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PR Agency Tenders: Why Tendering is Important to Public Relations

Posted on by John Hudson

PR Agency Tenders: Why Tendering is Important to Public Relations

What is Tendering?

Tendering is a key strategy for growing your PR agency, as tenders are an extremely effective way to gain contracts to expand your business by providing your services to new organisations.

Let’s quickly discuss what Tendering is. While the exact tendering processes will be different depending on the industry, the basic idea remains the same. Tendering involves formally presenting your business offer to an organisation (a ‘buyer’) in need of a specific service.  This is considered the fairest and most open procurement method for public sector organisations, and even private businesses have recognised the value of tenders. Overall, the tendering process will secure the most economically advantageous tender (‘MEAT’) for the organisation.

As you might expect, opportunities are always being published that anyone can bid for. Yet, because of this very fact, competition is fierce. Just as tenders are vital in gaining new contracts, so is having an amazing proposal showing that you meet all the buyer’s requirements, and why you are the best PR agency for the job.

 

The Tendering Process?

Tendering can seem long and terribly complicated, so here we will break down the process for you. PR tenders, as creative tenders, will commonly be Requests for Proposals, or RFPs. RFP formats are almost always free format and involve the buyer providing a specification used to produce a creative project. Often RFPs won’t have any strict word count or notable restrictions. After all, buyers in the creative industry will want to see the quality of what you produce, meaning this proposal is basically your first chance to display your talent! Showing your ability to go beyond a plain template document and be remembered will assure buyers you can achieve the same working with them!

Your proposal does still need to include important information regarding the project, including a:

  • Statement of Work
  • Projected Timescale to Complete
  • Specific and Detailed Plan.

As not all PR agency tenders are RFPs, we can also look at what the general stages of the tender process are:

  • Opportunity – Referring of course to the opportunity listed by the buyer.
  • Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, or PQQ – For closed tenders, a PQQ is issued by the buyer to determine which suppliers are appropriate. If you pass this stage, you arrive at the…
  • Invitation to Tender, or ITT – For open tenders, the supplier starts the process here.
  • Evaluation – Once the buyer has all the tender submissions they mark them against their specific criteria. At this stage, they determine which supplier is the best for their needs.
  • Contract – After deciding the best supplier, the buyer awards them the contract.

 

Should my PR agency tender for work?

PR agency tenders fall into the creative tenders category, and creative jobs make up a substantial amount of the UK workforce. New creative jobs are generated at a faster rate than in other sectors. What this means is there is an abundance of opportunities to secure tenders to grow your agency! Understandably, this only emphasises the importance of having an expert approach.

Searching for the perfect contract is key. Through your agency’s marketing, you may see some opportunities if businesses reach out directly, though not all may take this approach. Even if we include google searches or rely on word-of-mouth to discover opportunities, this is simply less reliable. Worse still, these results are likely not what you need to truly develop your agency!

Through tendering, your approach to gaining new contracts can be so much more efficient. You can find major PR tender opportunities with a variety of businesses and organisations. This is particularly important for newer and/or smaller businesses (SMEs). For instance, the opportunity to secure work alongside a well-known company would not only be lucrative but will look amazing when approaching future tender opportunities. After all, tendering isn’t just to help you secure a single contract, but to continue building your portfolio and expose you to new opportunities to help your PR agency grow!

 

Where to find Tendering Opportunities for PR Agencies

At Hudson Outsourcing, we have developed our Creative Tenders platform to provide the best experience when seeking PR tender opportunities. Rather than complicated codes or algorithms, our procurement team will categorise every tender with industry-specific keywords to allow an easier time searching for the right opportunity. Even when there are thousands of tender opportunities to manage, our team will ensure your agency’s time will only be spent looking at the most relevant.

 

Here’s a look at some previous PR agency tenders we sourced:

 

  • Public Relations Agency – 2023 Cycling World Championships

Buyer: 2023 Cycling World Championships Ltd

Location: Scotland

Budget: £165,000

 

  • Sefton Tourism PR Agency

Buyer: Sefton Council

Location: North West

Budget: £36,000

 

  • Freelance Media Relations and PR Consultant

Buyer: Coventry City of Culture Trust

Location: West Midlands

Budget: Undisclosed

 

  • PR campaign – Well-being of Future Generations Act

Buyer: Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

Location: Wales

Budget: Undisclosed

 

If you would like to see more examples these can be found on our Creative Tenders Portal.

 

How can we help?

A subscription to Creative Tenders provides you with:

  • Access to all new public and private sector digital marketing contracts across the UK.
  • A daily email bulletin is sent straight to your inbox when new marketing opportunities are uploaded.
  • Discounted support from Hudson Succeed (our bid writing division).
  • 20 minutes of free consultancy with one of our Bid Management Consultants each month.

Also, we source opportunities for sectors including:

 

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

 

Need additional support?

You don’t always have the time or resources to write a winning response in-house. Outsourcing to bid writing experts can help. Our sister company, Hudson Succeed, offers four levels of bid writing support.

They boast an 87% success rate and have over 60 years of bid writing experience.

The services on offer include:

 

How to get contract-winning bids

You can absolutely complete all your bid submissions from within your agency. However, this can pose an issue if the buyer requires an especially long or complicated bid, and that’s before considering how you might fit this into a schedule already filled by your normal contracted work.

We also offer free consultations if you would like to discuss what is the best approach for your PR agency. On top of offering our bid writing services, we can also advise you on your existing tender strategies and provide guidance if you wish to produce a bid independently still! You can call us on 0203 051 2217 or email us at hi@tenderconsultants.co.uk.

Your 12 months’ commitment

Posted on by John Hudson

Your 12 months’ commitment.

We’re often asked by companies who are interested in our system why we ask for a 12 months’ subscription.  There are multiple reasons for this so I thought I would sum it up in a quick blog.

First and foremost, we believe that in order to get a true reflection of any business development activities you have to give it a decent run.  All of us who have been through the tendering process know the in-depth process of sourcing potential opportunities, responding by the deadline provided and waiting whilst the decision is made on the successful provider.

By giving monthly access to the system, we’re saying that we expect our businesses to start winning work immediately and they will find the perfect opportunity for their business on day one.  We can’t and we don’t make that promise.  Every business is different, and every business has different requirements of what they’re looking for and industries in which they want to work.

It is also industry standard to commit to 12-months subscription for this very reason.  It’s to give you a decent run at seeing a good return on investment.  Also this gives us a chance to work with you as an outsourced business development partner.

We’re very open on our website, with lots of ways to get in touch, and we encourage people to get in touch to see a live demo of the system. This allows you to see the types of creative contracts in the UK we have on our system. For ease we have supplied examples of past tenders across various creative sub sectors which include:

When people have signed up, we contact them after their first month to ask how they wish to be account managed.  Some clients like to be emailed every single time a suitable tender comes onto the system. However, others prefer to use the system alone and be contacted once a month to check everything is ok.  We’re happy if you’re happy.

We’re always happy to stay in touch…

Our subscribers are informed on day one of sign up, who their account manager is and their contact details for getting in touch.  We’re only ever a phone call away Monday-Friday 9-5, and you’re always likely to get a response out of hours as our team are very keen on developing positive relationships.

Once you’ve been introduced to your account manager, they will ask several questions about the type of work you’re looking for.  This information is shared in our weekly sales meetings which gives the Creative Finder sales team a brief of what types of opportunities you want to see on our system.  We’re so much more than a technology platform, so asking people to commit to 12-months’ is essential for us to see a return on the time we invest into our customers.  As business owners we know you will understand this concept.

We’ve so many happy customers in just the short 3 months we’ve been live, we save agencies so much time by searching over 1,000 websites every single day to source new tenders. With our Creative Finder sales team, we know given the period of time we’re asking you to commit, that we can help you grow and play a part in your proactive business development activities.

Our founders John and Jill are always happy to answer any questions our customers or prospective customers have about our services. Please don’t hesitate to contact them anytime on their direct email addresses john@creativetenders.co.uk and jill@creativetenders.co.uk.

Look forward to working with you in the future.

Questions to ask before responding to a tender

Posted on by John Hudson

Jill’s top seven questions to ask before responding to a tender

We all know the term ‘busy fools’!  The term definitely comes into play when tendering for new business.  Seeing all those tenders coming through, is like candy in a sweet shop.  But, knowing that you could deliver the work well is one thing, on paper you have to sound great too.

The best tip we can give you is to create a Tender Checklist.  This Tender Checklist will keep you on track when bidding for new work and should include a set of questions which are essential to knowing what to tender for, and what to walk away from.

Here are some sample questions that our Growth Director, Jill asks before submitting tenders on behalf of her clients.

1. Do you have 3 strong case studies from the industry you want to work in?

Most tenders require sector specific experience, and usually require a minimum of three case studies.  Think carefully before submitting a response if you’re struggling to get the right level of experience from your bank of case studies.

2. Do you have a solid foundation of experience, developing systems or creating visuals that are similar to those in the Invitation to Tender?

Look at the work you’ve done in the last three years and ask yourself, ‘is it relevant to the business project?’  If it isn’t it’s unlikely you’ll be successful, as another bidding organisation will specialise in this area and will be able to produce a winning submission.

3. Is the tender more than half of your annual turnover?

It’s hard to know the cut off point for organisations when bid writing for work, but the general rule of thumb is that you are unlikely to win any projects as an SME that are more than 50% of your turnover.

4. Do you meet the terms of the tender i.e. three years required accounts?

If you’ve only been trading for 2 years but it is an essential requirement of the tender to have a minimum of 3 years.  Disregard the tender and don’t give it another thought.

5.How strong is your teams experience against what they’re asking for?

Think of your current and previous experience, if the management team are strong, with a proven track record, you could have a strong chance of winning the work.

6. Can you meet the deadlines required for the project?

Think about the size of your team and the number of man hours needed to complete the work.  If it looks like 100% of your team will be working on the project 100% of the time, you’re unlikely to win it, it’s too risky for the client to give you the work.

7. Is it possible to make a profit, based on the budget allocated?

Many organisations bid for work not thinking of the profit margins should they win the work.  Look at the man hours needed for the project, and add 20%.  If you’re still making a decent profit, go ahead and submit the response.

10 Stages of Tendering

Posted on by John Hudson

10 Stages of Tendering

Our Growth Director Jill, has been writing bids for over a decade, and she is often asked what makes her so successful.  It’s important to understand that when she first started tendering, she also made the common mistakes made by all, but she soon realised she had to create a process and stick to it.  Creating consistency and building knowledge.

She developed her 10 stage process which she still uses to this day.  Here goes…

1. Develop a checklist

Don’t just assume that every project is right for your business.  If you are clutching at straws for suitable experience, it’s probably not for you.  Create a checklist with 5-10 questions to ask yourself when deciding if to bid for a project.  Mark these questions between 10-20% depending on the number of questions developed.

2. Searching for suitable tenders

Searching for suitable tenders takes time and commitment.  Did you know, we scrape over 1,000 websites every day to populate our portal with suitable public and private sector opportunities?  No agency has the resource or time in-house to do this.  Searching for tenders is critical for agency growth and a great source of new business, so make this process as streamlined as possible by signing up to Creative Tenders or another suitable portal.

3. Review against your checklist

Once you have sourced relevant tenders, score them against your checklist.  If you don’t score 80% or above, don’t tender for the work, put your sales efforts into other activities.

4. Roles and responsibilities

For those tenders that score 80% or above, agree roles, responsibilities and deadlines between the sales team, ensuring you’re not leaving things till the last minute.

5. Research

Research really is king when it comes to tendering.  You need to look into the tendering organisations business, look at what they’ve done in the past, read the tender document from front to back, and compile a thorough understanding of what they are trying to achieve, who their key buyers/audience are and who they are competing with.

6. Complete draft one of the tender

Draft one is critical as its about putting all of your thoughts down onto paper.  It’s important to see this as the first draft as you’re bound to think of additional/relevant knowledge and experience as you’re producing the response.  Make sure that during this stage you’re answering the information that is being asked of you, and make it 100% relevant to the company your bidding to.

7. Amend, edit, review

The review process should take a while, it’s not about proof reading at this stage, it’s about ensuring you’re answering the right questions, that the response has been correctly levelled against the scoring criteria of the tender and that you’re happy with the message the tender response gives about your business.

8. Sleep on it

Once you’ve edited the response, sleep on it.  We’ve all been there when we’ve submitted our tender response and instantly thought ‘I should have included XYZ’.  It’s important to plan your time ahead to give you this important down time before the response is due.

9. Proof read

Only then should you proof read your response for spelling and grammatical errors.  During this stage you should also ensure you’ve kept to any word count or font suggestions from the Invitation to Tender document.  After you’re happy with the response, ask someone else to read it, it’s hard to see mistakes with our own content when you’ve read it so many times before.

10. Submit

Submit your response, giving yourself plenty of time before the deadline is due.  Consider how long this might take when using online public sector tendering platforms, as they are not always as straightforward as they may first appear.

 

 

 

 

 

Can we have your feedback on how you currently tender for new business?

Posted on by John Hudson

Can we have your feedback on how you currently tender for new business?

Before we started developing our product we took a selection of creative agencies feedback on the systems they use and how they tender for work. This ranged quite a bit but a few usual culprits appeared. Usually the ones that people knew about were from their local authorities, but there are so many opportunities out there, you just need to be able to find them.

If we understand how people currently tender, we will be able to improve our tendering system. We believe Creative Tenders should be a constantly evolving product and we believe with more ideas up our sleeve that we can change the way business is done globally – a big statement to live up to, right?

So which tendering websites do you use? Do you pay for tendering access or do you only use the free websites that you have found by accident as and when they appear?

What do you like about these tendering sites? Do you find any of them particularly easy or hard to use? If so we need to know, we need to make sure that our system is the best on the market. As we only have sector relevant tenders and we are industry experts, we know with the right feedback from our clients we can create a system that will have huge impact on the sector, and a huge impact on each and every one of our clients businesses.

If you want to send us your feedback so that we can shape a system that is right for you and your business, email Jill on jill@creativetenders.co.uk.