Prosperity Southwest Wisconsin (PSW) is requesting proposals in order to identify a professional consultant qualified to plan, execute, and deliver a new/modernized design for PSW’s regional economic development website (www.prosperitysouthwest.com). The consultant must have demonstrated experience in relevant project management and expertise with the best practices (including development, deployment, and maintenance) regarding successful website design. The goal of this website design and development project is to establish a strong market presence by offering a value-added web experience for stakeholders that will increase visibility, value, and brand recognition to ultimately yield expanded workforce, jobs, and capital gains within the Southwest Wisconsin region. The new website should attract decision makers by easily delivering quality, up-to-date information and become the primary source that directs site selection consultants, investors, businesses executives, and entrepreneurs (regionally, nationally and internationally) considering starting, relocating, or expanding facilities.
Background:
Prosperity Southwest Wisconsin is the region’s economic development organization, with a focus on business recruitment and retention for both small businesses and large industrial corporations. We are intent on strengthening the business climate and service industries in our region.
We are a collaborative originally formed as a way for economic development peers to come together for networking support and sharing of best practices. Now, the group has evolved and is working on initiatives that promote the whole region, including marketing, attending conferences and trade shows, and promoting key industries. The member counties are Crawford, Grant, Green, Iowa, Lafayette, and Richland Counties. Economic Development groups from municipalities in the region also participate. Our partners and sponsors include Southwest Tech, Wisconsin Bank and Trust, and Southwest Health.
Our services include:
- Site Selection
- Business Consulting
- Entrepreneurial Coaching
- Community Outreach and Collaboration Management
- Project Management
- Funding Recommendations
- Supply Chain Options
- Infrastructure Assessment
- State and Federal Agency Collaboration
Scope of Work:
WEBSITE COMPONENTS
The end-user experience should be one that delivers easy-to-use, current information, as well as clearly defines PSW’s organizational role. It should position Southwest Wisconsin as an appealing place to do visit, live, and do business. It should provide an interactive, positive experience that brings the user back to the site. It is crucial that the navigation be intuitive in nature.
PSW’s website should:
- Attract site selection consultants, business executives (regional, national, international), entrepreneurs, corporate real estate executives, and other decision makers
- Attract workforce and residents to locate and tourists to visit in Southwest Wisconsin
- Provide links to all allies including but not limited county administration, regional economic development alliances, school districts, universities, technical schools, local tourism sites, and other related links
- Focus on Existing Industries/Businesses and video testimonials
- Deliver the highest quality information available on Southwestern Wisconsin economic development opportunities;
- Display workforce information and demographics
STYLE
- The website design for PSW should reflect the organization’s capability, pride in our communities, counties, region, and state, and focus on PSW’s location. The website design should heavily utilize photos and infographics in order to make supporting data, demographics, workforce, etc. easy to use and retain.
- PSW will use the website as a tool to promote these resources to target audiences. Information should be both visually pleasing and easy to access, delivering directly to our main target audiences, stakeholders, allies and partners.
EXPECTED ELEMENTS
- Available Building and Site Search – A property search and mapping feature that leverages the web services data provided by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) database LOCATEINWISCONSIN. This data feed provides the ability to prepare customized reports or property flyers
- A Content Management System (CMS) that enables a team to decentralize website content management for members and staff, both those skilled in web development/management and generalist
- Americans with Disabilities Act compliant
- Use of web standards, including responsive formatting
- Embedded Media — video, slide decks, images, etc. can easily be embedded in pages and posts and function reliably for visitors, as well as share effectively and easily on social media for users to rebroadcast content
- Fully searchable content to allow users to quickly obtain they need
- Images and content appear and scale well on social media platforms (i.e. plays nice with social media sites)
- Share options for content
OTHER ELEMENTS OF POTENTIAL INTEREST
- Social Media – Integrate social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) as well as Request for Information processing (contact me page)
- Interactive Data Analysis – The use of interactive data and mapping analysis features tools such as EMSI, ESRI Business Analyst, and GIS Online. The website component would allow end-users the ability to prepare custom maps and reports utilizing socioeconomic, demographic, force and unemployment data
- Language Translation
- Ability to add a blog area/page
Due Date:
January 31st, 2019.
Address:
proposals@prosperitysouthwest.com
Shift Communications has relevant experience.