EMAIL MARKETING PREFERRED VENDOR REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL Attention: IFA Supplier Forum Members Date: December 17, 2014 Deadline: January 5, 2015 The International Franchise Association produces approximately 100,000 emails per month in the form of email newsletters and an average of 50 email marketing pieces for event promotion, political education and marketing. IFA is looking for an email solution that will enable us to expand our current services and decrease administrative overhead. IFA seeks a preferred vendor to work with us to provide these programs to IFA and its members franchisors, franchisees and suppliers. General Preferred Vendor Guidelines Through the Preferred Vendor Program, IFA recognizes vendors who offer unique programs and services that are custom-tailored to fit the needs of franchisors and franchisees. Preferred Vendors offer special discounts and/or reduced rates for IFA members. In addition, these programs give members the opportunity to do comparison shopping with other vendors they may be using or evaluating for similar services. In order to be considered for the Preferred Vendor Program, companies must be IFA members franchisors, franchisees, or suppliers, in good standing for a period of at least one year. IFA works with the Preferred Vendor to develop a custom-tailored marketing program. Such a program may include some or all of these elements: Recognition as an IFA Preferred Vendor in IFA publications, website, events Direct mail and email endorsement letter from IFA President & CEO to all members Other direct mail as appropriate Advertising in Franchising World Advertising in IFA s SmartBrief Advertising and Sponsored Blogs on FranSocial Articles and inserts in Franchising World Advertising and sponsored content on IFA s website Periodic mentions in IFA Insider Exhibits at IFA Annual Convention and other events Sponsorships at IFA Events Identifying target companies for special communications Identifying pilot programs to develop case studies with members
Procedures Companies must submit proposals to become a Preferred Vendor to IFA. Proposals are reviewed by the IFA staff and the IFA Executive Committee. With Executive Committee approval an MOU or contract is completed between the vendor-company and IFA. In most cases, the minimum terms of such an agreement include the following: Two year minimum agreement with an option for a third year. Annual licensing fee of $15,000 (minimum) paid by vendor to IFA for use of the IFA Preferred Vendor designation. Commitment by the vendor to an advertising and sponsorship program of at least $100,000. The mix of marketing activities may vary with each Preferred Vendor program, and IFA s Senior Director of Advertising & Media Solutions will work with the Preferred Vendor to determine the appropriate mix to achieve the vendor s growth goals. RFP Requirements National and/or international scope of services Track record of national marketing program Dedicated customer service Ability to provide national key accounts program, e-commerce solutions, fully-scaled technology for security and redundancy The vendor should have a track record of providing the services noted above with both large and small organizations, with special member pricing. Responses Please answer the questions below in detail providing screenshots, sample email newsletter design, URL s, and any other supporting data where possible. Indicate if there is interest in participating in a Preferred Vendor relationship. Submit your proposal as a PDF attachment to Gregory Cook, Senior Director of Advertising and Media Solutions, at gcook@franchise.org by January 5, 2015. I. Company Overview A. Please provide an overview of your company, length of time in business, whether the company is publicly held, the products and services you offer, as well as your business philosophy. II. Technology Overview Page 2 of 6
A. Please describe the infrastructure of your email creation and distribution system. B. Is it a hosted software application that must be installed on IFA servers, or is it an ASP solution hosted elsewhere? C. If ASP solution, please provide information on: Server architecture and redundancy Data Backup Bandwidth Firewall and Data protection Power Average uptime percentage per month Email delivery speed (peak capability and avg. number of emails per hour) D. If the solution must be hosted on IFA servers, what are the requirements? E. What kind of customer and technical support is available? What are the hours of support? III. Email Creation A. Please describe the email creation tools made available. Do the tools require knowledge of HTML? Are any email creation tools or wizards made available to nontechnical users for the creation of graphical, HTML emails? B. Describe the creation process for the text version of the email. C. Where are images stored? Does your system allow images to be stored on your server rather than on an IFA server? How are images added to emails, managed and cataloged? D. What is the process for personalizing emails? What fields are available for personalization? E. What is the process for setting hypertext links to web pages or email addresses within the body of an email? F. Are email template options available for quick and easy creation of emails? G. How are documents (.doc,.pdf,.xls, etc.) attached via the software? How are they sent to end-users? H. Is training included for the use of your service? Are help screens, user manual, webinars, etc. available? I. What additional functionality is supported in the email (surveys, quick polls, etc.)? IV. List Management Page 3 of 6
A. What is the process for adding customers to a list? Can users be added or uploaded in bulk? B. Are tools available for capturing customer data (email address, company, etc.) and subscriptions from our web site? Does the capture tool allow for verified or double optin? C. How are customer s email preferences (HTML vs. Text) determined? Can a customer change his/her profile? D. How are unsubscribes managed? Can users automatically remove themselves from a list? E. What list management tools are available? F. Is it possible to integrate your list data with our in-house list database for ongoing updates? What is the process and associated costs for setting up this remote connection? V. Email Delivery A. Can IFA staff persons manage delivery without assistance of your organization? Is live support available by phone, email and chat if assistance is needed? B. Can deliveries be scheduled? Describe the process. C. How many lists can be incorporated into a single mailing? D. Can the from field and reply field be modified for individual mailings? E. Describe the process and technology employed to ensure that emails reach the highest possible percentage of the intended recipients. Include information on mailing logic for soft bounces and hard bounces, and the number and frequency of retries. F. Has the solution been tested to a number of different email clients? What is the error rate? G. Are customers that receive an email in text presented with the option to view the email graphically on the Web? H. Can the franchisor schedule campaigns to send from the individual franchisees accounts in order to drive responses directly back to the local franchise owner? I. Can franchisees schedule their own email campaigns? VI. Reporting A. Is online reporting available? If so, is reporting data available immediately after sending an email or how often is the data updated? Page 4 of 6
B. What data is captured? (emails sent, undeliverables, unsubscribes, opens, clickthroughs)? C. Does your reporting identify the individuals (or email addresses) that performed a certain action? For example, does reporting show the email addresses of the customers that opened an email? D. Is reporting available at an aggregated list level as well as at an individual list level? E. Can reports be exported or downloaded for further analysis? F. Are individual links tracked within a mailing? What data is tracked and how is it reported? VII. Additional Products A. What additional online marketing products does your company offer franchise sales and marketing teams and/or franchisees? B. Does your offering include a survey tool? C. Does your offering include an event management tool? D. Does your offering include the ability to centrally update online listings and content rich menus? E. Does your offering include a deal or coupon solution? F. Do your additional products access a centralized contact database? G. Do your additional products integrate with social media? VIII. Business Rules A. What tools, if any, are available to allow IFA to control the branding, messaging, and look of an email while enabling an individual department to personalize it for their own purpose? B. Is it possible to lock-down sections of an email so that they cannot be touched/altered by another department? What items can be locked down (fonts, text colors, logos, etc.)? C. Is it possible for a department to maintain their own list of customers that is not available or viewable by IFA corporate? Can the department initiate a mailing? IX. Privacy In any agreement the IFA enters into the data provided and collected during the contract term is the sole property of the IFA. Upon termination of the agreement all information stored in a vendor s system must be returned to IFA and purged from the system. The vendor may not market to and/or distribute any information to list subscribers emails provided by IFA or collected through the email solution. A. Describe your privacy policy on data and customer information and how you ensure compliance with the CAN-SPAM act and CASL. Page 5 of 6
B. What is your policy regarding permission-based marketing? Do you allow non-opt-in lists to be used in your system? C. How do you respond to accusations of spam by private or public anti-spam organizations? D. What steps have you taken to reduce the likelihood that emails sent via your system will be labeled as spam? X. Pricing The IFA currently has a trade-out agreement with our current vendor. In order to provide a cost effective solution to the association, IFA seeks to develop a new Preferred Vendor relationship and/or trade agreement providing services at no cost to the IFA. XI. Training and Support A. What support is offered upon purchase of the email marketing accounts/licenses in order to implement the service across all users within the organization? B. What live account support is offered to both the corporate organization and the account users/franchisees? Is this support available throughout the lifetime of the account? What are the hours of your support team? C. What kind of training and education is offered by your company? Does your organization provide live (local) training and educational seminars? What is the coverage of the local training team? D. Is all of your support and training available at no additional cost? Page 6 of 6