Ideas for Writing Your RFP

As the director of business development for mStoner, I do a lot of different things, but the most important part of every day is spent reading and responding to RFPs—sometimes a quick note from a friend or past client, sometimes a 45 page fire drill from a university that we’re just getting to know.

I know that writing an RFP can be a daunting process (just like responding to them), and from time to time, my colleagues and I are asked for advice on how to get started. Every institution is different (a small independent school has both different needs and different legal requirements than a major state-supported university, for example), but here are a few words of advice from our side of the fence.

Tell us a little about yourself. 
We’ll do a lot of research about your institution before responding to an RFP, but it’s still interesting to hear how you describe your institution and the opportunity at hand. If you can share information about the history of the specific publication, project or website that you’re working on now, even better. You’re looking for a partner who represents the right fit for your team and in all honesty, so are we. Being transparent about how you work will give the firms you’re contacting an early idea of whether this is a partnership that might work, and we’ll certainly try to provide you with the same courtesy in return. 


Be clear about what you know you want.
 I know this one seems obviously, but sometimes it is difficult to tell what people are really expecting to come away with at the end of a project. A great design that your in-house IT staff will implement? Or a live, functioning website? The best result of any selection process is that you will be able to sit down and compare apples to apples to make a smart decision about the best partner for your institution. In order to do that, you need to be sure that everyone is proposing the same scope of work. If you have timeframes or budgets in mind, share.


Be equally clear about what you’re not sure of. 
Maybe you know that your website isn’t quite where it should be, but you’re not sure where to start or how much help you’ll be able to afford. Or maybe your viewbook is dated, but you’re not sure where you want to take it next. If your RFP makes it clear that you’re looking for some help with strategy and scope definition, you should be able to expect some interesting suggestions from the proposals you receive. It’s not a bad way to learn how your prospective partners would approach your opportunity, and may help you narrow the field.


If you really want to compare apples to apples, ask vendors to be specific. 
You probably have a sense of how you’ll judge prospective partners for your project. Maybe you know that past experience is particularly important to you, or that you’re looking for precision in the project management process, or that you want someone whose design philosophy meshes with yours. Asking people like us to answer specific questions will allow you to make straightforward comparisons and the best final decision for your institution. It also makes it easy for someone like me to give you exactly the information you need.

Think of this as the beginning of a conversation. 
I can’t speak for my peers at other firms like mStoner, but I’d like to invite you to think of the proposal I send you as the beginning of a conversation between you and I. Not negotiation: conversation! Every project is a little bit different, and one of the things we like about this business is that we learn something new with every engagement. What will we learn together? Well, that’s what we want to start to explore. We can tailor our recommendations (and pricing) a little bit more every time we talk to you about your institution and the work you’re considering. 


And for those of you who want to skip this advice and get straight to the nuts and bolts of the matter, here’s a list of the items that are provided in most of the RFPs that I receive:

History of the institution
Overview/scope of the project
List of project deliverables
List of expected proposal elements
Expectations for timeline and budget

And here’s a list of the things that we’re usually asked for:

Firm contact information and history
Team bios
Process overview
Samples of Work
References
Timeline
Pricing

Look forward to hearing from you!

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Online Viewbooks at the Rhode Island School of Design

Whether trying to make the most of a limited budget or adjusting to a changing landscape in communications, many institutions are taking a close look at the balance between print and web. The Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, R.I., is successfully tipping the scales “webward,” with online viewbooks that provide a holistic and dynamic look at the programs and student work that make RISD unique.

Making the call…

When Becky Bermont, vice president of RISD’s media + partners team, came to RISD in 2008, a review of the printed viewbook was already underway. The RISD team had completed some research with Maguire Associates, and was starting to rethink how prospective students use both print and web. The time was right to consider a new paradigm to reach those who might be a good fit for RISD.

Knowing that students today are increasingly likely to rely on the web when forming impressions of colleges and universities, and that a growing number actually apply without having any prior contact with an institution, Becky and her team decided to rely more heavily on the web to provide critical information about the departments and programs at the School, with a printed viewbook used more as an overview with reference to the website. Becky notes that the nature of the institution also supported this decision: “It’s important for us to showcase the work that the students produce. It’s highly visual, and that lends itself to the web.”

Building consensus…

With plans and ideas in hand, Becky’s next step was to conduct an internal road show for RISD faculty and staff. She and her team understood that this idea was radical in some ways, and wanted to ensure that the community was invested. Response was positive from the beginning: “It’s so much more worth it for us to spend that time up front and have people really invested than just plowing forward and ended up with something that doesn’t really represent the institution.”

Since the current RISD website did not provide the design or infrastructure needed for the planned viewbooks, they were created as stand-alone sites for the undergraduate (http://www.risd.edu/undergraduate) and graduate (http://www.risd.edu/graduate) programs. Each department page showcases student work and provides detail about the programs available, and video is used effectively throughout. In the end, the departments did all the writing and selected all the images for both the undergraduate and graduate viewbooks.

Results…

The sites launched in late 2008 to acclaim both inside and outside the RISD community. Both the undergraduate and graduate viewbooks were honorees in the 2008 Webby Awards competition, but perhaps more importantly, questions to the admissions team about department offerings have gone way down, indicating that prospective students are finding what they’re looking for online. And printing costs were reduced by 20%.

Beyond their obvious benefits of providing critical information to prospective students, these online viewbooks do an incredible of creating a sense of place. Video and images work seamlessly with text to create a very vivid picture of what it’s like to work (and play) at RISD. Honestly, after ten minutes looking at the sites, I was ready to apply.

If you’re thinking about trying this…

“The Rhode Island School of Design is nontraditional by nature, and there’s a real respect for the visual,” says Becky. “But in many ways our process is just like any other institution’s. Kids are kids, and most of them are shopping for school online.”

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Making People Notice

Enrollment in the Learning Over Lunch session is free, but seats are limited. Please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to attend.

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Food for Thought

I’ve been home from California for almost a week, and am working my way through all the information I brought home from the AMA Conference. I want to share just of few of the things that are bold and underlined in my notes.

From the Princeton Review:

30% of students who drop schools out of their choice set do it because the school doesn’t have the program that they’re looking for. 94% of the time, the schools they drop actually did have the program, but the students couldn’t find it on the website.

As much as we talk with our clients about the importance of putting a list of majors and minors on their sites, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it stated quite this clearly. Doesn’t it make you wonder if a prospective student has walked away from your site thinking (wrongly) that you don’t have what he or she is looking for?

From the US Dept. of Education:

More than 70% of undergraduates have at least one “non-traditional” characteristic, such as being financially independent, attending part-time, or having delayed enrollment. 28% of undergraduates have four or more.

This is something that really got my attention. When many people think about their prospective students, they picture a typical high school junior or senior making a decision, with parents who will be figuring out how to foot the bill. For some colleges, that may be exactly right. For others, we need to remember to address a much broader audience, and think about how their needs might be different.

From Eduventures:

The most trusted sources of information about a college or university are the official website and campus visit, and between the two, the “use/trust” score is almost the same.

Wow. It’s amazing to me that prospective students would put almost as much faith in a website as they put in what they actually see on campus. For institutions considering how much of an investment to make in their websites, this is something that might make a real impression.

AMA put together a terrific line up of speakers for the Symposium. There’s so much here, I’m sure it’ll provide food for thought (Thanksgiving pun, get it?) in weeks to come.

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Minding Our Manners

“Hosting a community is like hosting a dinner party.”

So says Lois Kelly of Foghound, who was one of the speakers at the AMA Symposium on Tuesday. I like the way her approach frames a daunting task-building community-in a way that seems very real to me.

Here are a few things that I think about when I’m throwing a party:

How will I invite my guests? By phone? An email? Or even (gasp!) in the actual mail? I want them to be pleased to hear from me and excited to attend.

Will we eat casually from a buffet, so guests and mix and mingle? Or will we sit down together, so friends can talk more intimately with one another?

What do my various friends have in common? I’ll want to make sure they’re introduced, because I think they’ll enjoy talking together.

I think any of these things can be applied to growing an online community. Whom would you like to invite, and how can you best reach them? What’s the format that will work best for your community members, and how much structure do they need or want? And, perhaps most importantly, how can you encourage them, gently, to make connections with one another? Because that’s the foundation of any community, whether in your dining room or online.

Which brings me to another of Lois’s points:

“Marketing is a conversation.”

Again, it’s a terrific way to understand a very complex undertaking. A good conversationalist is someone who’s honest, who’s genuine, who encourages others to share rather than hogging the spotlight or dominating the conversation. Even better, it’s someone who tells a good story—someone who’s entertaining. If only all marketers could live up to these standards.

I’m at the San Diego airport on my way home (hooray for a wireless airport!). I have so much to sort through once I get there, and I’ll be back soon with some of my biggest takeaways from the conference.

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Seven Ps on a Perfect Day

I’m in San Diego this week for the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. It’s sunny, breezy and 65 degrees, and I wish I could fold up the day and put it in my pocket to take out during the Vermont winter that’s about to begin. It’s hard to believe that fires were raging near the hotel just a few weeks ago.

This morning’s keynote speaker was Dr. Tom Hayes of Xavier University and Simpson Scarborough, on 10 marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. Tom spent a few minutes on what he called the Seven (not Four!) Ps of marketing a service: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Physical Evidence, Process, and People. Tom was speaking in terms of an integrated marketing approach, which I think we all agree is the right approach for building an effective brand, but it got me thinking; is it possible for your website to contribute in some way to each P?
—Product: This is an easy one. The product in education is the courses offered to students, and a good site answers the question that every high school junior is asking: what can I major in?
—Price: Tom stressed the fact that the price of choosing a particular institution is not only financial. It may be paid in time, reputation, or the general hassle of day to day operations. Clearly, the website can solve some concrete problems (reducing day to day hassles by allowing online transactions, for example), but it can help in less concrete ways as well. Illustrating the benefits of a degree from your institution through profiles of happy students and successful alumni can help mitigate concerns about price by emphasizing the long term value of the education.
—Place: Nothing will bring your campus to the front door of every visitor, but your website can make it more accessible to prospective students or alumni in farflung locations who are looking to make a connection with the institution, through community building activities or news from campus.
—Promotion: Your website may not be the source of all promotions, but can and should play a role in most of them. (Again: integration!) I think our recent “Define Yourself” project with Mercersburg is a good example.
—Physical evidence: Tom mentioned this morning, and our experience tells us as well, that for many prospective students, visiting campus evokes a very emotional reaction: “I think I would fit in here,” or “This place isn’t for me.” What about those prospects who can’t (or haven’t yet) come to campus? Some of my favorite sites have lots of photos not just of buildings and campus landmarks, but of students and general life around campus. Maybe these are the online versions of those physical cues that will help prospective students turn into enrolled students.
—Process: How easy is it to work with an institution? Many processes are completely people-driven, and rightly so. There’s no need to shoehorn technology into a situation that can be more easily resolved in person. But your site can help streamline processes that are appropriate (requesting information, for example), freeing up your staff to be as helpful and friendly as they’d like to be.
—People: For a prospective student, a relationship with an institution may well begin before there’s any personal interaction. How many anonymous 17-year-olds have visited your site today? What about these stealth applicants that Voltaire and I have been talking about, who base their decisions on the website alone, with no campus interaction? I might argue that the sensitivity with which your site anticipates and meets their needs prepares them for the type of people they’ll meet when they take a next step with you. Or, perhaps that’s a stretch. You tell me.

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