How to write a great website RFP

At GrowCreate we receive Request For Proposals (RFPs) from organisations across Europe for projects and support. We know when we have received a great RFP as it clearly determines the scope of the project, timeline and budget.

On submission of your website RFP, there will be questions from agencies to clarify information. It is best practice to share Q & A responses with all agencies involved in the pitch process. After all, you need to know that there is a clear understanding of your project and that all indicative quotes are based on the same scope.

Below is a list of key points for you to consider. 

Overview

Introduce your organisation and the purpose of the RFP.

• What do you want the agency to do and why?
• What is the problem your organisation is trying to solve?

About your organisation

Describe your organisation, what it does, and what you do. Additionally, tell us about your company values.

Goals & audience

• What do you plan to accomplish?
• What does the project look like to you?
• Do you know of any quantitative metrics that will help you measure the success of the project, such as increased sales-qualified leads?
• What do your visitors want to do on the site and how can you make it easy for them to do business with you?
• Have you already segmented your audience and do you know your customer personas? It is helpful for the agency to know what you already know!

Sitemap

A content audit and sitemap will help you determine which new content you need to write and what content from the existing site(s) will be migrated. If you haven’t got this covered we can work with you to develop your sitemap through our discovery workshops.

Deliverables

Describe the services you're hiring a team for. For example:

• Project management
• Information design
• Experience design
• Visual design
• Front-end coding (HTML/CSS, animations)
• Back-end coding (CMS, 3rd party APIs, custom software/features)
• Technical SEO
• Testing & quality assurance
• CMS training

If you are re-platforming your website you will need all of the above, as well as a copywriter.

Project team

Can you clearly articulate how you would like the process of working with the agency team to feel?

Outline the project team for your organisation and team roles. It is useful for the agency to know their experience with similar projects.

Timeline

Provide a timeline for the project and inform the agency if there are any hard deadlines.

Technical requirements

Describe any requirements you know in advance.

• Do you already know which CMS platform you plan to use for your website (Umbraco, Kentico Xperience, Optimizely or Invessed) or are you platform agnostic? Do you need to use a CMS?
• Are there any integrations (e.g. Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Marketo, Hubspot, Google Maps, Mailchimp)?
• Does your website require membership management (user accounts)?
• Is there any gated content (White-papers, documents) on your website?
• Does your website require personalisation?
• Do you require payments (shopping carts, user accounts, inventory and shipping)?

Budget

Include your budget for the initial project launch, even if it’s a ballpark figure. Let the agency know if there is a separate budget for assets like software licences, images and illustrations. By stating your budget, agencies can outline what they can offer for that price. We will be able to help you prioritise the scope, so that non-essential features can be delivered in a later phase.

Have you secured an annual budget for support, maintenance and continuous improvement?

Analytics

How do you plan to track inbound visitors and the success of your content (Google Analytics, Hotjar)?

Web hosting

Inform the agency whether you want them to arrange the hosting of your solution. GrowCreate is an Azure expert and can share the benefits of Azure hosting with you.

Selection criteria

Outline what you want from a partner so they can focus the proposal on what matters to you and your organisation. You may ask for:

• Case studies (to assess technical capability)
• Client references
• Project timeline
• Process
• Project budget by line item

Proposal timeline

What's the timeline for submitting the proposals? Is there a deadline for receipt, for selecting a shortlist, for scheduling interviews and for final selection?

Please let us know if this information has been useful.