Rocky Mountain College Issues Digital RFP

The Rocky Mountain College has issued an RFP for the Development and Redesign of the Rocky Mountain College Website.

The primary objectives and goals of the website redesign are:

1. Interactive and Engaging Website: To redesign website to include an intuitive, easy-to-use interface that allows students, visitors, and partners to complete their tasks quickly and easily regardless of the device they are using.
2. New site should:
   • Serve the needs of all users by letting them easily find what they are seeking, providing them with access to key services on a 24×7 basis.
   • Promote transparency of College by making it easy to share and post information, and for users to find and interact with the information.
   • Represent or brand College for students, visitors, and businesses, and community in a way that highlights why this is a great place to live, visit, and attend college.
   • Provide a pleasant and delightful experience to all users by making it easy for them to complete their tasks, regardless of device used, or find what they want in a straightforward manner.
   • Be strategic and nimble, and focus on making our content useful, interactive, and engaging. We know that things will change in the future, and we want our site to adapt and remain relevant.

3. Customers – We take a broad visitor-centric view of our community since we view anyone who visits our website or community as a prospective student, employee, donor, or potential “friend” of the College. Our website is our digital front door and our goal is to focus on the needs of those who visit the College, and on improving our interactions and engagement with our visitor base.
4. Strategic Partnership – We want a vendor partner who understands the College’s market, who will help guide us to where we want to be today, and provide ongoing services and support to keep us there in the future.
5. Research-Based Design – We want a site that meets the unique needs of our College, and are not looking for a cookie-cutter or templated solution. Our vendor should employ a strategic research-based and data-driven process to gather input, define expectations, and design a consistent, user-friendly navigation framework for the website that meets the needs of all users.
6. Responsive Site – Visitors to our site will utilize a wide variety of devices to access our website, including computers, tablets, and mobile smart phones. Our new website should automatically detect the screen resolution of any device and respond with a view of the site that is optimized specifically for that screen. This will ensure that all users will be able to view our site, no matter what device they are using.
7. Flexible Solution – The new site should build upon prove and accepted website development standards, while maintaining flexibility to easily grow and add new functionality over time and with minimal cost. The solution should also accommodate existing auxiliary department sites to maintain a unique look and feel, but share overall infrastructure and features.
8. Simplify and Streamline Administration – The solution should:

• Simplify website administration, allowing users of all skill levels to update assigned sections of the website.
• Streamline business operations and reduce the amount of time that IT spends on enhancing and maintaining the site.

9. Social Media Integration – Integrate Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook feeds, and other social tools, including the ability to comment on specific pages and/or events through social media.

Target Audiences

Audiences served by the website include:

1. Students and potential students of varying backgrounds, cultures, and language ability
2. Current and potential faculty and staff
3. Potential visitors to the campus
4. Parents, guardians, and family members of students and potential students
5. Local and national media
6. Local school districts and students

Proposal due by January 20, 2017 to:

Daniel Wolters
Director of Information Technology
Billings, Montana, 59102
Email: woltersd@rocky.edu
Phone: 406.657.1161

Ogilvy PR, Weber Shandwick and others have a Denver PR office.