Survey Asks: What Do Contracting Officers Want? Polish your website and communicate with contracting officials via email – but not too often. Those are the key findings in a survey of nearly 200 federal buyers by fedXccel, a marketing and consulting firm in Rockville, MD. “Successful small businesses must pay special attention to presenting themselves as strong viable players to build buyer confidence,” fedXccel said. “Your website is a low-cost marketing tool that markets you constantly.” When searching for small businesses, an overwhelming majority said they look first at either GSA schedules or the Central Contractor Registration. But almost 10% said they turn to Google, underscoring the need for contractors to make their websites search-engine friendly. To find out more about a company, the majority of respondents said they rely primarily on the contractor’s website. One-third said capability statements were their most important source of information, but four out of five buyers said small firms need to improve the description of capabilities on their sites. Most of the buyers want a contractor’s past performance to be prominently displayed on its website. They said GSA schedule information should be easy to find, and capability statements should be accessible. About 30% of buyers said a contractor’s past performance is the most important factor in their evaluation of a small business. About one-quarter mentioned either set-aside status or GSA schedule contracts as their first priority. FedXccel commented, “In summary, a well designed corporate website that allows the buyer to easily access information is critical for successful marketing. The website should also allow easy access to a well written capability statement that can be downloaded and/or emailed. “Expensive brochures and tri-folds appear least likely to deliver marketing [return on investment].” Two-thirds of the buyers said such marketing materials are either not very important or only slightly important. Four out of five contracting officials prefer to communicate by email rather than by phone. But some of them made comments like “Stop inundating my mailbox!” “Clearly, businesses need to be cautious about sending irrelevant emails,” fedXccel commented.