Most B2B marketing runs on proof: named customers, published outcomes, a case study for every objection. Defence marketing rarely gets that version of the game. Contracts stay classified. Customers stay unnamed. Case studies still exist, but they carry more weight when built to fit those limits rather than despite them, and the real competition usually starts before an RFP even lands. Forrester and Gartner have both put numbers behind what fills that gap, and demand across the sector is moving fast enough right now that getting this right matters more than it did even a year ago.
The 7 things buyers actually trust
Forrester surveyed 1,420 global purchase influencers for its State of Global Business Buyer Trust report (2023, published Jan 2024). It scored seven trust criteria by weight:
| Criterion | Weight | What it means |
| Competence | 18.5% | Can the supplier do what it says, demonstrated through skill and expertise |
| Consistency | 17% | Does the supplier behave the same way every time, not just when it suits them |
| Dependability | 16.8% | Does the supplier deliver what it promised, when it promised it |
| Accountability | 14.3% | Does the supplier own its mistakes instead of deflecting them |
| Transparency | 12.7% | Is the supplier open about process, pricing and limitations |
| Integrity | 12.1% | Does the supplier hold its stated values under pressure |
| Empathy | 8.6% | Does the supplier understand the buyer’s specific situation |
The top three carry the majority of the weight regardless of industry, purchase type or the buyer’s seniority. A case study proves competence and dependability well. It’s one route to that proof, not the only one, and in defence it usually can’t carry the whole argument alone.
Two details change how this plays out on the ground. Forrester found that 45% of buyers would not forgive a supplier that acted contrary to their company’s values, even though integrity ranks sixth by weighting. The damage lasts longer than the score suggests. And empathy ranked lowest of the seven at 8.6% – a sharp contrast to consumer buying, where empathy carries far more weight. Defence content built around emotional appeal is pulling the wrong lever.
The order shifts by region too: Asia Pacific buyers rank competence first, followed by either consistency or dependability – a reminder that even the top three don’t travel identically across US, UK and European audiences.
This means there are 4 main plays for marketing
- Regular content needs a repeatable clearance process. Draft, clear, publish, in that order. Scope each piece around what’s clearable before writing it, so security review becomes a checkpoint instead of a rewrite.
- Build your proxy proof stack. Certifications, standards compliance, independent testing, analyst commentary and anonymised outcome data become your evidence when named case studies aren’t possible.
- Amplify your credibility. Route the message through people buyers already trust: named technical leads publishing under their own name, analysts citing the company independently, advisory board members and former officials lending their credibility.
- Win the specification before the RFP exists. In technical categories, the vendor who helps shape the requirement usually wins the requirement. Buyers of complex products define technical specifications themselves before an RFP goes out. Sellers who understand the buyer’s needs beyond the document, and engage before it’s written, shape the outcome long before competitors get a look in. Once a specification is written around a competitor’s approach, no amount of trust-building at proposal stage recovers it.
Technical content does this work. Material certifications, tested performance data, tolerances and traceability feed the process while engineers are still shaping their own requirements. Defence has a direct equivalent: standards-aligned technical papers, capability data sheets and interoperability documentation, published early enough that a procurement team’s own specification starts to reflect a contractor’s approach, no named case study required.
Get on the framework, then stay visible on it
A place on a government framework is half the job. Making that listing generate demand is the other half.
- United Kingdom. Crown Commercial Service frameworks, renamed the Government Commercial Agency from April 2026, are pre-competed agreements that let public sector buyers award contracts without running a fresh competition each time, typically for three to four years with extension options. GCA tells suppliers directly to promote their position once appointed, since buyers need to know what the listing actually covers. Re-procurement opens while the current framework is still live, so tracking expiry dates and building visibility ahead of the next round is one of the highest-return moves a supplier can make.
- United States. GSA Schedule contracts give direct access to federal buyers and cut sales cycles from months to weeks through pre-negotiated pricing, and schedule holders gain GSA’s own marketing support plus the credibility of being pre-vetted. Other Transaction Authority awards, run outside standard federal acquisition rules, are opening space for smaller and newer defence suppliers alongside the primes.
- Europe. Framework procurement runs at both national and EU level. As SAFE-funded joint procurement scales up, the same principle holds: getting on the list is the entry ticket, and sustained technical content is what turns the listing into pipeline.
Government buyers play by different rules
Gartner built Government Buying Insights (2025), drawn from its End-User Buying Behaviour Survey, specifically to help vendors identify the elements of government decision-making that earn buyer trust, so they can allocate go-to-market resource accordingly. A major analyst house dedicating a study to this confirms what most defence marketers already sense: government buyers trust differently, not just slower.
Demand is spiking in the US, UK and Europe
- United States. The FY2026 budget shows a nearly 40% increase for the Space Force against FY2025, driven by the Golden Dome missile defence initiative. Total DoD space spending in FY2026 sits at roughly $57.7 billion. Private space investment hit a record $12.4 billion in 2025, with the US taking about 60% of global funding.
- United Kingdom. The 2026 Defence Investment Plan commits £298 billion over four years, the highest share of GDP on defence in three decades. £3.2 billion of that goes to the space domain, with a further £9 billion committed for 2030 to 2035.
- Europe. The EU’s ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 plan targets up to €800 billion in defence investment, including a €150 billion SAFE loan instrument. The first wave of SAFE funding was approved in January 2026, worth around €38 billion, and a second wave followed shortly after covering roughly €74 billion.
Every one of these programmes is opening new procurement relationships this year, with buying committees that haven’t yet decided who to trust.
What does this mean for marketing?
Win the specification before the RFP goes out and treat framework listings as an ongoing marketing asset rather than a one-time compliance milestone. Build case studies inside a cleared content pipeline instead of around it, and stack proxy proof wherever a named reference isn’t possible. Route credibility through people buyers already believe, not through sales-led claims, and weight competence, consistency and dependability first while calibrating integrity and transparency messaging by region.
None of this waits for a quieter year. Golden Dome, the UK’s Defence Investment Plan and SAFE are opening new procurement relationships right now.