process to define GIS outputs that may be of
value to potential customers and packaging them as service or product offerings.
The second is the process to identify potential customers and to communicate
information about existing GIS service offerings to appropriate decision makers.
The third process is to develop business intelligence by learning the priority
business needs of potential customers and developing new GIS outputs or
services if required by the target market. This section describes the components
of the KCGIS Center Marketing Strategy.

KCGIS Center Business and Marketing Goals:
The business goal of the KCGIS Center is to develop, maintain, and distribute a
variety of GIS resources and services that meet the business needs of customers
who are willing to pay the full cost of those GIS services.

GB: gb:kc:urisa2004:urisa2004paper(Gbmarketing).doc September 8, 2004

The marketing goal of the KCGIS Center is to maintain the financial viability of
KCGIS Center operations and the products and services provided. Key marketing
objectives to meet this goal include:
• Maintain the existing base of internal and external customers
• Identify and develop new internal and external customers and
business opportunities
• Collect, analyze, and internally disseminate business intelligence
related to customer needs for GIS services and products to help guide
the development of future KCGIS Center capabilities

Description of KCGIS Center Products & Services:
The KCGIS Center provides a broad array of GIS services and products (GIS
outputs). Each of the individual services we offer is built around the concept of
providing value to our clients to help them use GIS more effectively and/or
economically to meet their unique business needs. Our services and products
are organized into three distinct but complimentary lines of business:
• Enterprise Operations: Core GIS resources or services, including GIS
data warehousing, system administration, and enterprise GIS data
maintenance and access applications.
• Matrix GIS Staffing Services: Providing dedicated GIS staff to agencies
at negotiated services levels.
• On-demand GIS Client Services: Providing short term or highly
specialized GIS services.

Description of KCGIS Center Target Market:
Each of our three business lines is characterized by slightly different, but
overlapping communities of current and potential customers. Some current
customers use two or even all three of our business services. Typical current
and potential future customers for each business line are outlined below:
• Enterprise Operations: Current customers consist of 30 county
departments or divisions. Average annual revenue per customer is
$46K. We project a potential for 40 to 60 additional customers,
including other county agencies, local cities, utilities, and districts.
• Matrix GIS Staffing Services: Current customers consist of six county
agencies, with average annual revenue of $203K. We project a
potential for 10 to 15 additional customers, including other county
agencies, local cities, and special districts.
• On-demand GIS Client Services: Current customers include county
agencies, local cities, special districts, utilities, state and federal
agencies, tribes, private firms and individuals. Last year 160 distinct
customers each generated an average of $2,235 in revenue. We
project a potential base of 250-750 customers, including county
agencies, local cities, non-profits, targeted business communities
(recreation, health, retail, etc.), and out of area customers.


Description of KCGIS Center Target Market Business Decision Makers:
Because most of the KCGIS Center target market is comprised of public agencies,
understanding the typical procurement decision-making process in such agencies
is critical for successful marketing activity.

Enterprise Operations & Matrixed GIS Staffing Services customers are procuring
higher-cost services and typically for a medium or long-term commitment. A key
objective of this business segment is customer retention – ideally keeping each
customer committed to at least the same level of service year after year. The
decision to acquire and renew either or both these services requires a positive
decision at three levels in the customer organization:
• Technician and/or business end-user: Typically, this group will be
asking ‘do the KCGIS Center service offerings provide value to me on a
business and/or a technical level?’
• Business operations management: This group will typically be asking
‘do the KCGIS Center service offerings help me meet my business
operation’s goals within the context of my department/city budget and
goals and within the expectations of my elected leadership/board?’
• Agency elected leadership or board/city/cabinet-level manager: This
level typically controls organizational strategy, procurement policy, and
agency budget environment. A marketing trump card with this level
can be the question ‘can outside services allow me to save money in
the long-term while I retain overall control and credit in the eyes of my
constituents for the GIS-enabled services my agency delivers?’

GIS Client Services customers typically procure lower-cost services with a short-
term commitment. Because of the short-term project oriented nature of these
services, the overall efforts for general marketing, focused sales, and on-going
CRM are more important and comprise a higher portion of the total cost of these
services. Except for unusually large Client Services projects, the procurement
decision making process will occur at the technician/business user level in most
cases and only more rarely at the business operations manager level.

Business Intelligence Development
Business intelligence development is important to ensure that an agency’s
marketing strategy remains both current and forward focused. The development
and processing of KCGIS Center business intelligence relies on everyone in the
organization to provide appropriate feedback to management on potential
marketing and service delivery opportunities with existing and new clients. It
relies on information about the GIS service and projects that the local
competitors are providing. It relies on key information from customers related
not only to their satisfaction with the KCGIS Center services provided, but also
on how successful they were to use those services to meet their business goals.


Business intelligence development also relies heavily on learning about new GIS
services via professional conferences, literature, educational programs, and user
groups. It relies on analysis of emerging GIS technologies that could be used to
provide new GIS outputs or services to customers. Based on management
judgment about the potential for emerging technology or new services to meet
potential customer needs, a small ‘research and development’ effort may
initiated to turn the concept or technology tool into a new GIS service offering,
that then becomes another aspect of the KCGIS Center marketing strategy.

KCGIS Center management uses a number of tools and methods to manage
business intelligence gathering. MS Outlook Team Folders is used to record and
share information about current or potential customers and competitors. Weekly
team meetings for each of the three business lines processes and filters
information from or about clients. Monthly client services business meetings
focus on the more variable aspects of this group of service offerings. Customer
or new services information is also netted during monthly all-staff meetings, with
a focus on ensuring information exchange across all three lines of business.
Ultimate processing of business intelligence and action-related decision-making
occurs at weekly management team meetings.

Other Marketing Strategy Considerations:
A major factor in developing a marketing strategy is the potential competition.
The KCGIS Center faces real or potential competition for each of its business
lines, which influences our operations and marketing. Even our Enterprise GIS
services, which seem inherently safe from competition, are a potential target for
outside competition. For example, the elected leadership of a jurisdiction can
mandate a benchmarking study, to compare the cost and effectiveness of
internally provided services with a private, outside service provider. Matrixed
GIS Staffing and On-demand GIS Client Services are even more subject to
potential competition. A key question to ask is ‘can another provider deliver
specific GIS services better or cheaper to potential customers?’ If the answer is
yes, an attempt to market such services may be doomed to failure.

Legal or business environment is another marketing strategy factor. Some states
or local jurisdictions may prohibit public agencies from providing services to
other outside entities. While this appears to be rare, it is prudent to verify
before embarking on a marketing effort. Likewise, in some areas there may be a
strong local prejudice against providing such services in competition with private
firms. A key question to ask is if providing such services to outside agencies
would be in the best interest of the taxpayers. The answer is usually yes.

Lastly, much marketing can be done economically, but there should be
recognition that the effort will require a commitment of both time and money.


KCGIS Center Marketing Strategy Components:
The link between marketing strategy and marketing program implementation is
comprised of various marketing tools, material, activities, and events. A key
component of the KCGIS Center marketing plan is a matrix that illustrates all the
various marketing tools and activities that have been identified, along with the
target market and services offerings for which each is intended. Outline details
of each tool or activity is also described, along with an indication of when it is to
be used (schedule) and who in the KCGIS Center has lead and supporting roles
for using the tool or implementing the activity. The marketing strategy matrix is
as important resource for planning the strategy and communicating the details to
those in the organization responsible for implementation.

Branding is another key strategy component. Branding helps create an image of
quality and value for current or potential customers. Branding is appropriate for
the service organization itself, or for individual service or product offerings. Prior
to 1999, the KCGIS Center was known as the ITS Division GIS Technical
Resource Center. It was sometimes referred to as just the TRC, while at other
times the TRC referred to itself on maps and applications as the Department of
Information and Administrative Services, Information and Telecommunication
Services Division, Geographic Information Systems Technical Resource Center.

In 1999 GIS staff consciously chose the name King County GIS Center. This
name brands the operation for both internal clients and external customers.
Each component of the name conveys a marketing message. The words ‘King
County’ distinguish it from other GIS groups or service providers (Transit GIS
Group, Records & Elections GIS Section, Cascade GIS Associates, etc.) for
customers within the county and indicate its countywide focus for customers
outside county government. ‘GIS’ of course refers to the technology related
services and products provided. ‘Center’ again distinguishes it from department
specific GIS operations and indicates its special enterprise GIS services and
functions. For both internal and external clients, ‘Center’ also conveys the idea
of a convenient and efficient place to get a variety of services and products.

In addition to its name branding, the KCGIS Center also utilizes a standard logo
for maps, applications, web sites, and other media. A ‘tag line’ is also used to
reinforce the branding of the KCGIS Center. The KCGIS Center tag line, is ‘We
Put GIS to Work for King County.’ This tag line reinforces the business goals of
the KCGIS Center and shows potential customers that we are not just technology
enthusiasts, but providers of business solutions.

Other KCGIS Center products and services have their own branding or tag lines.
For example, a pre-packed service providing 100 hours of GIS staff time at a


reduced rate is known as ‘GIS Services Express.’ Our GIS training program tag
line is ‘Visualize Your Data – Better Decisions – Superior Public Service.’

A third key component of a successful strategy is to include all professional GIS
staff and support personnel as an important marketing resources. At the very
least, a customer service orientation should be a key non-technical characteristic
or expectation for all staff. A customer who has a negative experience (or who
merely hears of a negative experience) with a GIS service provider will result in
the undoing of a tremendous amount of marketing effort. Beyond that, each
member of the GIS team should be educated about the importance of
appropriate and effective marketing as opportunities arise. This includes using
GIS staff as key providers of business intelligence about potential new clients,
unmet business needs of existing clients, what the competition is doing, and
potential new service offerings. In summary, we find that successful marketing
depends on flexibility, imagination, and sensitivity on the part of KCGIS Center
staff to the unique character and personality of the specific decision-makers who
represent our the target market.

KCGIS CENTER MARKETING PLAN IMPLEMENTATION
The KCGIS Center marketing plan is comprised of dozens of individual tools and
activities. Some are aimed at the target market for just one of the three
business lines, while others are appropriate for all three. Some are one-time
annual events, while others may be monthly, weekly or ad-hoc. Some activities
are appropriate for only certain limited KCGIS Center staff, while any team
member can use others effectively. The following section provides a sampling of
the marketing tools and activities used.

KCGIS Oversight Committee and Technical Committee meetings: These activities
are formal meetings held quarterly (Oversight) or twice monthly (Technical).
They are mandated as part of King County’s technology governance
environment, but provide a valuable venue to market new or enhanced
Enterprise Operations services. At present only internal customers are
represented, but when external customers for Enterprise Services are found,
they will be included. Technical Committee members tend to be at the
technician/business end user or business operations level of decision makers.
Oversight Committee members are at either the business operations or cabinet
management level. Typical attendance ranges from six to 20.

KCGIS User Group meetings: These monthly meetings are open to all internal
and external KCGIS Center services users. Attendees tend to be technicians or
business end users. They provide a forum for discussing technical problems,
sharing new techniques or how-to tips, or showcasing projects. KCGIS Center
staff and outside vendors (GIS software and data providers) often do
presentations on new or upcoming projects, service offering, and developments.


The marketing message at these meetings is not overt, but they tend to enhance
the reputation of the KCGIS Center as a quality technical resource and a reliable
service provider. Typical attendance ranges from 20 to 40.

King County GIS Center’s National GIS Day Event: This all-day event is
structured like a small GIS conference. Held in a large conference room and
open to the public, it includes about a dozen booths like in a vendor hall, in
which the KCGIS Center, county departments, and outside agencies can
showcase their projects and activities. The event kicks off with a keynote
speaker in the morning. In recent years the King County Executive and the King
County Assessor have been keynote speakers. Two other small nearby
conference rooms are used, one for GIS project presentation and the other
where attendees can ‘ask the GIS doctor’ for advice or help with technical or
project related problems. Recent attendance at these events has been more
than 200 people, representing the entire range of the KCGIS Center’s target
market, both internal and external. Two years ago the event was ‘covered’ by
the Seattle Journal of Business, resulting in a favorable article the following day.

Annual Budget Development Process: This is a very narrowly focused but high
value activity. Primarily the responsibility of the KCGIS Center Finance &
Marketing Manager, it targets business operations and cabinet level managers to
commit to service and funding levels for the following year for all three lines of
business. The activity involves extensive verbal and written communications, as
well as coordinating support at the technician and business end user level within
departments, when increased service levels are being proposed. Other
peripheral stakeholders in this process include department finance managers,
budget office staff, Executive Office management analysts, and Council staff.

Cold calls and ‘Howdy Meetings’: Cold calls are most often initiated when some
credible business intelligence suggests that a potential new client may be
receptive to learning about KCGIS Center services. These may be initiated by
the Finance & Marketing Manager or by other GIS Client Services staff as well. A
key objective for our cold calls is to arrange a follow-up ‘Howdy Meeting.’
Howdy Meetings are designed to present some basic information about the
KCGIS Center and the services and resources we provide to clients, along with
providing an opportunity for us to learn about the business needs and state of
GIS use by the target agency. Ideally, a Howdy Meeting includes decision
makers from all three levels in the agency. We try to emphasize the initial data
and resources we can provide for free, but we also try to identify key business
needs to follow-up on that may result in significant future business. Within the
past few years this process has resulted in a significant increase in Enterprise
Operations and Matrix GIS Staff Services customers.


An important business-marketing tool is an effective web site. However, most
GIS operations use their web site for little more than a showcase for their web
mapping capability. While web mapping provides a valuable tool for the agency
and its customers, alone it does little to attract new GIS customers. The KCGIS
Center provides additional valuable information on its web site to try to keep
potential decision makers coming back to visit. Examples include weekly news
items: New GIS training classes, new product or service offerings, client projects
started or completed, meeting announcements, conference presentations by
staff, etc. Other examples include a whole section devoted to GIS Client Services
with sample projects and products; an entire section on the KCGIS Center GIS
training program, with course schedule, course descriptions, and enrolment
forms; and an entire section on GIS Data CDs. Visitors are also attracted to the
site by the KCGIS Spatial Data Catalog (metadata) and Knowledge Base. The
Knowledge Base is an on-line collection of GIS-related tools, technical advisories,
procedures, standards, and best practices that both enhances the technical
reputation of the KCGIS Center and provides potential clients with a wealth of
free information to help keep them communicating with us.

Other marketing tools used by the KCGIS Center include our annual GIS
Operations and Maintenance Plan, GIS Best Practices document, targeted and
mass mailings, client services customer satisfaction surveys, an old KCGIS
Newsletter (KCGIS.Today), KCGIS Center Posters, a KCGIS Map-a-Month
Calendar, a standard Statement of Qualifications, service description sheets, and
staff biographies. Other marketing activities include sponsoring a booth at the
annual Washington URISA Conference, attending and speaking at local GIS user
groups, attending and presenting at local business-specific conferences and
events, and advertising in business specific trade journals. Recently KCGIS
Center has also begun partnering with private firms to submit proposals for
major GIS service contracts.

A final Marketing Plan component is an annual evaluation of effectiveness. This
includes development of quantifiable success indicators, including number of new
customers, proportion of repeat business, and revenue growth. Other evaluation
tools include customer satisfaction surveys, feed back forms, and unsolicited
customer complaints (few) and testimonials (many!).

MUCKLESHOOT TRIBE GIS
The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe is located in Pierce and King Counties. It manages
approximately six square miles of land, including a major regional casino and
entertainment venue. One person provides all Muckleshoot Tribe GIS services.

Muckleshoot GIS initiated an early branding program. A standard logo and
descriptive title block appear on all map products, to both establish the brand
and enhance the technical stature of the program. A key challenge for GIS


program development was to identify the target market (department managers
and business operations staff) and to educate key decision makers about basic
GIS concepts and specific GIS products. To broaden and solidify market support,
the GIS program worked with the Tribal Council to develop a large-scale general
locational map of the entire Tribal area. This map had wide interest and
potential use by many in the Tribal Government and served well to demonstrate
the type of services GIS could provide for more narrow business needs.

To help educate Tribe members, Muckleshoot GIS uses an intranet site that
focuses on educating people about GIS itself, as well as showcasing most GIS
maps and much aerial imagery in both JPG and PDF format. The web site also
describes the individual GIS projects that have been completed and how they
have benefited both GIS and business users. Maximum use is made of branding
projects, with descriptive acronyms. This serves to help decision makers
remember past projects more easily and enhances the approval process for
future projects. For example, JUMP, the Joint Utility Mapping Project was
successfully completed recently. That record was used to help with the proposal
for SNARE, the Survey Network Across the REservation. Lastly, GIS Certification
has been a key marketing tool for Muckleshoot GIS. The GISP certificate on the
GIS Manager’s door has significantly enhanced the stature of the program with
many key Tribal decision makers.

Unlike KCGIS, the marketing of Muckleshoot GIS services, products, and projects
must be extremely focused and economical in its use of time and resources. A
small GIS operation does have some inherent efficiency though in marketing its
program and services. For example, the time needed to collect and process
business intelligence from many people and the effort to coordinate marketing
plan implementation by a large staff is eliminated with a one or two person shop.
Basic marketing concepts and the development and use of powerful marketing
messages for Muckleshoot GIS have been key factors to develop and maintain
support for an outstanding small local GIS program.

In conclusion, for agencies large or small, an effective marketing strategy is key
for successful development and ongoing operation of enterprise GIS.

REFERENCES
Gaudet, Annulis, Carr: Workforce Development Model for Geospatial Technology.
University of Southern Mississippi, 2001.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I appreciate the information and assistance provided by Mr. Tim Leach, GIS
Manager, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, 39015 172nd Ave SE, Auburn WA, 98092.

GB: urisa2004paper(Gbmarketing) August 25, 2004


Effective Marketing - A Key Success Factor for Enterprise GIS

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