Mediacurrent: "Shrop" Talk at Drupal Camp Asheville 2016

What is the purpose of the RFP?

Outline objectives here. If your website has multiple objectives, rank them in order of importance.

Why specifically does your current website not meet the objectives you previously listed? What is the central “pain point” your organization has? If it’s a website redesign, what about the current one isn’t working for your purposes?

Please select any content management systems you are considering. You can select more than one.

If you are already working with a content management system, please explain.

If you are currently using a CRM solution or have selected a CRM solution please provide details here.

If you have an existing blog that will need to be migrated, a developer will want to see what they are dealing with. Please add the URL here.

Please describe your eCommerce goals, including what type of products you plan to sell and how many. Please also tell us about any unique challenges to selling online in your particular industry.

Does your organization depend on 3rd party services for things like email newsletters, marketing automation, CRM / contact management, inventory control, intranet, accounting / Quickbooks, or inventory management? If so, be sure to include the ones for which synching / integration with the website is essential and describe how you expect it to work.

Please describe any additional functional requirements.

Do you require membership management on your site? This would be for allowing people to access special or hidden content on your site, perhaps after submitting an email address or paying to view a whitepaper.

Please describe your current hosting set-up.

Should design be included?

Please provide an overview of your idea of a successful design. What design choices should be made to improve the brand.

Please list a few examples of sites that you like and how they may be relevant to your project. (These can be in any industry.)

Have any architecture documents been created? Please​ select one or more .

Provide a general description of your primary target audience. Talk about your customers or clients—who are they (demographics: age/sex/income/location), what do they like to do (what are their hobbies, where do they typically spend time online) and why do they or why should they use your services or buy your product?

List the top 3 reasons why a user would come to your web site.

Please list your top three competitors.

For websites whose audience skews older, larger default text and click areas will inform the design. Government & public sites often require Section 508 compliance.

Do you need an agency to write content for your site? In order to bid accurately, we will need information on what type and how much.

Describe​ what a conversion looks like for your company and require an explanation on how a path to conversion may be established or improved ti increase conversions. Talk about specific numbers if possible.

Describe other goals that you need to meet to consider this project a success. This field is extremely important.

Often documentation is included in the admin area of the website to explain how to use features—particularly custom features. It is also a good idea to create a "website style-guide" at the end of a build as a guide for administrators to follow when adding content. Tell the vendor if you would like these items included in the proposal.

Should we include time for training sessions post-launch? It is a good idea to get your staff up to speed on the​ functionality of their new toy.

We should have enough information with this RFP to estimate what it would cost, but it will need to be reevaluated after launch. It's a good idea to wait a few months before signing a contract. This will give us a real-world idea of how much work you will need each month.

Not only should there be a plan for driving traffic post-launch, the website should have been built with this plan in mind. This means the site should have a blog (that is easy to update), a landing page template to follow, a call-to-action (CTA) strategy and even a resource center. Your new website should position you for an inbound content marketing strategy from day one.

Please use this space to include any other details you would like to convey.

All proposals should be delivered by this date.

This is the date that you plan to notify vendors of a selection.

This is the date that you expect that project to begin. (You can estimate.)

This is the date that the completed site will be available to the public. (You can estimate.)

We recommend providing a budget range. Websites can cost as little as a couple thousand dollars to as much as hundreds of thousands dollars. If we know how much your budget is, we can submit a plan tailor-made for your budget (and your goals). If you keep it a secret, we might spec a website that is far too expensive. Or, we might spec something on the low-end that comes under your budget but doesn’t include the strategic considerations you need to hit your goals.