Advertising and marketing services

Tender description

The University wishes to improve the end-to-end conversion journey of prospects within business markets to support our corporate strategy. We are seeking to appoint a marketing and sales agency to assist in achieving its strategic marketing objectives with regards to business to business. The agency will have the professional expertise, experience and resources to ensure they can work with the University to develop a proactive partnership, optimising the resources available and drawing on sector comparisons to deliver competitively advantageous campaign results. Priorities will be focused upon the University's apprenticeship offer, people development, research and knowledge exchange and other forms of consultancy. The University requires an agency that will proactively support and work in partnership the marketing department. Specifically, it will seek an agency that will: — form a professional and effective relationship, committed to regular dialogue and reviews, — offer informed, innovative and cost-effective advice on all aspects of media planning and buying, — manage multiple work requests and deliver to brief and on time, — take full accountability for service delivery and offer solutions to any challenges faced, — take financial accountability for any issues that arise due to an error caused by the agency, — track, measure and provide routine management information (MI) and analysis on the success and cost-effectiveness of all media. The agency will become an extension of the University's marketing team, innovating and sharing best practice — supporting us to convert prospects into customers. The supplier will work with us on an annual 12 month planning cycle and offer the following expertise: Marketing and communications led (in order of estimated value): — media buying: proven knowledge and experience of procuring media inventory, with the necessary professional standing to ensure the optimum price and placement can be negotiated across a range of channels — above and below the line — drawing on a range of factors such as (but not limited to) format, pricing rates, demographics, geographic and behavioural. The agency must be conversant with all relevant technical and media specifications, — creative and campaigns: plan integrated media campaigns across business markets, develop marketing assets and key messages, liaising with the University in-house creative team to ensure campaigns are delivered effectively and on time, — data: buy, manage and handle data, including de-duplication of data and ownership of cleansed data suitable for in-house campaigns team to also work with. Business engagement, skill and employability (BESE) led: — prospect acquisition and relationship management: prospect identification and conversion. Journey mapping, use of data to drive conversion through personalised communications, marketing automation, build of templates and brand compliance, — lead generation: using inside sales techniques to nurture prospects through a pre-defined sales funnel. Employing multiple touch points to convert decision maker conversations into warm appointments. Utilisation of the University's systems, such as outlook and CRM will be required. Prospecting lists supplied by the University or purchased in line with objectives. Jointly led: — tracking, evaluation and insights: the agency must ensure all activity is trackable, able to deliver measurable results against business objectives and is fully costed in order to achieve the agreed objectives and inform future activities. A rigorous and diligent approach must be taken to campaign evaluation, including the selection and real time assessment of media, to ensure inventory is served in the right place and at the right time and that campaigns are fully optimised. Responsive delivery to KPIs and live dashboards as required and end of campaign evaluations and insight to inform future decision making. Performance will be assessed against business objectives and organisational benchmarks. We will always aim to exceed industry standards. An example of how marketing activity will be measured is: — awareness activity: reach (measured in units), impressions (units or CPM), engagement (%), video views (measured in units, CPV or average % watched), click-throughs to website (CPC), social media channel engagement (units), — direct response: click-throughs (CPC), online behaviour (bounce rate, number of pages viewed and customer journeys), form completion (units), contacting the university (units).