Firms may have a specialty in a certain area of web design e. For example, one of our specialties is nonprofit website design. If we know up front you're a nonprofit, we can make specific recommendations from our team members that have a lot of experience and familiarity with how nonprofits succeed on the web.
However, if you're looking for a law firm website design, we'd make very different recommendations, since they not only cater to different audiences but often involve different technologies. Explain what you plan to accomplish or what outcome you have in mind. What are the three most important things that, if done well, will make the redesign a success in your eyes? Do you know of any quantitative metrics that will help, such as increased sales or more newsletter subscribers or better-qualified leads?
Think in terms of what you want visitors to the site to do, not just what you want them to see. Are some audiences higher priority than others?
It can help to rank the groups in order of importance. For a nonprofit, a list of target audiences could look like this:. To take the next step, pair each target audience with a goal conversion — i. In the B2B space, sample goal conversions include encouraging consumers to reach out to your sales team, request a product demo, or place an order through your eCommerce platform.
Also, by helping your partner understand the different conversions for each audience, the design can be more tailroed based on the audience likely visiting that section -- NMC often recommends letting audience and persona-types drive the navigation of a site, and this approach lets you have the conversions and sections laser focused on each group. One of the main reasons people reach out to NMC for a redesign, beyond a dated visual aesthetic, is that the content is poorly organized or hard to find.
As much as the visual design impacts visitors' perception of your company, the information in turn reflects how well you've thought through your major site sections and navigation schema. If you already have a good idea how you'd like to reorganize it, include that here. If not, that's OK too! Expect it to be one of the first things you'll do during the discovery phase with your vendor.
The sitemap will help you determine which new content you need to write and what from the existing site will be migrated. Much of it may be outdated or irrelevant, so new copy will need to be written especially if you're introducing a new product, service, or initiative.
What does make it over to the new site will have to be imported into the content management system; be sure to let the vendor know whether that's something your team plans to do or whether you expect the vendor to handle it. Giving the vendor an idea of what content is moving helps them understand the size and scope of the site.
Many kinds of content will use the same but additional design time is needed for each custom layout. The sitemap also helps your new partner understand the importance and hierarchy of things on the site and whether that is in balance with what you've outlined in other areas of the RFP. For example, if there's a focus on one target audience in the RFP, but their content isn't easy to navigate to, the web vendors will probably want some clarification on whether that's intentional or a mistake.
For example, with a web redesign project, you might be paying for:. For a task like Information Design, maybe the deliverables are a sitemap and wireframes. For Visual Design, it might be source files in Photoshop or Sketch format. Your vendor is trying its hardest to scope out the work and knowing what the team is in for means you get a more accurate estimate. You may not know how long something will take to do, but you likely do have a timeline you have to accomplish it within.
Is there some hard deadline you need to hit, such as the launch of a new product or ad campaign? Maybe you have a big trade show coming up and need the site live by then? Be sure to mention any firm dates beyond the vendor selection process. Be advised: web sites vary widely in their time to completion. In other cases for complex sites or web applications, months is not unusual.
Be up front about your timeline, and your vendors will be honest about its likelihood. Why It's Important: So the vendor knows whether or not it's possible to finish the project on time! Also, responsible vendors will also typically help you understand whether you've set out a realistic timeline or not -- if we see a scope and timeline that don't align, we'll let the client know to see if they have flexibility and help them identify the priority items for launch.
This is a pretty broad subject but your goal here is to describe what limitations or requirements you know in advance. A website is, at its core, a technical software product, so these are the details that may most materially impact the schedule and deliverables.
Some examples of technical requirements include:. E-commerce: Do you expect to sell products or charge credit cards? A nonprofit may only want to accept simple or recurring donations but retail merchants require shopping carts, user accounts, inventory control, and shipping calculators. If you're accepting donations or selling things, are there any additional rules that should be incorporated, such as discounts for certain users, gift cards, etc. All of these details will help vendors recommend the best tools for the project.
Are you open to alternatives you may not be familiar with? There are literally thousands of off-the-shelf CMS software options. The vendor may also have developed an in-house solution that will meet your needs well. Large projects can require writing custom a platform for your company.
It's also totally acceptable here to say you have no preference and are open to recommendations from the vendors. Backend Programming Language: For custom web software development, is your system compatible only with a specific language, such as PHP, or Ruby, or Python?
Do you have an existing infrastructure that the vendor needs to be fluent in? Legacy Browser Support: How many visitors are still on old browsers, such as Internet Explorer 11 released October ? Do they need to be supported? To make a website perform or display in a legacy browser almost always requires additional development time. For example, when someone subscribes to a newsletter, the contact should be added automatically to Highrise or Salesforce.
A well-crafted overview increases the number of relevant answers and reduces the number of back-and-forths with the vendors.
An excellent overview is what sets apart a goal-oriented RFP and makes you stand out from the competition. The guidelines section informs the vendors of what you want to find in the proposal and helps prevent them from sending information not relevant to the project. If you wish to see case studies in the proposal, this is the best place to request them. A deadline is essential since it gives you enough time to brainstorm, negotiate, and close deals.
The description and goals area is a more detailed section that explains the scope of the project. It includes project objectives to assist vendor in learning more about the people behind the project. Describing your challenges will help vendors become more creative in their responses and offer better solutions.
You can also include metrics and analytics in this section to give direction and perspective to the information the vendor shares. If you are still learning how to write a winning RFP response , understand that this is the most thorough section of the document. You can write the project deliverables using a list format or bullet points.
Make sure to include everything you are looking to achieve, specifically all points of information the vendor will need when working on this project. Setting a budget is often the most dreaded yet one of the most important aspects of writing a business RFP.
You may not know everything required for the project but having a budget will help make the process more efficient. Before setting a budget, first do research on standard rates from competitors. Understand what most vendors charge per hour for projects such as yours. Remember to request the cost of each function. Set Your Criteria Set the scoring criteria you will use to select a vendor. After finalizing your RFP, you can: Share the document. Give vendors enough time to find and respond to your RFP by sharing it with them online via trade news outlets or in field-specific settings.
Negotiate with your chosen vendor. Writing Secret 2: Look for There-That. Available for Word and Outlook. Related Posts. Most effective ideas for written communication.
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Popular Courses. Business Essentials Guide to Mergers and Acquisitions. Business Business Essentials. Table of Contents Expand. What Is a RFP? Understanding a RFP.
Requirements for a RFP. Benefits of a RFP. RFP vs. RFQ vs. Example of a RFP. Request for Proposal FAQs. The Bottom Line. Key Takeaways A request for proposal RFP is a project announcement posted publicly by an organization indicating that bids for contractors to complete the project are sought. The RFP describes the project, its goals, and the organization that is sponsoring it and outlines the bidding process and contract terms.
RFPs are used by most government agencies and many private companies and organizations. The alternative is a less formal process that may fail to identify the best vendor and the best plan for accomplishing a project.
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