I ran across a good article on breaking into the lucrative federal government IT market. Among other good things, author Mark Amtower writes:
Juniper Networks faces stiff opposition in the form of their large competitor, Cisco Systems. Cisco is much larger and can out-spend Juniper by a factor of ten. Part of Juniper's differentiation strategy is a series of white papers on topics of interest to the network managers who use the products each company offers. The white papers are offered under four generic headings: "Application Acceleration" (a good heading because it implies Juniper is faster), "Infrastructure," "Security" and "Government." Notice that government is separate. The white papers offered under this heading address the topic using government-friendly vernacular. This is intentional because all people in government think their needs are unique and different.
When you click on "Government," there are currently seven white papers addressing the same basic topic you can find in the other categories, but with a definite government-twist. Juniper uses the acronyms from the respective government programs in the titles of the white papers so the target audience sees that Juniper "gets" the concept that government needs are different.
The use of white papers is a key part of Juniper's strategy for differentiating itself from its competitors. Juniper's growth over the past few years is proof that this strategy works.
The article ran in Michael Stelzner's excellent White Paper Source newsletter.
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