Do you need to draw up a proposal for the design or redesign of your company's website? The Request For Proposal (RFP) is a crucial document that describes the requirements of your new website, your current challenges and your business objectives. It's this document that web agencies use to evaluate your project and then provide you with a service offer.
Writing a good RFP means giving yourself the means to receive service offers that fully meet your expectations. The more complete your RFP is, the more relevant the proposals will be. What's more, you'll be able to compare the different service offers with precise and fair evaluation criteria.
By formulating clear expectations, you're all the more likely to get a finished product that meets your expectations. In practice, this makes sense, since if bidders don't fully grasp your expectations in your RFP, they'll propose solutions that may not be aligned with your objectives. Subjective and speculative criteria are pitfalls to be avoided, as they easily leave room for interpretation. To avoid misperception of your expectations, it's best to be clear and provide as much detail as possible about your expectations.
In order to help companies who need to draw up a request for proposal for website design or redesign, we've put together a list of the relevant elements that should stand out in your document.
What information do suppliers need to know about your project to make a valuable proposal?
With our RFP template in hand, you won't waste time writing your next RFP, and in return, you'll receive proposals that are valuable to you.
To give context to the agency you're about to hire to build your new website, it's a good idea to provide them with a presentation of your company. While some companies provide an appendix to explain the company's history, mission, values and an exhaustive description, others summarize in a few paragraphs several of the following questions:
Example: For the past 15 years, Utopia has been developing online business management software for small and medium-sized businesses in the manufacturing, retail, distribution, food and real estate sectors. Our cloud-based solutions deliver increased productivity to our customers.
In this section you should clearly state what you want and why. It's also a good idea to add what you don't want.
Example: Utopia is looking for an agency to design and develop a new website. We're looking to increase the length of our users' visits. Also, the design no longer corresponds to our brand image. We want to enhance our employer brand and put more emphasis on HR marketing to address the labor shortage.
Here you should clearly list all your objectives. Mention the problems you and your users are facing, and how this project will generate new opportunities for your company. You should also prioritize your objectives. If your project is divided into different phases, it's very important to mention which phase is part of the mandate.
Example: Our main objective is to increase visitor engagement on our website. We also want to make buying our products online easier and offer a much more intuitive user journey.
Here you need to specify any technical requirements you absolutely must have for your website. Here are a few guidelines to help you draft your requirements.
Example: It's essential that the website is optimized for all browsers, and adapted for mobile. It must also comply with SEO best practices, HTML5 and CSS3 standards and, in some cases, accessibility standards (WCAG).
Mention here what you expect from the content manager. The choice of CMS (Content Management System) is essential to meet your objectives and requirements. Here are some points you can list to better guide the agencies to whom you send your RFP.
Some RFP include a list of functionalities in a table, so that bidding agencies can indicate which will be included, or which will need to be developed with the CMS they are proposing. This is good practice if the CMS is an important element of your website project. It's also a good idea to indicate the level of autonomy you want with your CMS.
Example: We want to be able to easily manage content formatting (adding internal and external links, adding images, adding HMTL code, etc.). We want to rely as little as possible on an external agency to integrate our content.
In this section, you should explain your expectations in terms of graphic design and art direction.
Example: Utopia wants to highlight its new brand identity and demonstrate its innovation and expertise in the sector. We want a design in harmony with existing graphic elements, so our logo won't be changed. We'd like to attract more visitors to our product page.
The tree structure is nothing less than a table of contents for your website. Your website needs to be well organized so that your users can navigate and easily find the information they're looking for. User experience (UX) is a key factor in the effectiveness of your website. Make a list of the pages you'd like to find there, especially if they differ from your current website.
Example:
Home page
About us
Services
Career
Store
Blog
Contact
If you can specify the number of different templates for your website, this will be appreciated by bidders. It's often possible to use the same template for several sections of your site. This can have a significant impact on production costs for you, and reduce unpleasant surprises on both sides.
Indicate here everything to do with the content of your website. Mention who will be responsible for migrating content, writing it, editing it and even translating it. Some companies have the in-house resources to do this themselves, while others prefer to leave it to the agency. There is also the possibility of sharing responsibility or dividing up tasks. If this is the case, just make sure you're clear about who's going to do what. Here's a list of questions to ask yourself:
Example: We'd like all our content to be reworked by the service provider to comply with SEO/web copywriting best practices. Utopia's teams will then approve the content internally.
In this section, you'll need to specify the deadline by which you'd like your project to go online. If you have a specific date by which your website must be completed, this is the place to indicate it. Any major milestones in your project should also be specified in this section, such as approvals or testing stages.
It's advisable to ask for a high-level schedule in a RFP, not a hyper-detailed one. Under normal circumstances, a good schedule should be worked out as a team, in consultation with all stakeholders (the agency and the customer).
Example: The bidder should propose a schedule of deliverables that he commits to following throughout the mandate. The website must be completed no later than January 15, 2021.
It's important to be honest and transparent with your budget. That way, you'll receive quotes and solutions that are consistent with your budget. There are several ranges of possible solutions, which means that prices can vary enormously. Providing an idea of your budget is a good way of reducing perceptions, and forcing agencies to propose solutions that are realistic within your budget. You can ask bidders to offer other optional tools if they wish, but try to stay within the budget range you're going to provide.
Example: The budget for our new website is between $35,000 and $50,000.
Here, you should mention any other requirements you feel are essential to your project, and which the chosen supplier must commit to meeting. Here are a few examples.
You should avoid mentioning penalties for failure to meet the deadline. This will not be well received, since the supplier does not have full control over the schedule: it's a shared responsibility between the customer and the supplier.
Of course, don't forget to mention that confidentiality throughout the project must be ensured.
In the interests of fairness, all questions and answers from all bidders should be shared with all suppliers. Providing information or answers to only one supplier could give that supplier a significant advantage, which should be avoided in a process that is intended to be fair and equitable. You should therefore first receive questions from all bidders and then share them with everyone in writing.
It is also possible to organize a call or meeting with bidders to answer questions. If you opt for this solution, we still advise you to ask the bidding agencies to provide you with their questions in advance.
Here, you simply decide on the criteria you will use to select your supplier. A decision-making committee will evaluate compliant bids according to the selection criteria below.
| Evaluation criteria | 100% weighting |
| Understanding of mandate | 15% |
| Experience and technical expertise in similar projects | 15% |
| Work methodology and schedule | 15% |
| Experience of team members who will manage the project | 10% |
| Proposed content management system (CMS) | 10% |
| Bid price | 10% |
We strongly recommend that the 2 or 3 agencies with the highest scores be given the chance to present their bids in person.
| Presentation of winning bidders | 25% |
Also, don't forget to mention how you will inform the bidders of your choice of supplier.
Example: We will make our selection on the basis of the above criteria. The three agencies with the highest scores will proceed to the presentation stage. Utopia is not obliged to accept any of the bids received, nor is it obliged to pass on the results of the evaluations.
on the selection of the bidder.
As part of good practice in RFP, to respect bidding agencies, don't hesitate to give feedback on their service offer and presentation. Responding to RFP requires considerable time and effort. The only return on investment for firms that don't win is the quality of your feedback. On the other hand, you shouldn't underestimate this, since it's possible that you'll call on their services again in the future. A lack of transparency would be very badly perceived and could affect your reputation.
A table of important dates should be included in your RFP. It is recommended that bidders be given a minimum of 2 to 3 weeks to respond to your call for RFP. Agencies are often very busy, and responding to your RFP will take up a lot of their time. Leaving a reasonable response time for the busiest agencies will prevent you from being turned down for lack of time (the best agencies are often the busiest). You should allow 4 to 5 weeks in total for the entire RFQ process. It's important to give yourself enough time to do things properly. It could be a bad idea to miss your deadline, since you want to set an example for your future partner.
Here's a sample table of important dates:
| Request For Proposal | September 1st, 2020 |
| Deadline for bidders' questions | September 11, 2020 |
| Responses sent to potential suppliers | September 15, 2020 |
| Deadline for submissions | September 21, 2020 |
| Evaluation of bids | Week of September 28, 2020 |
| Presentation of selected agencies | October 6 or 7, 2020 |
| Supplier selection | October 8 or 9, 2020 |
| Project launch | Week of October 12 |
In your RFP, finish by specifying how suppliers will be selected.
It's important to mention when you will contact successful bidders. Normally, unsuccessful bidders are contacted at the end of the selection process.
Example: A selection committee will evaluate all compliant bids based on the selection criteria defined in the previous step.
Of course, requirements and expectations vary from company to company. Use the questions that are relevant to your organization and your objectives.
Are you ready to write your next RFP?