Why Marketing Your GSA Schedule Matters More Than Ever in 2025
If you have a GSA Schedule—or you’re thinking about getting one—2025 is a make-or-break moment.
The General Services Administration (GSA) is making bold moves to modernize the Federal acquisition landscape. With ongoing contract audits, increased pressure to cancel underperforming contracts, and policy shifts toward centralized purchasing, contractors are operating in an environment that demands proactive engagement.
But with greater opportunity comes greater scrutiny. Contracting officers are increasingly focused on contract utilization. If you’re not actively marketing your GSA Schedule—if you’re not showing up, building visibility, and driving demand—you’re not just leaving money on the table. You might be at risk of losing your contract altogether.
This is the year to be intentional. It’s time to get smart, strategic, and proactive. Below are five proven strategies to elevate your GSA marketing efforts, build deeper trust with buyers, and grow your Federal business—plus a bonus on how AI is transforming how contractors identify and capture GSA-funded work.
1. Don’t Wait for eBuy: Start Conversations That Create Sales Opportunities
Most GSA Wins Don’t Start With a Bid Notification
One of the biggest myths in Federal contracting is that opportunity begins with an alert—whether from eBuy, SAM.gov, or a bid board. The truth? Most successful GSA Schedule wins start long before that. They begin with conversations, not competitions.
Federal buyers have ways to use your GSA Schedule to work with you. These include:
- Direct Purchase (single instance buying)
- Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs) that enable long-term, recurring orders
- Contractor Teaming Arrangements (CTAs) that combine complementary capabilities under a single offer
There’s also what I call the hidden runway: Credibility support. Federal buyers know that the GSA contracting team reviews the financial background and management as well as individual line item pricing of every Schedule Contract proposal. That’s why, even if your buyer doesn’t use your GSA Schedule at all, they know that a new-to-them vendor who has a GSA Schedule Contract often represents a lower risk than one who doesn’t.
Each of these represents a pathway to revenue that doesn’t require additional full and open competition: GSA Schedule contract awards are a competitive process in the first place.
But purchases made using any of these paths happen because vendors encourage buyers to consider using the advantages of using the GSA Schedule to choose you as a solution—before they even think about soliciting bids.
Why BPAs Matter: Recurring Revenue Made Simple
Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPA’s) are among the most powerful (yet underutilized) GSA mechanisms. They’re not new contracts—they’re ordering vehicles created on the basis of terms and conditions of your existing Schedule. That makes them faster and easier for buyers to set up and use. For you as a vendor, they open the door to repeat business without the grind of ongoing competitive bidding.
BPAs are particularly attractive when buyers have recurring needs but want simplified procurement. They are often used to purchase:
- IT support
- Training and facilitation
- Software subscriptions
- Staffing and consulting services
- Maintenance or supply replenishment
Whether you’re aiming for a Single-Award BPA (you’re the sole vendor) or competing in a Multiple-Award BPA pool, the foundation is the same: trust.
Buyers establish BPAs with vendors they know will deliver, communicate, and provide value.
Key BPA marketing tips:
- Offer volume discounts and cost-saving incentives.
- Highlight ways you reduce risk and speed delivery.
- Show how your offering integrates with the buyer’s mission.
- Suggest a BPA during early buyer conversations.
🟦 Pro Tip: Want help crafting a BPA strategy that builds loyalty and maximizes long-term revenue? Let’s talk.
2. Leverage Your Existing Network: The 12x Rule
Start With People You Already Know
Federal sales are relationship-driven. Your GSA Schedule doesn’t replace the need for relationships—it amplifies them. That’s why one of the fastest ways to grow GSA sales is by re-engaging contacts who already know and trust you.
Enter the 12x Rule—a foundational principle in marketing and sales psychology. Research shows that someone who has already purchased from you is twelve times more likely to buy from you than someone who has never heard of you.
In other words, if you’re not starting by talking to people who know you, you’re working 12 times harder than you need to. I can’t afford to do that, and I’ll bet you’d like to make your marketing budget go further, too!
Build relationships through multiple channels:
- Thoughtful email sequences (not blasts)
- Personal LinkedIn messages and comments
- Invitations to educational webinars or briefings
- Short value-added check-ins by phone or voicemail
Position your messages around serving, not selling. Ask questions or open conversations like these:
- “What’s changed in your mission this year?”
- “What’s on your wish list if new funding comes through?”
- “Which of these approaches might help you get results faster?”
- “How I can help you…”
Then Grow Your Network Strategically
Once you’ve tapped your current contacts, it’s time to expand—but with focus. Rather than spraying cold outreach across agencies, zoom in on those most likely to benefit from what you offer.
Research and reach out to:
- New program managers who succeed retirees or have stepped into expanded roles
- End users of similar services in other bureaus
- Contracting officers who data shows have made awards for NAICS or SINs like yours
- Vendors and primes who hold GSA Schedules on your SINs and might team with you on a larger opportunity
Ask for referrals.
That doesn’t need to feel awkward! You can say:
- “Our business is growing and we’re looking for new projects. If you were me, who would you be talking to?”
- “Who do you know who would value the kind of experience and results we’ve had in working together?”
- “Would you introduce us? Or, may I use your name when I contact them?”
In-person events and online forums are both valuable. GSA Interact, NCMA chapters, LinkedIn groups, community webinars and association meetings are excellent places to connect with people actively engaged in Federal acquisition.
🟦 Pro Tip: Relationships drive Federal sales—so don’t sell, serve. (Audie Cooper shares the details in this webinar recording of how this simple strategy shift led to $7 million in wins for his company, JCTM!) You can follow his lead: explore with your clients what’s changed, what’s needed, and bring ideas for how you can help.
3. Use Contract Award Data to Find Your Best-Fit Buyers
SAM.gov Ad Hoc Reports Are A Goldmine
If you’re relying on gut instinct instead of hard data to identify your best prospects, you’re likely wasting time. The good news? You don’t need a pricey subscription tool to find valuable intel.
Learn how to use SAM.gov’s Ad Hoc Reports feature, found under the Contract Data section, to generate customized reports that help you:
- Discover which agencies are buying your NAICS or SINs
- Identify trends over time in purchasing behavior
- See which vendors are winning, at what price points
- Spot BPA and IDIQ opportunities
- Understand seasonal surges in contracting activity
Once you know how to read data and customize your query to answer the right questions, even a 15-minute review can yield insights that reframe your entire business development plan in a good way!
What Data-Driven Targeting Reveals
Here’s what you can uncover when you lean into contract data:
- Who’s buying? (Agencies, offices, and even individuals)
- What are they buying? (Scope, size, and frequency)
- How are they buying? (GSA, open market, IDIQ, 8(a), etc.)
- Who are they buying from? (Prime and subcontractor patterns)
- What’s missing? (Services you offer that aren’t currently fulfilled)
This insight lets you make smarter decisions about where to focus, which relationships to develop, and how to position yourself to meet real, proven demand.
🟦 Pro Tip: Combine SAM.gov data with AI tools for even deeper insights—more on that below.
Learn…
- How to use Federal contract data to drive more wins.
- The two most misleading competitive intelligence fields and why
- Where sales teams can find missing leads
- Keys to creating custom reports in SAM.gov Contract Data Ad Hoc
- Four ways end costly frustration and get on the fast track to the win Watch the webinar now!
4. Build Messaging Around Your “Best Values”
What Are “Best Values” in Federal Contracting?
Federal buyers care about performance and risk: specifically, why are you the low-risk choice for the money? As a successful vendor, you consistently communicate to your buyers unique reasons why choosing your firm rather than any other will lead to better outcomes for the buying agency. These best value differentiators are based on proven, objectively-verifiable, criteria that show the kind of exceptional performance and outcomes the Federal buyer in their role can reasonably expect from your company.
Great best values are:
- Tied to mission outcomes
- Supported by quantifiable evidence
- Linked to improved results achieved with reduced cost, risk, or time
Examples of best value messaging:
- “Deployed to 36 agency sites with 99.9% uptime”
- “CLEARED staff onboarded in 5 days or less”
- “Reduced error rates by 43% over legacy provider”
- “Used by five major bureaus within DOJ”
Where to Use Best Value Messaging
You should integrate best value positioning everywhere your audience engages with your brand, including:
- Capability statements (Lead with results)
- LinkedIn bios and featured posts (Tailor to agency pain points)
- Email campaigns and voicemails (Specify proven outcomes, not features)
- Proposals and white papers (Back claims with past performance)
- Other marketing collateral (Use bullet points, not prose paragraphs)
🟦 Pro Tip: Craft variations in your best values messaging that appeal to the individual people involved in choosing you based on their roles and responsibilities—especially in performance-based acquisitions.
Discover Best Values That Drive Your Wins
Bottom line up front: your core unique value proposition is distilled from your past performance.
Learn more about how to uncover and articulate best values that resonate with Federal buyers who need what you do…
…and stand head-and-shoulders above your competitors.
Start giving more people a compelling reason to take your call.
5. Link Buyers to Your GSA eLibrary Page
Make It Easier for Buyers to Find You—and Trust You
Your GSA eLibrary page is your official storefront in the GSA Schedule Contract world. It includes your:
- Contract number and award dates
- Small business preferences
- Contracted SINs and solutions
- Terms, pricing, and Point of Contact
Too many vendor who are struggling to meet their GSA Schedule sales goals don’t tell buyers where to find them! They miss simple, free, opportunities to establish instant credibility and give buyers a path to action.
Where to feature your eLibrary link:
- Email signature
- Company website (especially your Contact and About pages)
- Capability statements and one-pagers
- LinkedIn profile and posts
- Event follow-up messages
- Webinar decks and recordings
Maximize Visibility With Shortcuts
You can increase visibility by creating friendly or visual ways to share your eLibrary page:
- Shortened URLs using tools like Bit.ly or TinyURL
- QR codes on printed or digital materials
- Clickable GSA logos on your website
- Slide footers in your presentations or webinars
🟦 Pro Tip: Always follow GSA’s branding guidelines for Schedule Contract Holders when referencing your Schedule.
Is A GSA Schedule Right For You?
First off: Summit Insight doesn’t do GSA Schedule proposals. I don’t benefit from your decision one way or the other. I’m here to help you make confident decisions about your Federal business strategy, and build on your success. If GSA Schedules are right for you, I can recommend several trusted professionals with decades of experience you might want to consider.
Uncertain about the value of a GSA Schedule? Here are five smart reasons to move forward:
✅ Your Federal buyers prefer to use GSA (and the data shows that).
✅ You’re losing to competitors who hold GSA Schedules (and the data shows that).
✅ Primes want GSA Schedule holders (regardless of Contractor Teaming Agreements)
✅ You’re paying more margin as a GSA subcontractor than it would cost you to prime.
✅ Multiple qualified Federal buyers keep asking, “Are you on GSA?” (and you have data showing that they use Schedule Contracts to purchase what you do).
Steer clear if your top motivations include:
🚫 “Everyone else is doing it.”
🚫 My prospect just told me, “Get back to me when you have a GSA Schedule.”
🚫 “I heard that everything is moving to GSA.”
🚫 “Marketing companies keep telling me I need one.”
🚫 “I want easy, guaranteed revenue.”
🟦 Pro Tip: Use data and buyer insights—not peer pressure or hearsay—to guide your GSA decision.
Bonus: AI Tips and Tools For Growing Your GSA Schedule Business
Who’s Using AI to Win More GSA Contracts?
Answer: nearly everyone, and not just vendors, but your government buyers, too!
On the vendor side, it’s transforming how government contractors identify, as well as pursue and win, work—including through the GSA Schedule. Dozens of specialized AI tools are now available to help Federal contractors improve their efficiency and effectiveness, and lower the time and cost it takes to…
- Parse SAM.gov award data for buying patterns
- Summarize solicitations for faster go/no-go decisions
- Recommend best-fit opportunities based on your portfolio
- Draft technical proposal language from past performance inputs
- Predict award likelihood based on buyer history
Considerations When Choosing AI Tools
Two things to think about: First, if you’re not the client, then you’re the product. Using a free AI tool lets the tool provider give away your proprietary thinking with the whole world. Second: You’re going to spend time and you’re going to spend money. All you get to choose is the mix. AKA you get what you pay for.
📜 What You Agree To (Usually) When Using a Free AI Tool:
In in most cases, when you use a free AI tool, you may be giving the provider permission to use your input to train or improve the model—and potentially share the benefits of that learning with other users.
But they’re not sharing your content directly, like your exact words or documents. Instead, they may use patterns, language, and structure to improve the tool’s responses for everyone.
Most free AI tools (like free-tier versions of ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, etc.) include terms like:
- “Your content may be used to improve our models.”
- “We may review your prompts and responses to improve our services.”
- “We use data to train or fine-tune our language models.”
This means:
- Your input may be stored and reviewed by humans.
- Your prompts and responses may contribute to future model behavior.
- You typically waive rights to exclusivity or confidentiality unless stated otherwise.
🆓 Free AI Tools: Limited Learning
Most free tools:
- Don’t retain your preferences between sessions.
- May use shared or generic models that aren’t personalized.
- Can give useful outputs, but won’t “remember” your tone, goals, or brand voice over time.
Typically don’t allow for custom training or secure storage of your use history.
💳 Paid AI Tools: More Personalized + Secure
Most paid plans (like ChatGPT Plus or premium writing assistants)
- can remember preferences, tone, style, brand terms, or even documents you’ve uploaded (if memory is enabled).
- Allow you to set instructions like “Write in a professional tone” or “Use SEO best practices for Federal contractors.”
- Offer more advanced capabilities, such as:
- API integrations
- Project memory
- Custom instructions or knowledge uploads
- Better access to longer documents and sessions
🧩 Bottom Line
| Feature | Free AI Tool | Paid AI Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Learns your tone over time | ❌ | ✅ (with memory or custom setup) |
| Retains preferences or context between sessions | ❌ | ✅ |
| SEO & writing optimization | ⚠️ Basic | ✅ Advanced |
| Secure data and project memory | ❌ | ✅ |
| Best for deep Federal contracting use cases | ⚠️ Sometimes | ✅ Yes |
Exploring First Principles of Using AI For Federal Business Intelligence
The time you invest in learning some AI fundamentals will help you get more value from a subsequent investment you might choose to make in more sophisticated (and expensive) AI tools. For example, if you include the right fields in your own dataset from SAM.gov Ad Hoc reports, you can turn to a free or inexpensive AI tool like ChatGPT. Example prompts:
- “Summarize the top 5 BPA opportunities under SIN 541611 this quarter”
- “What trends are visible in GSA Schedule 70 awards since Q1 2024?”
- “Which Schedule holders are winning the most task orders from DHS?”
Top AI Tools Built for Federal Business Development
For expert help, I look to the professionals! The Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) has curated a list of over two dozen AI-powered proposal tools. It includes software for content generation, compliance checks, opportunity scanning, and more.
👉 Explore the APMP AI Tool List
More Tools And Tips For You
This free guide, Marketing Your GSA Schedule: Ten Tips for More Government Contracts! includes additional tips we didn’t cover in this blog post…plus a whole section of sample prompts you can use with your AI tools to develop competitive intelligence from datasets you pull for free from SAM.gov Ad Hoc Reports!
>> Get your copy now.
Next Steps: Tools & Resources
Ready to get real traction with your GSA Schedule?
1. Grab Your Free Resources In Guides Like These
- Ten Marketing Tactics for GSA Success (including AI Tips for GovCon Pros)
- Three Easy Lessons in Free Federal Market Research
- The Bid-NoBid Toolbox
2. Get Practical Strategic Support
Let’s chat to explore what will help you grow your GSA Schedule business this year! Did you know? You can get live, private, online hands-on training on SAM.gov Ad Hoc reports with me. In just four hours, you’ll be able to:
- Extract and interpret Federal contract award data
- Apply competitive intelligence from SAM.gov
- Replace expensive tools with smarter workflows
📅 Find out more! Schedule your call with Judy Bradt
3. Join Communities That Helps You Grow
The right professional and industry association memberships in the Federal arena are a key element to growing your government business (find out more in my on-demand webinar, “Business by Association”).
Critical takeaways:
- The value of association membership comes not from paying your fees, but from paying your dues: the investment you make in time and sweat equity to contribute to the success of the organization and your fellow members.
- That’s why 2-3 carefully chosen memberships is a great goal.
- Be sure to evaluate the ROI of those memberships – what you contributed as well as how the results compare to your goals in joining – each year, and be prepared to make changes as appropriate.
- Remember to choose groups where your buyers gather, not just your competitors! And be sure to visit up-and-coming groups, not just stick to the tried-and-true.
🟦 Pro Tip: Federal business growth doesn’t happen alone. Join forces with others on the journey.
One unconventional, innovative, group that’s growing quickly in the DC area is our GovCon Rockstars (co-sponsored by national GSA Schedules experts Global Services and its CEO, Courtney Fairchild)! Whether you know the ropes or have never climbed before, you’ll find Federal employees – the people who need and use what you do every day – along with small and large contractors, primes, partners, and agency experts. Find out more here about this dynamic indoor rock-climbing meetup. We get together at Sportrock:
- Second Tuesdays in Gaithersburg, MD
- Fourth Thursdays in Alexandria, VA
Conclusion: What’s Your “Aha”?
At the end of the day, the return on your investment to get a GSA Schedule doesn’t start flowing the day you sign that contract: it comes from the combination of effective marketing and strategic selling you do once you have your contract.
Which of these strategies hit home for you? Which one will you act on this week?
Your next Federal win might already be in your inbox—or your contact list.
Let us know your biggest takeaway… and take the next step today.