Shenandoah Valley Tourism Partnership Request for Proposal (RFP)
Email to Ashley Shickle, ashickle@nsvregion.org
Proposals Due by 12:00PM: September 13, 2024
General Information
Proposal
The Shenandoah Valley Tourism Partnership (SVTP) is seeking proposals from innovative and data-driven agencies to provide strategic marketing and creative design services such as print, digital advertising, video, social media, and content curation and creation; campaign strategy and implementation; and the ability to update and create website landing pages to correlate with campaigns and projects. If your agency can provide the service of website hosting and maintenance, please price separately on your proposal. This website hosting and maintenance quote is not included in the $100,000 budget. (Refer to Specific Requirements #5 for more details).
The purpose of the proposal is to gain information about the Partnership’s intended target market, gather data, and gain recommendations from a professional marketing firm about campaigns the
Partnership should invest in, including increasing brand awareness and broadening the current target market of the Shenandoah Valley. The mission of SVTP is to unite DMOs across the Shenandoah Valley to promote local businesses and our natural resources through coordinated marketing campaigns to drive economic growth, increase quality of life, and introduce more travelers to our region.
RFP Response
In order to be considered for selection, Offerors must submit a complete proposal to the RFP.
● Responses must be submitted electronically through eVA.
● For guidance on how to submit a response, contact eVA Customer Care at 1-866-289-7367.
● If the Offeror determines that part or parts of its response are trade secrets or proprietary information that is not to be open to public inspection, the Offeror must submit an additional copy of its response that eliminates such part or parts. This copy shall be identified with the words “REDACTED COPY”.
By submitting a proposal, you agree to be available on October 1 for either an in-person (preferred) or virtual interview.
ALL PROPOSALS MUST BE RECEIVED BY 12:00 P.M., Friday, September 13, 2024
It is the sole responsibility of the Offeror to ensure that its proposal reaches SVTP by the designated date and time.
All Offerors shall abide by all applicable State and Federal laws.
This public body does not discriminate against faith-based organizations, in accordance with the Code of Virginia, §2.2-4343.1 or against a Bidder or Offeror because of race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, disability, or any other basis prohibited by law relating to discrimination in employment.
Intent to Bid and Inquiries Concerning RFP
Additional information about SVTP is available at shenandoahvalley.org.
Email to Ashley Shickle, ashickle@nsvregion.org:
● Intent to Bid (by Friday, August 23, 2024)
● Any Questions/Inquiries concerning this RFP (by Friday, August 30, 2024)
○ Questions/Inquiries will be answered as received. An Addendum containing all questions and answers will be posted to the RFP on eVA. (by COB Friday, August 30, 2024)
I. Background and Introduction
The Shenandoah Valley Tourism Partnership began in 2016 as a professional collaboration between eleven Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) representing fourteen tourism-forward municipalities stretching from Winchester to Lexington in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The
Partnership’s mission is to unite DMOs across the Shenandoah Valley to promote local businesses and our natural resources through coordinated marketing campaigns to drive economic growth, increase quality of life, and introduce more travelers to our region.
SVTP officially launched its current website, shenandoahvalley.org in October of 2020. SVTP seeks to contract with a full-service marketing firm to provide strategic marketing services and advice.
The objective of the service contract is to increase brand awareness of the Shenandoah Valley as a visitor destination, define and broaden our target markets, promote our partner destinations, and stimulate economic growth in the Shenandoah Valley.
I. TOTAL BUDGET: $100,000
II. SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS
A. Serve as SVTP’s marketing firm:
Shall promote and encourage visitation to the Shenandoah Valley. The successful contractor or contractors will work in conjunction with SVTP to complete the following:
1. Analyze local, regional, and national research and marketing trends to recommend the best strategies to define, reach, and resonate with our current, emerging, and new markets.
2. Utilize existing marketing assets and aforementioned research provided by the firm and by SVTP DMOs to create compelling marketing campaigns and fresh creative and messaging to resonate with our target audiences.
3. Provide a comprehensive marketing strategy to SVTP that includes an annual campaign targeting the intended audience.
4. Planning, creation, placement, and management of all traditional print media and digital media. Design and creation of various collateral pieces, both for use as print and digital.
5. Manage existing SVTP website including site maintenance, plug-in updates, etc.
Performance optimization management and hosting of the website: https://shenandoahvalley.org/. Provide a seamless user experience which could include the following website maintenance, but not limited to:
a. Coordination of domain registration and SSL certificate
b. ADA 508 Compliance
c. Enhance Speed for utmost performance
d. Regular software updates, plugin and theme updates
e. Secure backups, disaster recovery and emergency procedures
f. Security scanning and updates
g. Uptime monitoring
h. Provide a fully responsive website functionality on all major web browsers
i. Continuation of the health of the website with no broken links and seamless social media and video integration
j. SEO monitoring; Utilize meta tags for improved SEO
k. Maintain compatibility on various devices such as mobile, desktop, tables.
l. Integrate Google Analytics for a comprehensive website traffic reporting.
m. Updating website content as needed.
n. Additional consideration to those vendors who can improve and integrate website features without requiring a major redesign.
6. Recommend, create and manage digital marketing campaigns
7. Facebook and Instagram Campaigns
Set up and manage Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns using the following
delivery methods to test ad variations: a. Facebook newsfeed ads testing unique combinations of images, headlines, copy, and link to each of the landing pages produced by contractor(s).
b. Instagram photo and video ads using eye-catching visuals to boost awareness, increase social following and engagement, and drive website visits.
c. Instagram Stories ads and reels to reach audiences with full-screen branded photos and/or video in their Story Feed.
d. Submit necessary paperwork required for VTC co-op reimbursement. We ask that our agency fill this out on our behalf. This is required twice a year. Find more information here:
a-opportunities/
8. Paid Search and Google Ads
PPC campaign management, including keyword selection, ad copy creation, bid management, and use of ad extensions.
9. SEO Strategy
Comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for any new landing pages created in conjunction with the campaign that includes keyword research, on-page optimization (content, meta tags, URL structure), technical SEO (site speed, mobile optimization, schema markup), and off-page SEO (link building, social media)
10. Campaign Optimization:
Optimization of campaigns on a regular basis to continually increase performance and marketing Return on Investment (ROI).
a. Bid Optimization: monitor and adjust campaigns to attract visitors who are more likely to convert.
b. Budget Allocation: analyze performance of the various campaigns to pull budget from low-performers and increase budget for campaigns that provide the greatest ROI.
c. Ad Testing: Test ad creativity to discover what variables (e.g. headlines, images, descriptions, display URLs, sitelink extensions, and call-outs) prove most effective in attracting high quality visitors to the ShenandoahValley.org website.
d. Audience Targeting: Test and optimize ad messaging and/or images shown to targeted audiences to serve the most relevant and compelling ads based on known interests, demographics, and likely decision-making criteria.
11. Landing Page Designs and Development:
a. Design and develop campaign landing pages for digital campaigns on shenandoahvalley.org, utilizing mobile response dynamic CSS styles and current browser compatibilities
b. Content review and recommendations based on page copy, outlines, and images provided by SVTP.
c. Mobile responsive dynamic CSS styles that change layouts depending on the device and screen size.
d. Browser Compatibility: the website will work on the latest stable version of all modern browsers that account for the vast majority of US web traffic:
Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, iOS and Android browsers.
e. Analytics: any new landing pages must be developed using the existing CMSn(WordPress) and must utilize Google Analytics to track page traffic
12. Analytics Tracking:
a. Manage Google Tag Manager on the existing site and set-up key goals and conversion events (e.g. newsletter sign up, partner referrals/outbound links, itineraries planned) as needed to quantify user engagement and compare the quantitative and qualitative value of visitors from each advertising source. Final tracking parameters will depend on the back-end flexibility of the current website’s content management system (CMS). Deliverable will include documentation of new goals and conceptual analytics-based visitation funnel. Firm is expected to be current on G4 Analytics and utilize as a datapoint for campaign effectiveness (included in reports).
13. Video Campaign(s)
a. Create social ads to promote existing video content, run and optimize ad campaigns.
b. Edit and repackage video content to maximize options and produce additional content.
c. Video creation of new assets outside the scope of this RFP. Include the hourly rate.
14. Retargeting:
a. Create ads for retargeting. Deploy retargeting campaign to reach previous website visitors who have not resulted in conversions.
15. Performance Reports:
Produce monthly reports summarizing campaign performance and key insights including:
a. Overview of KPIs like spend, clicks, CPC, CTR, and CPA (where applicable)
b. Highlights of top performance areas of campaign including key insights and major action items needed
c. Delivery of reports requested via live summary through monthly virtual meetings.
d. Customization of reports based on chosen KPIs.
e. Final year-end results report presented in person to SVTP.
16. Purchase Media per Campaign(s) including but not limited to: Google, Facebook and Instagram as part of the agreed upon strategy and target markets.
17. E-Newsletter Campaign:
a. Create seasonally relevant E-newsletter to go out at minimum on a quarterly basis to SVTP subscribers.
b. E-newsletter to include current blog content provided by SVTP, upcoming events, relevant news, etc.
