Web Design and Social Media Marketing Services by Agency Couture

A request for proposal (referred to as RFP) is an early stage in a procurement process, issuing an invitation for suppliers, often through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific commodity or service. The RFP process brings structure to the procurement decision and allows the risks and benefits to be identified clearly upfront.

The RFP may dictate to varying degrees the exact structure and format of the supplier’s response. Effective RFPs typically reflect the strategy and short/long-term business objectives, providing detailed insight upon which suppliers will be able to offer a matching perspective.

Similar requests include a request for quotation and a request for information. -Wikipedia

Building a functional campaign with a well thought out strategy is important to the success of any business website or marketing plan. Unfortunately when reading a request for proposal you often miss getting to know the team, hearing personally the internal communication problems and goals they have for the campaign.

Inside a Request for Proposal

Many RFPs (Requests for Proposals) are very well thought out, and try to offer some back-end story on the company and what they want completed. The problem with these 3-100 page documents for things like websites is that they often remove the web designers and developers from the decision making process. I’ve stayed away from participating in most RFPs because companies completely lay out what they think is the right course for their brand and it’s not always the best course for them.

Companies hire professionals for a reason

Companies hire professionals for their opinion, knowledge of what works and what doesn’t, and personal touch they can apply in customizing a successful campaign.  I would prefer to be involved at the strategy level of any project, then follow that up by providing interface architecture, designs, programming, hosting, and any marketing necessary to get the program to succeed based on the goals we set for the project. If a company comes to me with everything planned out down to the last detail and they just don’t have the skill to complete it I’m practically doing them a disservice by letting them pick out things their competitors are doing, and not necessarily successfully doing them right.

Client Relationships

I prefer to consider my clients long term relationships where I provide recommendations, analytics, and website support indefinitely based on a monthly retainer budget. The sites I’ve built can range from $2,500-$25,000 with retainers between $200 per month and up to $6000/month based on features, what amount of support you need, and the types of additional marketing my team may provide like social media, ghost blogging, editing, search engine optimization, or just normal monthly maintenance and recommendations.

RFPs ask people to give a blind budget that’s all inclusive

It’s normally much easier for me to just ask what your budget is and build out a program to get what you want in phases offering you an ala carte of options in a time-line to show what you can afford and when. Many of the RFPs I’ve read want agencies to submit budgets that include room for revisions, scope creep, and stock photos, and plugins without even talking through a lot of the features that will be integrated into the site. Plugins can range from free to $200 a piece.

A Few More Reasons NOT to Participate in RFPs

Granted a lot of companies will only offer projects based on request for proposals, and normally those are the bigger projects, but I think their is a lot of room for improvement on the current system. Especially since I don’t want to guess people’s goals, or layout an entire company strategy for free just to have it taken to another agency to be completed.