Web Content Management (Web CMS) for Internal or External Sites Request for Proposal (RFP) Template Thank you for participating in this Web Content Management platform review. This RFP presents detailed business requirements and objectives of [Organization Name]. This will allow an external vendor to submit a comprehensive response enabling [Organization Name] to select and implement the right Web CMS solution to support its websites and other online properties.
COMPANY OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND [Please give an overview of your organization and market so vendor can respond in context of your industry and goals.] PROJECT OVERVIEW I. Business Objectives [Organization Name] would like to identify the best software vendor for its WEB CMS requirements. The software will help the organization achieve the following business goals: Goal 1 Goal 2 Goal 3 Goal 4 Examples include: automating 80% of site operations to reduce site maintenance costs; removal of IT bottleneck to empower marketers to control digital marketing initiatives; manage social content to drive traffic; increase customer community engagement by 25%; integrate CRM with Web CMS to personalize content delivery; ease of multichannel delivery, etc. II. III. Critical Requirements [Organization Name] requires that the WEB CMS software has the following: [Must Have 1] [Must Have 2] [Must Have 3] Use Cases [Specific use cases help the vendor understand how you are using WEB CMS software today, as well as what you expect from a new WEB CMS provider. These will give the vendor the opportunity to describe, in detail, how their software matches to your use case.] Please describe how your WEB CMS meets the following use cases: Use Case 1: Use Case 2: Use Case 3:
VENDOR INSTRUCTIONS Proposals must be submitted to [Email Address] by [Date] at [Time, Time Zone]. I. Schedule of Events RFP issued [Date] RFP responses due [Date] Notification to short-listed firms [Date] Product presentations [Date] Reference checks begins [Date] s begins [Date] Selection of finalist [Date] Award of contract [Date] II. III. The evaluation will include: Review of submitted RFP responses Proof of concept Product demonstrations of selected vendors which include use-case scenarios of product in [Organization Name] s own environment References The vendor must provide [Insert # desired] current customer references. References should reflect organizations that have similar requirements and business goals. In addition, we would like to speak with references from the [Industry] space. [Organization Name] will contact the vendor for these references if the vendor is selected for the product demonstration phase. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS I. Current Environment [Describe your current application environment. Inform the vendor whether you have other applications you utilize and the migration/replacement of any systems or applications to the new Web CMS.] Describe how the WEB CMS platform will fit in this environment. II. Project Implementation [Please propose a timeline for installing and configuring the Web CMS software.]
Describe how you would meet the proposed timeline. III. Security Requirements [Organization Name] has the following security requirements: Describe how the WEB CMS software will fulfill these requirements. IV. Current Infrastructure and Development Preferences [Describe your infrastructure and development preferences. Include: Hardware Operating Systems Current Web Programming Languages if not already using PHP/Drupal (.NET, Java, PHP) Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) Web Services Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Web Hosting Provider/Platform? Describe how the Web CMS software will fit within this environment. V. Software Applications [Organization Name] requires that the Web CMS integrates with the following software: Application name 1 i.e. Salesforce, Marketo, Webtrends, etc. Application name 2 Application name 3 Application name 4 Describe how the Web CMS will integrate with the above applications. VENDOR COMPANY INFORMATION I. Background Full company name and business address of your corporate headquarters Brief history and background of your company as well as the length of time you have operated in the Web CMS space Describe the product(s) and service(s) being offered for this solution II. Strategy What is your company s overall business strategy? How does your company compete against other Web CMS vendors?
What is your product release strategy and schedule for new releases and upgrades? III. IV. Industry Recognition What industry recognition has your company received? Customers Who are your key customers? Do you specialize in a certain vertical? V. Partners Describe your distribution strategy (direct, VAR, SI, OEM) Please list key partnerships (direct, VAR, SI, OEM) VI. VII. VIII. IX. Implementation Please describe how you go about implementing the Web CMS and how partners are involved. Training Please provide an outline of your training capabilities both for IT/developers and digital marketers as well as end users/admins. Documentation Do you provide any documentation around your product (for each release)? Support and Maintenance Please outline your support and maintenance policies. Do you provide direct support services? Do you provide professional services and/or consulting? Are these services ongoing or ad hoc by project? X. License Model Is your product commercial or open source? XI. Community Do you have a developer community enabling developers to support each other with their use in the product? What is the feature/module release strategy for Drupal? When are new
features/modules scheduled? When are new releases and upgrades planned? XII. Case Studies Please describe details of case studies and/or examples of similar involvements in web developments. FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS / CAPABILITIES Please answer how you meet the following capabilities. The proof-of-concept, vendor product demonstration, and client trial evaluation will also form a part of the selection for the Web CMS. If a feature is in development, please state the expected date it will be available. For please fill out: 1. Functionality not provided 2. Out-of-the-box 3. Custom implementation WEB CONTENT MANAGEMENT The below capabilities relate to core WEB CMS, enabling Web CMS users to easily create, manage and publish, and optimize content to their digital channels. AUTHORING Content Creation Content Types Content Scheduling Library Services Explanation Support for content editing including in-line (WYSIWYG editing), Microsoft Word cut-and-paste, and support for rich text? How does the product support custom content types? Can authors define publication and expiration dates? Library services available (check-in, check-out, revisions and
versioning)? Metadata & Categorizatio n Describe your metadata support and categorization capabilities. Rich Media Support How does the product support images and multimedia (graphics, audio, video, Flash)? Preview Ability to preview content? Permissions Ability to assign read/write permissions by unique users? WORKFLOW Explanation Capabilities Describe how content is moved through a content approval process. Workflow Administratio n Describe how workflow can be copied and modified. Notification Ability to define who is notified at each stage in the workflow? Authenticatio n Utilization of LDAP and Active Directory? Multiple Sites Can multiple workflows support many sites? Please describe. Business Rules How can business rules be added or changed? Alerts Can users define how and when they should be notified? Alerts Does the product offer
automated alerts for updates needed, recommendations, etc.? GLOBALIZATION / LOCALIZATION Localization Localization Localization Globalization Translation Partnerships Globalization Explanation List the languages that your user interface is localized into. Can content be localized in multiple languages? If so, list languages supported. Can your product support multiple versions of the same site through the same WEB CMS instance? Can the product support publishing of content in multiple languages? Please name the translation service providers or vendors you integrate with. Can the product detect local language and display localized content accordingly? SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION URL Aliasing SEO Capabilities Explanation Ability to create user-friendly URLs? Ability to add metatags, keywords, and descriptions?
Keyword Analysis How does the product perform keyword analysis in order to discover the right terms you can optimize for in order to attract relevant traffic to the site? Inbound Links Analysis How does the product perform inbound links analysis including the name and quality of sites, the anchor text used, and how much traffic and the number of leads each link has delivered? Page-Level SEO How does the product perform page-level SEO in order to evaluate individual pages on the site? DELIVERY Explanation Compliance Does your product validate content for Section 508 and W3C compliance? Page layout Does your product have page building capabilities and drag-and-drop page layout? Templates Support for global and site specific templates? Landing Page Creation Describe how you would create a landing page.
Landing Page Submission Consistency Ability to launch a lead nurturing campaign or change a lead s status based on a submission from a landing page? Please describe. Describe how content items and templates can be reused across the site. Reports Archiving, Rollback Broken Links Delivery Delivery Ability to log reports of content status and content history? Describe how the product maintains and accesses previous versions of content. Describe how broken links can be found and repaired. How is content staged and deployed to the web? Describe how sites can be published to multiple locations. ADMINISTRATION / OPERATIONS / DEVELOPMENT Administrative Capabilities Explanation Describe the product s administration capabilities (database administration, user and group administration, backup and recovery,
and Web administration). Language What language is your underlying source code written in? Multisite management Support for the creation, management, and maintenance of a multisite environment. Distributed Authoring and Versioning Support for WebDAV? Operations Describe how the product supports administration through the command line and scripting. Operations Describe the developer workflow for moving changes between environments Development How does the product integrate with source code repositories SECURITY Explanation "Captcha" Do you provide captcha capability? Audit capabilities Describe the audit and audit-trail capture capabilities. Authenticatio n Support for authentication (for example, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol [LDAP], Windows NT Domains,
Roles and Permissions Role-based Security Database Support Scripting Languages Content moderation Active Directory)? Can roles and permissions be assigned and how so? Can groups be created? Can users be restricted access to content or certain areas based on their role? Please describe. What database management systems do you support? What scripting languages does the product support? Do you provide automated content moderation and/or spam blocking? SCALABILITY AND PERFORMANCE Caching Clustering Load Balancing and Replication Performanc e Performanc e Explanation Do you support caching? Describe its capabilities. Do you support clustering of components? Please describe. Do you support load balancing and replication? Please describe. Describe the scalability of your platform.
PERSONALIZATION AND CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION Personalizatio n Personalizatio n Personalizatio n Multivariate Testing Explanation Can the product display progressive profiling content targeted toward specific user profiles / personas? Can the product target content based on visitor-supplied preferences and/or browsing behavior? Can the product target content based on social graph such as from Facebook? Can the product provide A/B and multivariate testing? ANALYTICS Explanation Analytics Do you integrate with web analytics providers? Please describe. Source Tracking How do you support source tracking viewing top performing channels in terms of site visits, leads, and customer acquisition?
Conversion Reports Landing Page Analytics Describe how you track your conversion rates? Do you provide reports that show the actions taken by leads, their time to completion, and the most influential webpages? Describe how you can see the analytics of each landing page in order to help measure landing pages and optimize them for success. Are you able to compare landing pages, track progress over time, and see what offers work best? Social Analytics Describe how the product supports social analytics. MULTICHANNEL DELIVERY Separation of Content from Presentation Multichanne l Delivery Device Detection Explanation Describe how your product supports separation of content from presentation for multichannel reuse. How do you support content delivery across multiple channels (mobile, desktop, browser, social, etc.)? Support for mobile device detection?
Mobile Template Managemen t Do you utilize templates to help in multichannel delivery as well as enable the same template to display differently on a desktop site compared to a mobile site? Mobile Preview Preview of content for multiple mobile channels? Mobile Authoring Can you author content through a mobile device or application? Geo-Targeti ng Can you geo-target content for mobile devices? Responsive Design Does your product support the ability to create responsive websites and landing pages? SOCIAL Explanation Blogs / Wikis Support for blogs and wikis? Blog Analytics Ability to track the success of blog posts? Please describe. Blog SEO tips Ability to get automatic SEO tips for blog posts? Communitie s Support for online communities? Forums Support for threaded discussions? Polls / Feedback Support for audience polling and content
User-Genera ted Content External Sites Content Delivery to Social User Profile Information Business Value of Social Media Social Interactions Engaged Social Contacts feedback? Describe how you support user-generated content? Is there support for moderation? Ability to display external content from social sites (i.e. Twitter, Facebook)? How does the product support delivering of content across social channels (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn)? Can you schedule and automate social media publishing? Can you create and send social media posts from one central portal? Does the product leverage user profile information from third-party social networks? Describe how you measure the ROI of your social media efforts. Describe how you can track interactions for every social media message you share. Can you track the growth rates of each channel? Ability to see which leads are clicking on social content/ shared posts? Please describe how you re able to create segments based on social media engagement.
Social Media Influencers Ability to easily find database contacts with the greatest personal reach and engagement? Please describe. Monitoring Describe how you support Social Media Monitoring. Gamification Describe how you support gamification features, including likes/points and profiles. Social Sharing Describe how you support social sharing, forward-to-friend, etc. capabilities. Automated Moderation Does your product automatically moderate user generated content to protect against spam? INTEGRATION Explanation Marketing Automation Describe how you integrate with marketing automation platforms and providers. CRM Describe how you integrate with Customer Relationship Management platforms and providers. Can you leverage any of the CRM data? SharePoint Do you integrate with Microsoft SharePoint? Please describe. Video Do you integrate with
any video platforms or technologies? Please describe. ecommerce Do you integrate with ecommerce products? Please describe. Document Managemen t Do you integrate with digital asset management products? Please describe. Integration Features Are there any other products that you integrate with (social platforms, marketing suites, etc.)? Please describe. HOSTING Explanation Caching Describe how your hosting platform handles caching. Disaster Recovery Describe how your hosting platform provides disaster recovery. Security Describe the integrated security features of your hosting platform. Describe your route access policies. Cloud Type Is you hosting solution a SaaS, PaaS, or IaaS? Autoscaling Describe how your hosting platform scales. Service Levels Describe your SLAs in terms of hardware,
Governance and Compliance Support Optimizatio n network, platform and site. Describe where the data is held geographically. Describe your escalation and support processes. Describe how the hosting platform is optimized for the CMS.