How long should an rfp be

Would it be helpful to schedule weekly calls to check in and offer feedback? Do you favor a truly collaborative approach, or something more hands-off?

Whether you have an approach in mind or not, setting expectations up-front makes for a smoother working relationship from day one. Unless you work in Marketing or Communications, you might only be able to devote a few hours a week and that helps the services team know much to rely on your direct engagement, which can affect the timeline. Finally, if we come up with a solution together but need to present to superiors for buy-in, it helps to know that, too. When the web project is done and launched, what then?

Realistically, the launch of a website is only the beginning of a process: beyond fixing bugs or adding features moving forward, you must also consider how will you'll drive traffic to the new site. Websites are ongoing efforts that adapt to new technologies and use cases — or, in the best case scenario, must be scaled to accommodate huge amounts of traffic! If the post-launch marketing and advertising piece is important to your project, look for full-service web firms that will not only design and build the site but also work with you on maximizing its value afterwards.

Seek the web firms with multi-year client partnerships. How do you plan to track inbound visitors and the success of your content? Google Analytics is a popular choice because it's free and works well but there are other many options that offer additional functionality, such as Crazy Egg, which generates heat maps to help increase conversions. Your marketing automation tool, such as HubSpot or Pardot, may also have a tracking script that augments the traffic data gathered from the site.

Also, how involved do you want the agency with the analytics: do you want them to just setup and you will manage it going forward? Or is it something they should actively manage and report against in the future.

You don't want to spend time and money only to launch it and leave it; many of your initial assumptions can change and it's best to think of a website as a dynamic publication rather than a static brochure.

Analytics will inform your hunches with real data. Do you have a web host in mind already? If not, ask for options. The vendor will have clear preferences at various price points. Some, thought, have needs that are better suited for a host like WP Engine or they may come to us with a hosting relationship already in place.

Based on your previously outlined technical requirements, the partner can recommend the best fit for your needs, but if you have a preference or mandate let that be known upfront.

Additionally, hosting is a broad term that typically covers a number of different pieces of a scope. So, it's important to also make sure that whoever your vendor recommends takes security and updates seriously. Check with them to get an idea of things like:. Letting a vendor use its preferred provider means letting them use one for which its very familiar, which means fewer hiccups down the road. This one's easy: which websites do you like or admire, and why? It can be the overall experience or specific, discrete elements like a single contact form or image.

Include examples of "best of breed" websites within your industry so the vendor can get a feel for the market leaders. Excellent example sites from other, unrelated industries are useful too.

You can typically find lists of website examples and trends by industry by Googling around, and these are a great starting point to get an idea of what others are doing. It can be difficult to explain your vision so providing concrete examples of websites whose user experience you'd like to emulate will communicate a lot of value to the vendor and help clarify what we're all in for.

Some will compete on low cost; others on best quality; still others on more features. Figure out what you want in a vendor: cheapest option? Fastest delivery? Highest quality? Is a distributed team OK, or do you need every member to be local to your headquarters? Are sub-contractors OK or only full-time in-house staff?

No doubt several of these are typically important, so weight them according to what matters most to you. Remember, the goal of the proposal you receive back is to evaluate the quality of vendor fitness for your project. Some questions you might ask the proposer to include in the reply:. Does it need to be single-spaced with no staples we've actually seen this a few times, believe it or not?

Is it OK for the vendor to use freelancers or sub-contractors or does every member of the team need to be full-time? What's the timeline for submitting the proposals? Typically, there's a deadline for receipt, for selecting semi-finalists, for scheduling interviews and for final selection. Do the semi-final interviews need to be in-person or is remote OK?

This is all standard fare but it can be easy to overlook. Finally, how much detailed information do you require about the vendor? If you need granular details, such as the names, titles, and bios of the vendor's team working on it, be sure to ask. For large teams, who will be available to work on the project may change depending on the vendor's production schedule. These are the essential elements to include.

It may seem like a lot but there's a really good chance you've already answered most of these questions in conversations with colleagues and your task in selecting a good vendor is just to get them down on paper. Again, the better the RFP is, the better the proposal your vendors can send in response. Now, you're ready to get started! Feel free to use the example web design RFP template we prepared based on this post. Maybe you already have an RFP? We happen to know an experienced web vendor we'd be happy to recommend, so send it our way!

So you issue another costly RFP and select a new vendor causing significant disruption to your business. Despite these challenges, there are safe and dependable ways to speed up each of the three phases within the RFP timeline. RFP creation is a labor intensive process. The biggest time savings in this area comes from using templates.

Seeing these RFPs with irrelevant questions is frustrating and discouraging for vendors. In addition to regular updates, RFP templates should be highly customized to each project. I suggest you create a library of RFP templates and categorize each by the procurement project type. In addition, you can take your time savings one step further, by grouping topical questions together and saving them as sections that can be dropped into new RFPs.

You can do this with terms and conditions, scope, specifications, customer success questions and so on. As new procurement projects conclude, review the RFP and decide if it should become a template for future use. Be sure to make notes about which questions yielded good insights and which had to be clarified. Your templates should continually evolve. Often, these questions prompt a lengthy back and forth.

Then, procurement professionals must send the resulting information to all of the competitors to ensure everyone has an even playing field. To save time during the administration step, start by providing ample information to suppliers in the initial RFP. What pains and challenges are you trying to address? How does the process work now? What would an ideal solution look like? While it certainly takes time to prepare, most of the information you need should be readily available in your requirements discovery.

The RFP doc becomes a way for you to quickly uncover the strengths and weaknesses of potential vendors in relation to your project without having to spend too much of your time hunting for them yourself. RFPs can also give you a sneak peek into different strategies you may not have considered since each vendor will include their own unique action plan along with their bid. Here, companies solicit multiple price quotes from various vendors to compare services based on price alone.

While an RFP includes a price quote along with several other specifics , an RFQ does not detail anything other than price. In most cases, simply comparing quotes is not enough to see if a potential vendor is the right fit for your company, which is why an RFP is more appropriate in these situations.

In Marketing, an RFP is often used to outsource any marketing activities that could help your brand increase reach. These activities include anything related to marketing that you can't do internally. For instance, if you work at a small startup, you might create an RFP to find a full-service communications and marketing firm to create an integrated marketing plan for your business.

If this is the case, you'd outline in your RFP that you're looking for a firm to help you "increase SEO presence" or "attract social media followers", etc. On the flip side, if you work for a marketing agency, you'll want to keep an eye out for RFPs in your area related to services you offer. For instance, if you work for a web design company, you'll want to look for businesses that have created RFPs for web design services.

In sales, an RFP is often created when a business is looking to purchase a product or service to suit its needs. For instance, if an enterprise company is looking for a new CRM software, the business might release an RFP that outlines what it's looking for, and what it's hoping to achieve with new CRM software. For this reason, RFPs can play a critical role in the enterprise sales cycle.

Enterprise companies that issue RFPs are often looking for businesses that can provide them with IT support, security, onboarding and training, and other additional services. To close these larger accounts, it's vital your sales team is prepared with an RFP response process, and is able to efficiently respond to these large companies within the time allotted. Before potential bidders can submit their proposals, an RFP must be drafted by the company requesting the work.

Once your RFP is sent out, contractors or vendors can review it and submit their best bids to compete for the job. In certain cases, bidders may come back and say specific components of the RFP need to be adjusted based on their experience in the industry. At this point, you can either review their feedback and create a new RFP to adjust for the changes, or you can leave the original as is and keep it in mind while considering the other submitted bids.

Once you receive all the proposals, it will be almost effortless to compare each one and determine which vendor is the best fit for your company. Now, what if these potential contractors already knew your project details and they came back with their best plan of action and a formal bid for you to review?

So instead of having to explain your needs each time, you would simply outline it once, and send it out to the masses. And to save you even more time, it would be up to potential contractors — not you — to reach out.

Rather, it should give contractors a better idea of what your company does and who you serve as a target market. The details of the project are essential in an RFP. This needs to be included in your RFP so potential vendors can properly gauge if they have the resources and bandwidth to complete the job on time. They use requests for qualifications and requests for information to create a shortlist of providers before it even goes to the RFP.

This enables the organization that initiated the RFP to actually review in depth. One of the things that frustrates RFP respondents most is unclear expectations. When you write the RFP, strive for transparency whenever possible. Then, in your questions, ask the vendor what they would do differently or better and what result they will deliver. In short, transparency is the way to go if you want the same in return.

For more insights and advice from experts on how to prepare for long-term success, download the ebook: The future of RFPs. Sending a template without customization often results in questions that are irrelevant, contradictory or confusing.

When faced with these challenges, many vendors will simply opt not to invest the time to respond. As you receive proposals, evaluate responses and select RFP winners, examine what works. The more RFP data you can collect from your process, the better. Examine how you write RFPs. Are your templates working?

Are there questions that are now out of date? What questions do you often answer from vendors and can you proactively provide that information? As with any business process, success and efficiency come from reflection and continual optimization. These RFP samples will help get you started. From beginning to end, everything you need to know is included. They have a wealth of resources and information both for members and non-members.

From blogs to conferences and everything in between, ISM has it all. How to write a request for proposal overview video from Professor Wolters Another great video overview from Professor Mark Wolters. This quick minute video offers a specific example and overview of how to write an RFP. RFP software can help you more easily create and issue an RFP, as well as evaluate the resulting proposals. We recommend looking for a solution that:. RFP definition A request for proposal, abbreviated as an RFP, is a document created by a buyer and issued to vendors requesting information about a product or service.