RFQ – How would You Respond?

[TheVCF]

Dear Fellow Warriors,

We recently received the following Request for Quotation (RFQ) from a new prospective client:

“we want to go from zero to 25,000 uniques a month asap. If you would, please give me a brief overview of the kind of campaign you would recommend, it's estimated cost and a time frame”

We would Appreciate your input as to How would You Respond to this?

…and we Welcome any “bids” you would like to make to work on, all or parts of, this RFQ via PM, ok?

Some additional information regarding the nature of this prospective client’s site:

1. They have No Blog, and although we have been trying to convince them they Need One! They don’t seem interested in adding a Blog to their home/main site ;(
2. The majority of their home/main site Content is comprised of Music Videos
3. Their home/main site is Not very well Optimized in terms of SEO – again something we have been trying to convince them to let us help them fix, but … with No Luck to date! ;(
4. They appear to want to try and achieve their goal of 25K Unique Visitors/Month solely through Social Media Marketing, Article Marketing, Link Building, etc.

So …

How would You / How do you think we should Respond to this RFQ?

Any and All of your responses and input regarding How You think we should respond to this RFQ request would be Very Helpful and Most Appreciated! J

Thank you all for all of your participation and help! and Have a Great Day!

- Michael S. DeVries

[Kay King]

I'd tell them there is no magic button - if they want a site that competes with top sites in their field they need to have a site that CAN compete.

That means optimization, content, blogs, web 2.0 and anything else to make the site worth the number of visitors they're dreaming of. It's not cost or time efficient to try for a large number of monthly visitors to a site that doesn't lead to repeat visitors and growth due to stickiness and content.

Either they fully participate in a program to make their site "important" or they don't get the visitor count they want. There's a reality factor they need to understand and accept before going further.

kay

[sevenish]

I have to agree with Kay here. I am finishing my response to an RFP that I received last week for SEO /SEM, and my proposal includes a site redesign since it would be a waste of time & money to attempt optimization on their existing site.

Good luck with it.

[JohnMcCabe]

Just to give them something to compare with, work up an estimate for how much 25,000 clicks per month would cost using PPC.

Without doing some kind of optimizing for search results, that might be the only way they'll hit their target consistently...

[TheVCF]

Thank You again Kay, sevenish, and John for your prompt and helpful responses here!

Yes, Kay, we agree! And we have told them all of this already several times!
And will likely tell them again in our response to their latest RFQ, above.

We have also tried to get them to set and communicate their real Goals/Objectives for their site / online business and any marketing campaigns and/or other projects and the only responses we get are “More Traffic, More Visitors” …Sound Familiar? …

I know … they just “Don’t Get It!” huh?

But …

Once you have (repeatedly) Told Them that you don’t recommend their approach and/or believe that what they are asking you to do will get them what they Really Want! …

at that point do you just relent to the old adage that …

"The Client/Customer is Always Right", Right?

… and give them what they are asking for / that they think they want, ...
And hope they will come around in the end

John – Yes, we considered using a PPC cost comparison for pricing, but …

Although PPC may (temporarily) increase their Page Rankings due to the paid traffic, …

Since it isn’t building any backlinks, content, lists, social network, or any other kind of sustainable kinds of traffic generation, Right?!

Wouldn't one expect their traffic to rapidly decline if they ever “turned off” the PPC Ad campaigns?

So …Given all of this …

What else might you all recommend in terms of how to respond to and/or handle this RFQ / prospective client?

And …

Are there Any Fellow Warriors Here that might like to “Bid”, your cost and ETA, for:

1) First developing a Social Media Marketing Plan for this client/Music Video site?

a) In which you may include “line items” for performing SEO/SEM on their site and/or installing a Blog, ok?

2) Second Executing the Social Media Marketing Plan from (1)

Please PM or email us through our Warrior Profile if you would like to “Bid” on this Project/RFQ, ok?

Thank you all again for all of your responses, help and participation and Have a Great Day!

- Michael

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by TheVCF

John – Yes, we considered using a PPC cost comparison for pricing, but …

Although PPC may (temporarily) increase their Page Rankings due to the paid traffic, …

Since it isn’t building any backlinks, content, lists, social network, or any other kind of sustainable kinds of traffic generation, Right?!

Wouldn't one expect their traffic to rapidly decline if they ever “turned off” the PPC Ad campaigns?

So …Given all of this …

What else might you all recommend in terms of how to respond to and/or handle this RFQ / prospective client?

That's exactly my point. Your original post said your potential client wanted 25K uniques/month asap. And they want to do it with all the trendy buzzwords they probably got from Wired magazine.

They can go from zero to 25,000/month using PPC, ignoring the fundamentals. And when they turn off the PPC spigot, the traffic stops.

Or they could invest that money in setting up their presence properly, the way you propose. And then start getting more mileage from all the trendy buzzword stuff.

They might even consider using a PPC campaign in the short term to both test various content ideas, offers, etc. and give themselves a jumpstart while they wait for all the whiz-bang stuff to kick in.

I'm not suggesting you propose a PPC campaign for them. I'm suggesting you contrast the ongoing cost of a PPC campaign to the investment in doing things right up front, then leveraging all the other stuff. You make your alternative more attractive by comparison.

As for being sustainable...

If the PPC campaign makes more than it costs, why would it not be sustainable? If I could show you that by investing $1 in [whatever] that you could predictably get that $1 back plus $1-5 more, how many of those $1 bills would you want to invest?

And that has nothing to do with Page Rank. That has to do with profit.