Running an Agency RFP for a Publishing Company
A State of Mind Strategies client engagement: a publishing company with roughly $40 million in annual revenue needed a new marketing agency and did not have senior marketing procurement experience in-house. State of Mind Strategies ran the selection end to end, from writing the RFP and designing the evaluation process through contract negotiation and the transition to the new agency, while mentoring the client's team so they could run the relationship themselves.
The challenge
Choosing an agency is a decision most companies make rarely and agencies navigate constantly, which puts the buyer at a structural disadvantage. Without a defined process, selections default to the best pitch rather than the best partner, scopes get written by the vendor, and the working relationship starts without clear direction or accountability. The client needed the selection done right, and needed to learn how to manage the winner afterward.
The engagement
- Wrote the RFP, built around the client's commercial goals rather than a list of deliverables
- Designed the end-to-end selection process, from candidate list through final decision
- Created a structured evaluation scorecard so every agency was assessed against the same criteria, on evidence rather than impressions
- Mentored and guided the client's team through the evaluation, participating in every agency call and meeting alongside them
- Supported the contract and negotiation, so the scope, terms, and accountability standards were set by the client, not the vendor
- Guided the transition to the new agency, structured to mitigate risk to in-flight work
The outcome
The client selected and contracted a new agency through a process they could defend, on terms they set, with a transition that protected ongoing work. Just as important, the team that ran the evaluation now knows how to direct and hold an agency accountable, because they were mentored through every step rather than handed a recommendation.
The principle behind it
An agency relationship is won or lost before it starts: in the clarity of the direction, the honesty of the evaluation, and the terms of the accountability. That is why the selection deserves the same rigor as the work itself. The operating doctrine behind this engagement is covered in how to manage a marketing agency and fractional CMO vs. marketing agency, and focused engagements like this one are described under custom growth engagements.
Choosing or replacing an agency?
A discovery call is a focused conversation about what the selection should accomplish and how to run it.