Surveys show that most citizens are unaware of federal e-government sites and often only accidentally stumble on them while surfing the Web. Government Web sites are no field of dreams, said Karen Evans, administrator for e-government and information technology at OMB.
"Just because we built the service and we're the federal government doesn't mean that they're going to use these services," she said.
In late August, Edelman Public Relations received a four-month contract for $261,000 to create marketing plans for each of the 10 Web sites. At OMB's request, the public relations firm will focus initially on three e-government initiatives: Recreation One-Stop, e-Authentication and International Trade Process Streamlining.
Asked if lessons generated from marketing those initiatives might apply to the remaining seven Web sites, Marty Machowsky, an Edelman senior vice president, said, "I don't want to prejudge that. There might be lessons. That's a question we'll be able to answer in four months."
The remaining e-government sites are e-Loans, GovBenefits, e-Rulemaking, Disaster Management, Grants.gov, Recruitment One-Stop and Integrated Acquisition.
"They're up and running, but somebody's got to use them," Evans said.
To develop the marketing plans, Edelman officials will conduct market segmentation analyses and create detailed studies of each initiative's objectives, Machowsky said. "We're not going to develop a one-size-fits-all approach."
A recent poll by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that 77 percent of U.S. Internet users — about 97 million people — have gone online for government information.
But overall, Internet users are more likely to use the telephone or in-person visits than the Web or e-mail when they deal with the government, the poll shows.
E-government initiatives are sometimes victim to overblown expectations, said Dave McClure, vice president for e-government at the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government.
OMB officials should use the marketing contract to refine "both the reality and the challenge of marketing these online services to [their] customer segment," he said.
RELATED LINKS
- "Funding cuts won't kill e-gov" [FCW.com, August 9, 2004]
- "Not out of the woods yet" [Federal Computer Week, June 7, 2004]
- "The Google connection" [Federal Computer Week, June 7, 2004]
Autor: David Perera
Quelle: Federal Computer Week, 06.09.2004
