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Tag: digital tenders

Do you think you miss tendering opportunities because you didn’t see them in time?

Posted on by John Hudson

Do you think you miss tendering opportunities because you didn’t see them in time?  Or the deadline had just passed?

My biggest bugbear over the last 16 years in the industry is finding the perfect tender at 9am only to find out the deadline is 12noon – THE SAME DAY. Very annoying, but it used to happen all the time.

Do you ever find this in your agency?

This was one of the main reasons for launching this system, and developing it specifically for creative businesses. In the early days of the business we were asked by an investor why we are minimising our potential client base by only populating it with creative opportunities? That’s simple, creating something as fantastic as Creative Tenders, takes sector commitment, sector knowledge and more importantly a desire to grow the sector.

We know we are fantastic at generating creative sector opportunities so we created a system that allows us to take that online. That doesn’t mean to say we won’t create a Professional Tenders, or an Engineering Tenders, we might, but it will still be sector specific to those industries so they get the same value you do from Creative Tenders.

Our core goal is to make sure you don’t experience the same bugbears we have over the years and ensure you are made aware of opportunities the same day they are published. If we see you haven’t logged into the system, your dedicated account manager will give you a personal call to ensure you’ve not missed it. We are not a technical product with zero face. We build relationships, the better we know your agency the better we can support you and help you to grow.

Don’t be that Company who see’s their life changing tender 2 hours before submission, give yourself the best possible chances of success by giving yourself time to produce a winning bid submission.

 

 

Creative Tenders on tour | Tender Support | Events Management Tenders

Posted on by John Hudson

Creative Tenders on tour | Event Management Tenders

We are very excited to be launching our product in May. The time has flown since we first came up with the idea of Creative Tenders. The development team has steam coming off their fingertips and the sales team has been in, intensive training ready for its launch.

We are simply dying to showcase the product, so we thought what better way to do it, than to attend a couple of national conferences and exhibitions. The shortlist was hard, but our Marketing Director Jill and Development Director Andrew will be heading to London next week to attend 5 exhibitions, the B2B Marketing Expo at the Excel Centre in London, the Sales Innovation Expo, The Business Show, Business Start Up, Accountex, and Legal Ex on 11th and 12th May.

Upcoming Events

http://b2bmarketingexpo.co.uk

http://www.salesinnovationexpo.co.uk

http://www.accountex.co.uk

http://www.bstartup.com

http://www.legalex.co.uk

If that doesn’t make us busy enough spreading the word to both those interested in being a part of Creative Tenders and Creative Finder. Our MD John, is attending Thinking Digital in Newcastle to find out more about what new stuff we should be doing to make our system even more fantastic than it already is (http://www.tdcncl.com).

So that’s us covering two major cities, so we believe all good things come in threes, so we are heading to Leeds to the Buy Yorkshire Conference (http://buyyorkshire.com) on the 17th and 18th May. We’re ready for a lie down just thinking about it.

So, if you’re based on London, Newcastle or Leeds this is your chance to find out more about what we’re up too and even have a demo of our fantastic new product.

Look forward to chatting to you all more over the next couple of weeks.

WE SOURCE CREATIVE CONTRACT OPPORTUNITIES FOR SECTORS INCLUDING;

Book a free live demo with Creative Tenders to see how we can help your business grow. 

Are you looking for a new creative agency to work with? Creative Agency Tenders

Posted on by John Hudson

Are you looking for a new creative agency to work with?  Look no further 

Businesses work with creative agencies for different reasons, and you don’t have to be a multi million pound business to benefit from an agency relationship. Branding in a business is so important and people follow brands sometimes without realising due to their creative marketing campaigns and strong communications.

This should be the same for all businesses, no matter of size, sector or service offering. Everything consistent, from the use of colour, how you use your logo on printed and digital materials, the type of imagery you use, even the messages you put down on paper.

What’s the best way to do this? Find someone to look after your brand.

A proactive agency will present new ideas and concepts to you to support with the growth of your business. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune but you should consider putting a dedicated budget in place, no matter how small for the consistent management of your brand.

We have a pool of hundreds of UK based agencies

We have a pool of hundreds of UK based agencies and freelancers on our books. These agencies and freelancers work with businesses to help them grow, support with creative ideas and engage new customers.

Creative Finder works with marketing managers, business owners and senior business professionals with the responsibility of marketing. These businesses work with us to ensure they find the right agency relationship for their business, the wrong relationship can be costly and brand damaging.

The businesses post opportunities on our system and agencies will showcase their experience, their ideas, and any sector specific case studies they may have suitable to your bespoke requirements. Everything is managed on our system from uploading the ITT to organising shortlisted presentations. Meaning you won’t be bombarded with emails from the agencies that use our system.

The support doesn’t end there. Our experienced marketing team works with businesses to help specify their needs or help them identify what type of agency would be best to support their specific needs.

If you are interested in finding out more about Creative Finder, and how we have helped other businesses to find suitable suppliers, contact Jill on jill@creativetenders.co.uk.

What percentage of your work comes from tendering?

Posted on by John Hudson

What percentage of your work comes from tendering?  Do you think you maximise this sales channel?

After me moaning last week about what people find difficult about tendering for the creative sector, I thought I best discuss something a little more lighthearted. Success rates!

As I have worked in all size agencies in my career, tendering success rates have been different. Mainly because there was no standard format in place, they were usually rushed due to studio time not being available and sometimes winging it a little with the hope that we might be in with a chance.

If I look at the most recent agency I supported, we can see that around 50% of the overall business we won came from public tendering, which for an agency of only 5 people is quite high.

Design is a very personal thing

Obviously it helped that I know how to write bids and more importantly how to write a winning tender so our success rate stood at about 80% for those projects we did bid for, but we never included creative artwork. This is a bugbear of mine. How can we actually develop creative material when we haven’t even met the client, haven’t discussed the brief properly, don’t really understand their client base or even their core objectives. Design is a very personal thing and we don’t believe that a tender should be put to one side based on a tiny fraction of the information provided.

Many people probably don’t maximise tendering as a channel to winning new business because of the studio time needed to produce the tender. I am pleased to say though that fewer tenders these days actually ask for artwork to be created, something we will also advise for those clients we work with on Creative Finder.

We’ve all sorts of standard templates to help our clients be more successful with tendering, one being a tender checklist, if you don’t tick all the boxes, don’t waste the time submitting the tender. Be ruthless.

If you want to access the standard documents we have in place, or even want me to take a look at one of your tenders, send it over, we are happy to help.

Sign up for a free demo of Creative Tenders and review the following opportunities:

Event Tenders

Website Tenders

Printing Tenders

Video Production Tenders & many more.

 

 

What do you find difficult about creative sector tendering?

Posted on by John Hudson

Creative sector tendering, what do you find difficult about it?

As you’ve probably guessed by now we want to see the creative sector in the UK grow, and we believe we can help. Each week we will launch an open discussion and your feedback counts. The more feedback we get from these discussions, the better our system becomes. Simple!

So. Today we are asking what you find difficult about creative sector tendering.

I have worked in the sector for 16 years now and the tendering process has changed somewhat, but the basic principles have remained the same. The hardest thing I have found is the sheer volume of different websites I have to check weekly just to ensure I have not missed any opportunities. How many do I actually check, you may ask? Currently it stands at 1,017. Yep you heard it right. Over 1,000 sites weekly and boy is it boring and time consuming, and definitely a task which needs to be done on an evening in front of the TV as I don’t actually have time during my working day.

Creative sector tendering

The worst thing, over 50% may not even have a single tender on the site, but I have to check them just in case anything is missed. Seriously, who actually has time to do this? Yes I could give it to a junior to do but I would be worried they wouldn’t pick up on all of the opportunities and the search functions can’t be relied on, as they don’t always work. It doesn’t help by the fact that around 75% of public tenders have been categorised incorrectly.

So, help us please understand what it is you don’t like about creative sector tendering and we will ensure our system provides you with a much improved system, a one that will take away your bug bears and make your life easier.

Sign up for a free demo of Creative Tenders and review the following opportunities:

Event Tenders

Website Tenders

Printing Tenders

Video Production Tenders & many more.

 

 

Meet the Team – Creative Tenders – The Tendering Website for the Creative Sector

Posted on by John Hudson

Meet the Team – Creative Tenders – The Tendering Website for the Creative Sector

Meet the Creative Tenders Management Team

We are thrilled to have our full management team in place now at Creative Tenders. Meet the members of our team below.

Meet Jill

Jill has worked in the creative sector her whole career spanning 16 years. She has secured millions in business for the agencies she has worked with, managed teams of up to 30 creative lead generators and managed creative and digital contracts up to 500k in value. Jill’s role at Creative Tenders is Director of Marketing and she will be responsible for marketing to creative companies encouraging them to use of our system, but also non-creative businesses looking for creative, digital and marketing providers.

You can contact Jill by emailing jill@creativetenders.co.uk

Meet John

John has worked in the creative sector his whole career since starting his first business when he was just 19 at university. He has successfully grown and sold several of his own creative and digital ventures, has a BA in TV and Radio and a MA in Media. John owns Creative Tenders and takes the role of overall business management, recruitment and retention, HR and accounts.

You can contact John by emailing john@creativetenders.co.uk

Meet Kathryn

Kathryn has worked with the management team at Creative Tenders for 7 years and is passionate, energetic and creative. She has a BA in Theatre and an MA in Media. Kathryn’s role is Head of Creative and is responsible for the brand management and overall look and feel of our communications, including our website, video content and designed promotional materials

If you think you’ve got what it takes to work for Creative Tenders, send us your CV to jill@creativetenders.co.uk

Sign up for a free demo of Creative Tenders and review the following creative contract opportunities:

 

Why should SMEs tender for work through digital marketplace?

Posted on by John Hudson

Why should SMEs tender for work through digital marketplace?

As an experienced writer of tenders for a variety of SMEs, I have asked myself whilst writing tenders and racking my brains for a synonym for ‘experience’ – should SMEs tender for work?
Continue reading “Why should SMEs tender for work through digital marketplace?”