Is The RFP Process Broken? Most Clients And Agencies Think So
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, August 30, 2021
When it comes to the
process of handling RFPs (requests for proposals) for advertising account pitches, advertisers and agencies often seem far apart. Except on one thing: a majority of both stakeholders believe it is
broken.
That's the finding of a study of advertisers and agencies conducted last month by …
This topic has been a hot one for me for years - and of course, as a small agency - we are notoriously going to say the process is rigged against us :) But even when it's not procurement led (which adds another layer of finger pointing), I still feel like the client side can eliminate almost all concerns you've addressed above (both advertiser and agency). For starters - use an agency consultant. Yes, it costs more money, but they'll help you find what you actually are sending out an RFP for. Second - require transparency. By requiring transparency of EVERYONE, that elimnates every agency concern outside of price, and can eliminate every advertiser concern except seeing the agency in action. We often say if the advertiser won't give us Analytics access, then they don't trust us enough to make us their agency, and on the flip side, we can't show them enough about what we do without showing them how we can specifically apply our expertise to their data. So don't issue an RFP if you aren't going to allow for full transparency, and agencies shouldn't be responding without the same.