How to Write the Perfect RFP for Your Website or App [RFP Template Included]

August 05, 2024 Digital Experience

Looking for an agency or creative to help you with your next digital project and not sure how to write an RFP? Look no further than this post! Template included!

Some of you reading this post may be business owners. You’re ready to establish your digital presence with a website and/or app, but want to outsource it to a professional agency or designer. And one who will allow you to focus on what you’re good at while they handle the technical and creative aspects of developing an effective online presence.

Some of you may be digital agency owners or project managers. You have a big job coming up and need to hire specialists in order to fulfill the requirements of the job. You might have gaps in your current team’s skill set or not have enough capacity to finish the job within the given timeframe.

In either case, you don’t want to hire just anyone. It’s too risky. There’s a lot of money on the line and you have no time to waste.

With a request for proposal (RFP), you can reduce these risks while searching for a partner that will help you improve your outcomes. In this post, we’ll explore why it’s a smart idea to write an RFP for big digital projects, what to include in your request, plus tips for putting it all together.

What Is a Request for Proposal?

A request for proposal is a document used to find a vendor for a project. It lays down the details, objectives and requirements of the job. It also specifies what the company is looking for from the vendor.

The RFP is typically sent to a handful of selected agencies or specialists. Each is asked to write a proposal in response to the request. The company then uses these responses to compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates and their proposals.

RFPs can be used to vet vendors for all different types of digital projects.

For instance, a business owner might write a website RFP and send it to various design firms or independent designers to bid on. A design agency owner, on the other hand, might write a digital marketing RFP or a digital experience RFP to help fulfill the requirements of a job that their current team can’t currently handle.

How to Write an RFP and Key Sections to Include

To help you find the right vendor, here are the key sections to include in your request for proposal:

Brand Introduction

Use this section to introduce the contractor to your company. The section doesn’t have to be long, but it should include details like:

  • Company history
  • What it does or sells
  • Vision, mission and values
  • Target audience
  • Business goals

Even if they’ve heard of you before, it’s still a good way to start off the proposal so they can keep track of who it’s from.

Project Overview

This section summarizes the project you want the vendor to bid on. You’re going to use most of the RFP to describe the details of the project, so this section doesn’t need to be long either.

Give the vendor a high-level overview of the job that needs to be done. A good way to do this is to position it as a Problem and Solution. For example:

“We have had a good amount of success with our family of local gyms for the last 10 years. However, we are falling behind franchises like Crunch Fitness and LA Fitness that offer customers all-in-one mobile apps that serve as an access pass, class reservation system, fitness tracker and more. We want to develop a mobile app of our own that makes the experience more convenient and enjoyable for our customers.”

Project Goals

Besides the digital product or experience you need developed, it’s important to explain the goals of this project.

Start with your business objectives and how this project will help you achieve or accelerate them. Then talk specifically about the goals of what you’re building.

For example, if you’re developing a new product, what are your primary goals? What sorts of qualitative and quantitative metrics will you use to measure them and what’s the timeframe?

If you have an existing product, what are the goals for the redesign or new product? Are they the same as before? Or are you looking to build atop what you already have? For instance, do you have a bustling ecommerce site that you want to add a blog to? Should the blog serve as a lead generator or do you want to increase sales with it?

Giving these prospective vendors an idea of what matters most will help them place everything into perspective as they create a proposal.

Scope of Work

This is where you’ll start to unpack the details of the project. Use this section to describe all your wants and needs. It should also have a list of deliverables.

Make a list of the services you need. For example, if you’re hiring an agency to create an enterprise website, it might include some of the following:

Also think about if there will be anything outside this primary scope you’ll need. For example, let’s say you’re an agency that’s using the RFP to hire UX designers. Will they need to be available for client-facing calls or internal meetings?

Or if you’re hiring an agency to develop a product on your behalf, is there anything you need after the fact? For instance, do you want your content marketing team and other stakeholders to receive training on how to use the CMS? Or perhaps you’ll want the agency’s help with ongoing website maintenance? These are the types of things to consider.

Now, if you’re a business owner and you’re not entirely sure what the design and development process entails, that’s OK. The whole point in writing an RFP is so that the experts will propose the best strategy and plan for your needs. However, you should at least include a list of the deliverables you expect by the end of the job. The vendor can always add more if you missed anything.

Technical Requirements

In this section, you’ll explain the specific technologies or techniques to be used when working on your project.

Create a list of everything you need and add a short description if it’s warranted. Here are some examples of what it might include:

You should also add any technical requirements for the digital product itself. Start with your needs in terms of features and functionality. Explain what each of them is and provide examples if necessary.

Also, if security, performance and SEO are a priority, then add requirements for them here. For example, you might want your website to have a score of 80 or higher on PageSpeed Insights as well as a score of 100 for accessibility. You might also dictate which browsers or devices your designer or developer tests your website on.

Timeline and Budget

It’s pretty common for anyone responding to an RFP to include a section in the proposal with a proposed timeline and budget.

That said, this vetting process is for both you as well as your prospective vendor. So it’s a good idea to include your own timeline and working budget. That way, vendors can bow out early if the timeline and budget don’t work for them.

They won’t waste their time responding and you won’t waste time reading their proposal if these key details don’t line up.

You don’t have to include a firm end date if you don’t have one. The same with the budget. Instead, you can give a range like “6 to 9 months” or set a maximum cap on what the vendor can charge.

Obstacles and Risks

This section isn’t required, but it’s a good one to include in case there are any challenges your vendor should be aware of ahead of time, like a strict budget or timeline, a rigorous internal review process and so on.

For those of you working in heavily regulated spaces, this section is especially vital.

For example, let’s say you’ve launched a new fintech company. The app you need built will offer alternative banking and investment services to consumers (think of a company like Acorns). So there are lots of regulations your agency partner will have to consider, like PCI DSS, SOC 2 and GDPR.

Sure, calling out risks and obstacles ahead of time might make some vendors reluctant to respond to the RFP, but that’s all part of the vetting process. Things will also go a lot more smoothly if your vendor can anticipate hurdles ahead of time and plan for them accordingly. It’ll also help you hire the right person for the job instead of someone unprepared for your unique circumstances.

Point of Contact

This section is generally used to let vendors know who their primary point of contact will be. It might be the business owner themselves, a project manager or someone else entirely.

In addition, use this section to introduce other team members they’ll interact with. If there are multiple team members they’ll be working with, they should know about it. They should also be familiar with who will be signing off on everything, if it’s not the main point of contact.

You might also want to include information here about communication. If you have a preferred communication channel, note it here. It could be your project management software (like Asana), video conferencing software (like Zoom) or a chat platform (like Slack).

One last thing: If you require status check-ins or meetings throughout the project, this is the section to discuss it. Make note of your preferred channel as well as the frequency of these meetings.

Evaluation Criteria

In addition to choosing a vendor who can accomplish what you’ve described above, you likely have other requirements for them. So list out the criteria you’ll use to make a determination on who you hire.

Here are some questions to ask yourself about who that vendor needs to be:

  • Do you care where they live?
  • Do you need them to be available during your operating hours?
  • Would you like to meet with them in person?
  • Do they need to be fluent in English or another language?
  • Are you OK with them outsourcing work to subcontractors?
  • Should they have direct experience in your industry?
  • Do you want to see case studies with real metrics from prior projects?
  • Will you accept vendors that pitch budgets or timelines outside of your expectations?

Like a lot of the sections in your RFP, this will help vendors decide if it’s even worth writing a proposal in the first place. For others, it will help them write a better response as they’ll know exactly what you’re looking for and can provide information that matters most to you.

Submission Info

This is where you’ll explain the logistics of how the vendor should respond to the RFP. You can include information related to:

  • Recipient and contact info
  • Document format (e.g., Word, Google Doc, PDF)
  • Specific formatting preferences
  • Submission deadline
  • Final selection date

You might also ask them for additional details, like examples of similar projects they’ve completed or former client references.

RFP Tips and Best Practices

Here are some things you can do to maximize the RFP responses you get and ultimately have your pick from the best of the best contractors for the job:

Do Your Research

Research your contractors before you send anything out. Google Reviews is a good place to start. It’ll show you what the general sentiment is about their services. You can also find common complaints or concerns that other clients have had and decide if they’re something you can handle.

Judge Their Website

You don’t generally write a website RFP or other kind of RFP if you’re working on a low-budget, no-frills project. You want someone who is going to knock your socks off with a product or experience that looks like a million bucks. So head over to their website and see what you find. Would you want what they’ve built for themself for your own brand?

Organize the RFP

When writing the RFP, make it easy to follow and easy to read. Treat it like you would a blog post or webpage. Order it in a logical fashion. Use big, bolded section headers for easy scanning. And format the text for better readability by choosing readable fonts, writing short paragraphs and using bullet points for list items.

Be Realistic

You have to be like Goldilocks when writing an RFP. You don’t want to go overboard and ask for the world. At the same time, you won’t want to underestimate what you need or set expectations too low. Be realistic and truthful, even if it means some contractors choose not to respond as a result.

Get Stakeholder Buy-in

Even if you’re the main point of contact or decision-maker, there are likely others on your job who’ll be working with the contractor or have their work impacted by them. So before you share the RFP with any vendor, get input and approval from affected team members.

Give It Time

When choosing a deadline for the RFP response, be mindful of how long it takes vendors to put together a proposal. If you rush the RFP process, you risk vendors using pre-written templates that are generic or don’t really take into consideration your unique needs. You also risk having otherwise great candidates not respond at all.

Wrapping Up

It might take some time to write an RFP for your next project. However, it’s worth it if the job is big enough and there’s a lot on the line.

A well-written RFP will help you find the right agency or contractors for your job. In turn, this’ll help you keep your timeline and budget within reason. It’ll also reduce risk and increase the chances of an optimal outcome.

So the first thing to do when writing an RFP should be to write one that actually gets responses. You don’t want vendors to ignore or trash your request because it’s too vague, too demanding or generally unattractive.

You also want to get thorough and honest answers from your vendors. The proposals you receive should tell you a lot about the vendors—not just their strategy and quoted price, but what they’ll be like to work with. By asking the right questions, you’ll be able to make a fair assessment in all regards.

Ready to find a great partner for your project? Download this RFP template to get started.

Find a list of expert vendors at our list of Progress Partners.

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Suzanne Scacca

A former project manager and web design agency manager, Suzanne Scacca now writes about the changing landscape of design, development and software.

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