The 2025 High Growth Study, Government Contracting Edition has arrived, and today we are excited to share a few important findings with you. We launched this annual study of professional services a decade ago, though its roots go back to 2008, when we began researching high-growth firms, publishing our findings and writing books on the habits of the best performing firms and the people who buy their services.
We collected the data for this year’s study late in 2024—before the US election and the turbulence that is disrupting the federal government contracting marketplace. However, this study explores what strategies and techniques high-growth firms use to gain an advantage over their competitors. Those marketing fundamentals continue to work, even in an uncertain environment. As long as there is government demand for services—and we see no indication that it is going away—firms that navigate the marketplace with skill will experience greater success.
At the federal level, and to a lesser degree the state and local levels, new expectations require new positioning and messaging. Some firms may need to reconfigure their services to address the evolving needs of a government in transition. But the psychology of buyers hasn’t changed. At the same time, how businesses communicate their new messages, and the array of strategies, tools and techniques available to deliver them, are the same as ever. Some combinations produce ordinary results, while others deliver exceptional ones. In this blog post, we’ll introduce you to a few of the marketing techniques and habits of the government contracting industry’s most extraordinary performers.
About the Study
126 government contracting firms participated in this year’s study. They represent $53.6 billion in combined revenue and 140,000 employees. As you can see in the chart below, the sample included organizations of all sizes. We oversampled large firms to moderate the distortions that small and particularly micro businesses can introduce to the data.
5 Marketing Habits of High-Growth Technology & Software Firms
1. High-Growth Firms Grow 3.5X Faster and are 79% More Profitable
The high-growth group in our sample grew revenues an average of 35.8% per year, compared to just 10.2% for the average-growth contingent. That’s 3.5 times faster. Their profit margins were also exceptional, at 34%. The average-growth group generated a very respectable 19% profit margin, but the high-growth firms outperformed them by 79%.
2. They Spend More than Twice as Much on Marketing
How much do the fastest growing government contractors invest in marketing? An eye-popping 21%—two and a third times more than their slower-growing counterparts. Should you dedicate a fifth of your revenue to marketing? Not necessarily. This is a median number, so half of the high-growth group spends less and half even more.
What do these high flyers spend their marketing dollars on? They are more than twice as likely to have achieved the highest level of digital maturity, so they invest heavily in their tech stack. They conduct a variety of research at regular intervals. And they outsource a wider variety of specialized marketing skills than their competitors. The extra money they spend appears to produce dramatically better results.
3. They Have Learned Which Marketing Techniques Work Best
The figure below shows the seven marketing techniques used most often by high-growth government contractors. Networking—online and in person—takes two of the top three spots. Clearly, making personal connections is an important ingredient in these firms’ success. In second place are business development materials, such as pitch decks, brochures and proposal templates. Making a great impression, and positioning your firm as a sophisticated player, can move a firm from being a mere contender to a top favorite. Advertising on social media is also a commonly used strategy to build brand awareness.
Social media appears three times on this list, including promoting thought leadership (such as white papers, articles, and executive guides) on social platforms. If social media isn’t a major part of your marketing strategy, you may want to begin building that expertise, or outsource it to an experienced agency.
To find out which techniques deliver the most impact, and which provide the best results for the time and money invested, see the full industry report.
4. 6 in 10 High-Growth Firm Leads are Digital
The high growth cohort attracts 68% more digital leads than their no-growth counterparts. In fact six in ten of their leads come from online sources. Digital leads can come from any online source—the contact form on your website, content marketing, social media, webinars, and digital advertising, to name just a few. If you receive the lead on your computer or digital device, it is a digital lead.
How do you attract more digital leads? That requires a multifront digital strategy, starting with your website. A blog that features a steady stream of high-quality educational content and optimized for SEO drives new visitors. Gated, high-value, long-format content and a compelling offer strategy convert visitors into contacts. Then you use email, social media and other techniques to share more of your content and encourage people interested in your expertise to return again and again. Eventually, some of these people become loyal fans. And when they are ready to buy services your firm is automatically at the top of their list.
5. They Outsource a Wide Range of Skills
The chart below lists the three skills that the best-performing firms outsource most frequently. Podcasts and traditional advertising are tied for first place. Producing a podcast requires organization and specialized skills, from audio production and editing to guest outreach, scheduling, and followup. Many firms prefer to outsource the more technical skills to experts—saving countless hours and producing a superior end product. Traditional advertising, whether in print, radio or television, also requires special expertise (such as media buying, top-shelf graphic design and ad copywriting) that most government contractors don’t have in-house. Search engine optimization is a function critical to the performance of a firm’s website. With the relatively recent introductions of zero-click search and generative AI search (such as ChatGPT), the field is evolving quickly. High-growth firms look for help from outside experts who are familiar with the new SEO landscape and know how to achieve results.
How to Learn More
We hope you’ve learned something new—an idea or two you can put into practice at your firm. High-growth firms produce superior performance year after year for a reason: they have discovered what works and what doesn’t. Now you can start emulating them and build a marketing program that works more efficiently, with less guesswork.
These five insights, however, are just a beginning. To learn more about the marketing habits of the fastest growing technology and software firms, purchase the full industry report. The 54-page report goes into greater detail on these and many other practical findings. It also includes easy-to-understand ideas to put the data into practice at your organization.
