The success of any food and beverage marketing initiative starts with finding the right partner who can cook up custom solutions for your business needs. Crafting a strong Request for Proposal is a must if you want to pinpoint the best option and ensure you land with an agency that can meet your requirements — and even exceed your expectations.
While an RFP typically sets the stage for qualified bids, it should be calibrated to yield the highest-caliber candidates for your project.
“The goal should not be to just get a bonanza of bids and proposals,” said Catherine Dazevedo, SVP of marketing communications for The Food Group. “It should be about finding the best partner based on what you’re trying to accomplish, especially if you plan to allocate a sizable budget for the initiative. A good RFP will yield quality over quantity."
The following are six essential ingredients — >who, what, when, how, why and> where — to ensure you have a recipe for success when it comes to crafting an RFP.
1. Who: Your Company Background, Brand Identity and Objectives
Start by introducing your company and giving an overview of your brand and its history. Your brand’s current positioning, tone of voice and visual identity — plus any brand guidelines, logos and visual assets — provide a solid foundation for your RFP. To avoid information overload, maintain a sharp focus on the essentials as they relate to your project.
It’s also important to list your main competitors and any industry trends that affect your business. To ensure prospective partners have context on your brand’s marketing history, share past marketing campaigns, noting their successes and challenges. Then clearly define your current objectives, which could be to increase brand awareness, drive sales, launch new products, expand into new markets, or any other goal or metric.
2. What: Project Scope and Requirements
Outline the marketing services needed to ensure prospective partners grasp the capabilities and core competencies required to meet your objectives.
Given today’s highly competitive multichannel marketplace, the mix of top-notch services needed can run deep, from end-to-end digital marketing (SEO, SEM, web development, social media management) to public relations and influencer marketing to culinary support and R&D.
Be sure to define what is within the scope of paid working hours and what would be considered non-working hours (like a stock imagery budget). Also be sure to specify what, if any, creative exercise will be required as part of the selection process and what fee you would be willing to pay for that work. While compensation is ideal for creative work, if that’s not possible, ensure you provide exceptionally clear parameters and well-defined deliverables. This demonstrates respect for the agency’s time and resources by ensuring their efforts are focused and efficient, even without financial remuneration.
Other “Whats” That Need to Be Addressed
What’s your target audience? Define who you’re trying to reach, as precisely as you can. If you’ve built personas that give dimensionality to your target audience, that is ideal. Be sure to provide any intelligence you may have on your core customers to help your agency participants understand who you need to reach. Data from marketing intelligence platforms, like MRI or Resonate, or any other proprietary data that agencies can use will help them deliver a more robust and relevant response to your RFP.
What are the deliverables? Describe what you expect from the agency, such as campaign concepts, creative assets, content calendars, media buys, reports, etc.
What’s your budget? Provide an estimated budget for the project or campaign, or ask for a detailed breakdown of costs from the agency.
What Services Should Your RFP List?
- Advertising (print, digital, broadcast)
- Content creation (copywriting, photography, video)
- Public relations and influencer marketing
- Event planning or experiential marketing
- Market research and analysis
- Social media concepting and execution
- Digital website strategy and management
3. When: Timelines and Deadlines
Your RFP should include key deadlines, milestones and project phases. Provide an overall timeline that encompasses all of the following:
- Proposal submission deadline
- Interviews or pitch presentations for shortlisted agencies
- Agency selection and contract signing date
- Start and end dates of the campaign/engagement
- Any important project milestones or review periods
4. How: Agency Experience and Capabilities
Any agency you consider must have the experience and capabilities necessary to ensure the success of your marketing initiative. Be sure to choose an agency that has proven success in the food and beverage sector and can step up to the plate with deep experience.
“The last thing you want is responses from agencies without the specialized expertise to get the job done right,” explained Dazevedo. “With more than 50 years of experience in the industry, The Food Group has been the winning bid for countless RFPs from food and beverage brands hungry for top talent in the business.”
Technical expertise is key. Choose an agency with MarTech support that specializes in omnichannel approaches to digital marketing — an agency with robust digital capabilities across social, programmatic, search, CRM and marketing automation (so you’re working smarter and not harder!) as well as the ability to support a full tech stack in today’s data-driven business environment.
Other “Hows” That Need to Be Addressed
How will the agency approach the project? Ask for a detailed explanation of:
- The proposed strategy, tactics and channels (e.g., digital marketing, social media, public relations, media buying, etc.)
- Creative concepts or ideas for your brand
- Innovative or unique solutions the agency might propose
How is the team suited to the challenge? Request details about the agency team:
- Key team members, their roles and relevant experience
- Any third-party collaborators or specialists (e.g., influencers, designers, photographers)
How will success be measured? Require information on how the agency plans to evaluate campaign performance:
- Key performance indicators and metrics they will track
- Reporting schedule (weekly, monthly, etc.)
- Expected return on investment
How Qualified Is an Agency? The Must List
- A portfolio of relevant campaigns or clients
- A firm grasp of the entire supply chain for B2C clients’ value chain
- Case studies or examples of similar work they have done in the past
- Relevant certifications, awards or partnerships
- Trend forecasting and knowledge of evolving AI tools
- The ability to leverage databases to promote growth
- If they use AI, ethics surrounding usage
5. Why: Criteria for Selecting the Right Agency
Outlining why some agencies will be considered over others is an important way to ensure proposals align with your business needs and objectives. Make it clear that proposals must cite relevant experience and expertise in food and beverage marketing, and display creativity and innovation in the proposed approach.
Other “whys” include a demonstrated understanding of your brand and target audience, the high quality of previous work and case studies, and price competitiveness.
6. Where: Disseminating Your RFP
Remember that where you send your RFP is a determining factor for the quantity and quality of responses you receive. Just as you would select the right audience to promote your product, it’s important to select qualified agencies to provide proposals.
Decide whether proposal submissions should be open to a broad group of agencies or reserved for a select group of specialists in food and beverage marketing. Then determine the method of dissemination, whether through snail mail, email, your website, social media posts or a mix of these. Getting your RFP in front of the right people ultimately determines the quality of your return, so give this important step careful consideration.
A curated list of prospects can help target your RFP, but in the absence of one, you may consider sending out a more basic request for information (RFI) first, to weed out unqualified candidates.
And Speaking of Being Careful …
Remember to add terms and conditions, including stipulations around confidentiality, ownership of deliverables, contract terms and conflicts of interests.
For complex or high-stakes projects, it may also be advisable to use a consultant with specialized knowledge of your industry and the nuances of RFPs. A good consultant can ensure your RFP accurately reflects your needs and attracts the right pool of potential partners. Consultants can also help develop evaluation criteria and a scoring system to compare proposals and home in on the best one for your purposes.
“If the company lacks experience in agency selection or doesn’t have in-house marketing procurement specialists, a consultant can guide them through the process, ensuring they get the right agency fit,” explained Mitchell Caplan, a marketing operations and management consultant specializing in agency review support. “A consultant brings an unbiased, third-party viewpoint that can help eliminate internal politics or favoritism, ensuring the process is fair and focused on business objectives.”
In the end, while a lot of thought goes into a solid RFP, following the recipe for success outlined above will facilitate finding an agency that can ensure you achieve your marketing objectives.