Before GovShop, it was undeniably difficult to find the necessary government opportunities for your business. We listened to over 15,000 government contracting professionals and suppliers and came to a single conclusion: public sector market research should not be so complicated. You, as the supplier, often have the dilemma of responding to costly and confusing solicitations, with investments that don’t always lead to contract awards. Not to mention the time spent on responding to requests for information only to never hear from the requesting agency again. This is not how a marketplace should work, but it isn’t necessarily the fault of government contracting professionals: Until recently, they did not have a single, modern platform to search for suppliers who focus on the government customer.
Fortunately, we had the opportunity to create a solution to this challenge, one that will benefit both government contractors and buyers for a long time to come. GovShop is that solution, and we are inviting suppliers to claim their free profile and update it with information that government contracting professionals are searching every day. Creating robust, accurate profiles will make your company more searchable to government buyers who want what you are selling. It is easy to claim and update your free profile in GovShop; the more well-rounded a profile is, the better your chances of showing up in more web searches of government contractors.
How to Claim Your Free GovShop Profile:
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Search for your company on Govshop.com
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Click the green “Claim this Profile” button in the top right corner
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We’ll authenticate you within 1 business day
What are the Benefits of GovShop?
With GovShop, suppliers have the ability to customize their profile with the most up to date information about their products and services, helping them show up on more search lists by government buyers looking for them.It’s free to use GovShop, including creating and/or updating your company’s profile to show up on more searches by your ideal buyers.
Keywords for Success
Updating your company description with keywords that government buyers use to search for your goods and services will increase the number of times your profile shows up in GovShop search results, when contracting professionals are making decisions about their solicitation requirements. Think about how your ideal buyer will search for you. For instance, a cybersecurity vendor could use terms like cyber hunt, incident response, or penetration testing.
Also, make sure your PSC codes and other categories are on point, as buyers will use these filters to drill down their shortlists.
Use Familiar, Descriptive Keywords in your Company DescriptionWriting a company description may seem like a boring task, but spending some time to research and identify the most relevant keywords is crucial to showing up on more search results. Your description is the first thing a user will see when they click on your profile, and the information in this field is a major component of our GovShop search algorithm.
Think about your end user or ideal buyer when writing your description. What are the keywords they will be searching when looking for the goods and services you sell? Marketing terms and buzzwords (like cloud or agile, for instance) can work, but only if you think your target audience is searching for them. But here’s my favorite tip for writing your company description in a way that helps you win that first impression. When users search on GovShop, the results page includes a list of profile matches with the name of your company, logo, and the first three lines of your description:
So while writing this description with keywords and terms that are familiar to buyers, keep in mind that those first three lines can mean the difference between your profile being viewed or passed over for someone else. You can think about these first lines as your company’s elevator pitch: what can you write that will compel your target clients to learn more about your company, and hopefully add them to a shortlist?
Update Your Profile With Relevant Category Codes
When we were building GovShop, we conducted numerous user tests with government buyers and program owners. We observed how they conducted searches and observed that category codes were one of the most commonly used methods, especially when they were doing general market research to learn about an industry or capability.
Often times, when a buyer is doing this type of market research, it is in support of an emerging requirement during the pre-solicitation phase. Before a solicitation is issued is an ideal time to get on the radar of government contracting and program professionals, because productive conversations can still take place. While we know that responding to RFIs and sources sought notices can be a tremendous level of effort, it is often an important step in developing the relationship with your target clients. Sometimes, it can lead to invitations to meet with the professional or submit additional information about your capabilities that can inform the eventual requirement.
When a buyer is searching and filtering results using category codes like PSC, NAICS, and NIGP, you won’t want to be missed.
Update Your Profile with Contracting Vehicles to Make Ordering Easy
One of our primary points of emphasis when building GovShop was to make the procurement process more efficient. Multi-agency vehicles and government-wide acquisition contracts like GSA Schedules serve that objective by enabling contracting professionals to place orders against existing contracts. There’s a good chance that your company has a GSA schedule contract or other multi-agency vehicle, which is why we built the Browse by Contract Vehicle feature.
As we continue to bring on our 15,000 users from the Public Spend Forum community, we are encouraging them to look first at governmentwide contracts and multi-agency vehicles where they can source products and services in a more efficient manner. If you’re a GSA schedule holder, we should have your recent schedules in your profile, but we recommend confirming. Same goes for multiple award vehicles like OASIS or cooperative purchasing agreements at the state and local level.
Maximize Your Profile With our a Free Trial of GovShop’s Premium Membership
The basic information you include in your GovShop company profile will always be free, but if you want to distinguish yourself from the competition, we offer several premium fields to put your best foot forward. During your free three month premium membership trial, you’ll have the ability to list your featured products and services, descriptions of past experience with other public sector clients, examples of external recognition or awards earned by your company, and the ability to host downloadable content such as white papers and case studies.
If you’re interested in maximizing your profile with our premium fields and would like to learn more about this opportunity, we invite you to schedule a personal onboarding session with our account management team. Scheduling is simple, just click on the image in the next section and choose a time that works best for you. We’ll take care of the rest!
Can’t find your company?
Even though we launch GovShop with over 180,000 suppliers, we can’t find them all! If your company doesn’t have a record, it is simple to create a brand new profile when you register a free supplier account in GovShop. Remember to use your company email address for expedited authentication, and then follow the onboarding instructions to get up and running in minutes.
Our Mission is to Connect Buyers & Suppliers in Public Procurement
GovShop is a continuation of Public Spend Forum’s mission to connect buyers and suppliers in the public sector to enable more efficient, effective procurement. It will always be free for government buyers and for suppliers who wish to claim their basic profiles. We are excited to offer this market intelligence platform to all of our colleagues in the government marketplace and hope that you will share any feedback with us.