At Peacock Carter, a reasonable percentage of our work in any given year is from website design tenders and requests for proposal, and I see the same few issues year after year.
As such, I’ve taken the time to write a guide to writing website design tenders, with a few pointers – and, hopefully, ample explanation of why I’m recommending to do (or not do) something to potential tender writers. I’ve highlighted some of the major points below, but you can read the full guide on “how to write a website design tender” on Peacock Carter’s website.
- Be open to suggestions; many tendering organisations restrict themselves to a specific content management system or technology without any real thought, and miss out on the potential to work with more suitable technologies or web design agencies for their needs.
- Please don’t ask for designs as part of your tender; by all means ask for a sample of the web design company’s previous design work, or a link to an online portfolio, but don’t require suppliers to supply a full website design (the article adds to reasons as to why you shouldn’t do this!)
- Provide a budget; provide, at the very least, a cost range for your project’s budget; it will save companies unable to deliver the project for that budget from wasting their time, and the quality of your tender responses should increase to companies who are capable of delivering the project you are after for the budget you have available.
Those are just some of the many points I racked my brain for! If you have any more, contact me via Peacock Carter, or tweet @PeacockCarter!