One of the social marketing practitioners I most admire is Maggie Fox, whose Social Media Group was a pioneer in creating new-media campaigns long before it was fashionable.
About a year ago, Social Media Group published a comprehensive and intelligent template for creating requests for proposal (RFPs) for social marketing campaigns. Now they’ve followed it up with a second version that includes an “RFP Bill of Rights” that “will hopefully help provide guidance on how to do an RFP right and fairly,” Maggie says.
The Bill of Rights makes for interesting reading. It provides guidance for marketers to consider in publishing RFPs that are fair to the bidding agencies. With advice like “I will not issue an RFP ‘Cattle Call’”, “I will do my own homework and “I will give you feedback,” it covers the tactics that (intentionally or not) often poison the client-agency relationship. I get the sense that this guidance is born of some painful experience, which makes its teachings all the more relevant.
You can download the RFP template here or find it on the Social Media Group site.