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1. Marketing Automation System RFP
Purpose
The purpose of this tool is to help you design a marketing automation system Request for
Proposal (RFP). An RFP is a formal invitation to request vendor proposals that meet specific
business requirements and purchasing criteria. Vendors interested in pursuing the
opportunity will respond with their approach to delivering on your requirements, provide a
detailed project plan & budget, and relevant customer references. An RFP is useful for
expediting the contracting process.
How to Use this Template
Complete the following sections with your marketing automation project team. Cut & paste
this information into a document that reflects your corporate image, and deliver your RFP to a
short-list of potential vendors for review and proposal submission. The ‘Scope of Work &
Business Requirements’ section contains a very comprehensive list of potential
requirements. Be sure to cut out requirements you don’t need, and add any that are
particular to your organization.
Title Page
[Insert Company Name or Logo]
Marketing Automation System Request for Proposal
[Insert Date]

2. Table of Contents Page
1. Company Information 5
1.1 Corporate Overview
1.2 Technology Environment
2. Statement of Work 5
2.1 Project Purpose
2.2 Project Scope
2.3 Project Schedule
3. Proposal Submission Procedure 6
3.1 Vendor RFP Reception
3.2 Good Faith Statement
3.3 Communication & Proposal Submission Guidelines
3.4 Evaluation Criteria
3.5 Short-list Selection
4. Scope of Work & Business Requirements 8
4.1 General and Technical Requirements
4.2 Marketing Automation Requirements
4.3 Sales Requirements
5. Vendor Information 10
6. Estimated Budget & Resources Required 11

3. 1. Company Information
1.1 Corporate Overview
Provide a description of your organization including company size, locations, number of
system users, current marketing automation capabilities & systems, stakeholders, system
expansion plans, and business goals your are looking to achieve.
1.2 Technology Environment
Provide a detailed description of your technology environment including: LAN diagram,
telephony system, server operating system, desktop operating system, programming
languages, web-architecture, applications, etc.
2. Statement of Work
2.1 Purpose
The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) process is to invite vendors to submit their
proposal to provide a marketing automation system. This document contains the business &
system requirements necessary for a successful marketing automation system
implementation for our organization.
2.2 Scope
Provide a description of each department that will be using the marketing automation system.
Additionally, document what is in scope for this project and explicitly state what is not in
scope. If you are planning on a phased approach, provide a summary of what each phase
will look like from your perspective.
2.3 Project Schedule
This schedule is based on our current timelines, but is subject to change.
Project Milestones Deadline

4. RFP Delivered to Vendors June 1, 2012
Technical Question Period Ends July 15, 2012
RFP Close Date July 31, 2012
Conduct Vendor Evaluations September 1, 2012
Award Contract to Vendor September 30, 2012
3. Proposal Submission Procedure
3.1 Vendor RFP Reception
By responding to this RFP, the vendor agrees to be responsible for fully understanding the
requirements or other details of the RFP, and will ask any questions to ensure such
understanding is gained. [Insert your company name] retains the right to disqualify vendors
who do not demonstrate a clear understanding of our needs. Furthermore, the right to
disqualify a vendor extends past the contract award period and [insert your company name]
will be at no fault, cost, or liability.
3.2 Good Faith Statement
All information provided by [insert your company name] is offered in good faith. Specific
items are subject to change at anytime based on business circumstances. [Insert your
company name] does not guarantee that any particular item is without error. [Insert your
company name] will not be held responsible or liable for use of this information or for any
claims asserted therefrom.
3.3 Communication & Proposal Submission Guidelines
Communications shall not be effective, unless a specified procurement executive who is
responsible for managing the RFP process formally confirms these communications in writing.
In no case shall verbal communication govern over written communications.
Please submit your proposal by [insert RFP Close Date]
Please send questions related to this RFP, and vendor proposals to:
[Insert your company name]
[Insert department name]
[Insert mailing address]

5. Attention:
[Insert contact name & title]
[Insert phone/email/fax contact information]
3.4 Evaluation Criteria
All proposals will be evaluated systematically, based on the following key criterion. The
purpose of this section is to identify suppliers with the interest, capabilities, and financial
stability to supply a marketing automation system, as defined in the Scope of Work.
Following is a prioritized list of our key evaluation criteria:
1. Insert Criteria
2. Insert Criteria
3. Insert Criteria
4. Insert Criteria
5. Insert Criteria
3.5 Short- list Selection
Vendors who have demonstrated their capacity to meet our needs will be contacted via
phone and/or mail to be notified of their selection to move forward in the RFP process.
Vendors, who have not been selected, will not be contacted.
4. Scope of Work & Business Requirements
This section will provide a categorized list of business & system requirements, with an
associated description for each requirement. These requirements will provide the foundation
for vendor presentations, discussions, and negotiations.
4.1 General and Technical Requirements
• Secure Web Access for Remote Users – system can be accessed online.
• Easy & Intuitive User Interface – system must be user-friendly.
• No I/T Staff required – system can be implemented, customized, and
maintained by sales & marketing staff only.

6. • Microsoft Integration – Microsoft Excel files can be imported/exported, and a
plug-in for Microsoft Outlook provides integration for email tracking.
• CRM System Integration – bi-directional integrate with CRM systems.
• Email/Web Analytics & Paid System Integration – ability to integrate with
existing email and web analytics systems and paid-search ad services.
• Marketing Campaign ROI Analysis – system can track and measure return on
investment for all marketing channels including: search engine marketing, cold-
calling, tradeshows, direct mail, pay-per-click online advertising, email marketing
campaigns, and other channels.
• Closed- Loop Reporting – sales can be traced back to original lead source.
• Daily Visitor Activity Reports – email notification of prospect activities.
• Lead Management – inactive leads can be pulled back from CRM system to be
added to lead nurturing programs and assigned when ready for follow-up.
4.2 Marketing Automation Requirements
• Email Marketing – robust, intuitive WYSIWYG HTML editor; dynamic insertion of
variables (prospect name) and tracked URLs; import lists of contacts from CSV
files; list management & de-duplication features; email campaign scheduling and
delivery automation (newsletters); drip campaigns can be built and automated
based on business rules to nurture leads.
• Web Analytics – individual user behavior tracking (page views, email opens,
downloads, form completions, etc); identification of unregistered users based on
WHOIS database lookup; tracks entry/exit pages and referral source; identifies
search terms (paid & organic) used to find website; provides reports on most
recent web visitors; visitors can be sorted by company & geography.
• Marketing Automation – automation rules can be customized; automatic routing
of prospects based on lead-assignment rules; auto-responder emails sent upon
form conversion and downloads; leads are scored based on explicit profile criteria
(title, industry, location, etc) and implicit user activities (recentness, page views,
downloads, opportunity creation in CRM, etc); prospects can be added to drip
email campaigns and/or lead nurturing programs based on behaviors (form

7. completion, page views, downloads).
• Landing Pages & Forms – landing pages and personal URLs (PURL) can be
created and customized from within marketing automation system; forms can be
customized with required and non-required fields; free/invalid email address (gmail,
hotmail, yahoo, etc) can be blocked; form handlers can extract data submitted from
existing web forms; site search queries can be extracted and added to user activity
history; captures prospect data from incomplete forms.
4.3 Sales Requirements
• Prospect Activity Alerts – automatic email notifications based on prospect
buying signals such as recent website visits, form completions, specific page
views, document downloads, email forwards, or other behaviors.
• User Activity Viewing – ability to view user activities within CRM system.
• Activity History – complete prospect activity history is documented.
• Prospect Sorting – prospects can be sorted based on lead score, recent online
activity, geographic location, company name, or other criteria.
• Lead Qualification – only leads that reach a specified score are assigned.
• Re- Assignment – leads can be easily re-assigned to a new sales person.
• Profiling – prospects can be quickly added/removed from lead nurturing
programs by updating their profile (technical buyer vs. business executive). Lead
scoring rules can be built based on profile to automate lead scoring.
• Last Activity – sales users can quickly identify interested prospects based on
their last activity.
• Do Not Call/Unsubscribe – sales users can add prospects to Do Not Contact
lists.
5. Vendor Information
Vendors must submit the following information to be considered:
• Corporate Overview – legal name; year of incorporation; number of employees;
income statement if available.

8. • Products & Services – description of all products & services supplied.
• Markets Served – description of geographic/industry markets served.
• Partners – list of technology partners, and implementation partners (in regional
area), and roles in ecosystem.
6. Estimated Budget & Resources Required
All vendors must provide a breakdown of costs related to the implementation of their
marketing automation system. Costs include, but are not limited to, hardware, software
licensing, middle-ware, training, consulting services, integrations, data migration,
documentation, etc. Vendor must agree to keep the quoted pricing in their proposals for a
minimum of 90 days after proposal submission.
Additionally, vendors must provide options for deployment models, such as hosted, client-
server, or other model.
Finally, all proposals must include a project schedule & work breakdown structure, which
identifies timelines, key milestones, project phases, or other project plan information.