Request for Proposal – Addendum
Website Design & Content Management System
Addendum 1 – Answers to Questions Received through October 23, 2015
This addendum outlines the answers to questions received. Questions are noted in black with answers following in red.
When discussing UI/UX testing, would you like us to discuss our internal procedure or recommend a third party for extensive testing?
Please discuss your internal procedures and if you want to recommend a third party as an additional option/cost that would be great.
Are you open to bring over all the social media sites to one social media module (ShareLouisvilleLove.com) • Facebook.com/LouisvilleKentucky • Twitter.com/GoToLouisville • Twitter.com/CulinaryLou • Instagram.com/GoToLouisville • YouTube.com/lookinatlouisville • YouTube.com/GoToLouisville • Pinterest.com/GoToLouisville
Yes we are open to bringing all our social media sites into one module
Hosting: The RFP states that "site will be hosted on one of their two hosting environments (Windows or Linux)" Are you open to hosting with vendor you choose?
We would like to host the site in our own environment but if that is not possible please detail your hosting environment and costs associated with hosting the site.
How much is a "fair amount" of copy that will need to be written for new site?
We would like to see some new content recommendations for the site in the RFP but if you want to add this in an as an additional option/cost that is okay too.
Who are the decision makers during this process? Just you or is there a team/board?
The decision will be made by a group of people on our management team.
95% of our clients prefer for us to manage the hosting of their website through Rackspace. The RFP mentions that you have two hosting environments that can be utilized. Just to be clear, does this mean
that you will be fully responsible for the hosting and any server maintenance and load balancing that may be needed? Do you want us to describe our hosting services as an option or is that not needed at all?
We would like to host the site in our own environment but if that is not possible please detail your hosting environment and costs associated with hosting the site versus us hosting the site.
You also mention the need for a shopping cart. Due to stricter laws around security and identify theft, shopping cart and payment processing has become a more complicated feature. Do you currently have a credit card processing agreement with a third party that we would pass a user along to for processing? Or is actual processing of funds a service that needs to be scoped and developed for the site. Shopping cart technology and payment processing is one of those features that typically requires a lot of
discussion to clearly define and manage cost (which can be inexpensive to extremely expensive). Are you able to clarify the needs around this feature? And, perhaps also give us a sense of priority here?
At the moment we have both a PayPal and a PayPal Payflow account that can be utilized as integration options. We don’t anticipate an immediate need for selling online but if an open source CMS is deployed then payment integrations can be easily plugged into the site. We have occasionally sold products online but only through 3rd party processing such as PayPal and aRes.
With a new agency and branding, I’m assuming that providing any comps at this point is a fairly futile idea. Are there any new brand direction documents you are prepared to share? Or are you guys waiting on that?
We are still waiting on a new brand direction and will have creative to share in the next month or so.
Section 3B of the RFP states that "a lifestyle photographer should be highly considered." Are we to identify lifestyle photographers for the new website or is this an individual identified by LCVB that we will be working with on photography assets for the website?
This should actually be “lifestyle photography should be highly considered. No photographer has been identified by LCVB. We have a large variety of video and photo assets but are open to other
photography outside our DAM assets.
Is language translation part of this project?
No it is not but can be scoped separately.
Other than migrating all content over to the new website, additional content development or content strategy/content marketing services do not seem to be part of the RFP response. Is this something that your AOR plans to do during the website development process? Or should we add that into our out-of-scope recommendation?
Section 5h spoke to this a bit: “Data migration and content rewriting. Vendor will need to allocate a fair amount of time to copywriting as well all migrating all existing content.” We would like to see some
new content recommendations for the site in the RFP but if you want to add this in an as an additional option/cost that is okay too.
Are you wanting to combine your 4 sites into 1?
At this time we would like to see gotolouisville.com, culinarylouisville.com and sharelouisvillelove.com to be combined into one site and at the moment bourboncountry.com live on its own. We do see sharelouisvillelove.com really becoming the social component of our main site.
Under Key Stats you mention 75% of traffic comes from outside metro. Could we get a breakdown of top 10 outside metros that send traffic? In addition, Would you be able to provide the % of new vs % of returning visits from the top 10?
City
% New
Sessions
New York
87.92%
Chicago
78.59%
Indianapolis
79.95%
Lexington
79.05%
Ashburn
30.76%
Cincinnati
82.37%
Nashville
77.18%
Columbus
83.37%
Jeffersonville
70.43%
Houston
81.01%
The RFP mentions 50% of traffic visits things to do and events calendar. Is there a different mix when looking at Louisville metro vs outside metros?
Things to do is 11% local and rest is out of market Events calendar is 35% local and rest is out of market
What markets are currently advertising targets?
Chicago, Atlanta, DC, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Nashville, Columbus OH, Evansville, St. Louis
In regards to pricing/budget, can you provide us with a range that you are looking to work between? If not, can you give us an idea of a similar scoped project and the budget that was associated?
We anticipate the project to be a significant investment but decline to provide an exact budget at this time.
In regards to the submission format of the RFP response. Are you looking for 5 hard copies AND an email version of the proposal. Or can we provide just the email version?
We would like to receive an email version and hard copies to share with decision makers.
General Questions
Is the LCVB able to share the budget established for this project?
We anticipate the project to be a significant investment but decline to provide an exact budget at this time.
Has the LCVB reviewed/demoed any CMS to date? Is there a preference? If so, which system(s)?
Our internal staff has experience with a variety of CMS systems such as Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Ektron, and Ignition. We would prefer to utilize an open source system and have the most experience with Wordpress.
How does the LCVB measure success? What would be measures of success for the website and project overall?
Some measures of success will be open source CMS, Responsive design, Built on time, Built on budget, launched site that scores well on page speed insights.
Current Online Presence
Is the LCVB planning on keeping its online presence in regards to the marketing websites separate? Or are there plans to bring content into the main site GoToLouisville.com?
At this time we would like to see gotolouisville.com, culinarylouisville.com and sharelouisvillelove.com to be combined into one site and at the moment bourboncountry.com live on its own. We do see sharelouisvillelove.com really becoming the social component of our main site.
What role will the selected vendor have in regards to the social media presence/strategy if any?
We have several staff members that contribute to our social media presence/strategy. The vendor will be assisting in just making sure we efficiently promote and highlight our social media efforts on our site.
Can the LCVB please list the in-house staff that are currently responsible for maintaining the marketing websites and social media presence?
Website
Mark Perry Sidney Abramson
Kat Gallagher – news only Jessica Dillree – news only
Nicole Fitzpatrick – Partner content only
Social
Jessica Dillree Kat Gallagher Christa Ritchie Zack Davis Stacey Yates Mark Perry Background Information
We understand that the RFP is asking for photography, but what role will the vendor play? Will the vendor only be providing creative direction, or actually conducting the photo-shoot through to production? Or will the vendor only be using assets supplied by the LCVB?
We have a large variety of video and photo assets but are open to other photography outside our DAM assets.
We also understand that copywriting is requested. Approximately how many pages of new content will be needed?
We would like to see some new content recommendations for the site in the RFP but if you want to add this in an as an additional option/cost that is okay too.
It is stated that the vendor should keep current marketing collateral and photography in mind during the design process. Can the LCVB provide access to the Branding Guidelines and any other relevant
collateral/documentation for us to review? Will current and past marketing collateral be driving the creative direction of the redesign?
We are still waiting on a new brand direction with our new advertising agency and will have creative to share in the next month or so. The new advertising creative will drive the creative direction of the site.
Does LCVB have a desire to host the website on premises, or would a SaaS-based solution with a fully redundant cloud environment be acceptable?
We would like to host the site in our own environment but if that is not possible please detail your hosting environment and costs associated with hosting the site versus us hosting the site.
How many rounds of usability testing is LCVB anticipating for this project? Who will be responsible for recruitment for the testing?
Please discuss your internal testing procedures and if you want to recommend a third party as an additional add on option that would be great
Does the LCVB have a preference for the technical language used to complete the redesign?
Under section 5, letter d. It seems that the LCVB is using not only Simpleview's web-based functionality that can be reached via an API, but also through a SQL Database that may be housed at the CVB. Can you please expound on how LCVB is hosting its dynamic data and where type of content (events, listings, forms, etc.) resides?
Currently we have access to Simpleview data via two methods. Their preferred method is via
Simpleview’s API but we also are replicating sql data including events, listings, contacts, etc. to our sql hosting environment that is refreshed several times a data or on an as needed basis.
Part 5, Section D, Subsection ix. It is the vendor’s expectation that the LCVB will pay and provide access to the ARES Travel Booking API, is that correct?
aRes will style widgets on their end and the selected web vendor will just have to allocate space on site to embed code to display their widget.
When is the LCVB expecting the new site to launch?
Last time we did a full rebuild it was a 12-18 month process but in an ideal world we would like to shorten this time frame considerably.
Who will be responsible for providing and maintaining content for the blog?
LCVB staff and outside freelance contributors.
What role or responsibility will the vendor have in regards to metrics and reporting? Is LCVB able to share current data with the vendors? How is data measured currently?
We have metrics and reporting in both Google Analytics and Smarter Stats. We don’t anticipate needing assistance on metrics and reporting other than embedding code or having a way to access/import log files if selected vendor is hosting the site.
Approximately how much content will the vendor be responsible for migrating?
We would like the selected vendor to plan on migrating all of the existing content.
What is the LCVB’s preferred delivery method for content management system training: on-site or remote? Pursuant to this, how many users does the LCVB anticipate will require training?
We should be good with remote training. We anticipate having 2-5 people require training.
In Part 3, section 5, letter d, item iii. Does the LCVB mean that the CMS needs to store a complete version history of all individual web pages and provide the ability to roll back to a previous version at the LCVB’s discretion?
In Part 3, section 5, letter d, item iv. What is meant by “another method”? Is the LCVB referring to a mobile app, mobile website, or a section of the public website that utilizes search tools and display not found elsewhere in the public website?
Other methods to discover content than just search. Good example can be found here:
http://www.gotolouisville.com/play/index.aspx We surface results by categories as well as also having search. A Sitemap would also be called for search engines to locate public content and for CMS users to see non public content.
In Part 3, section 5, letter d, item vi. What criteria would the LCVB use to determine what pages “need attention” (specified period of time since last edited, broken links within the page, specified period of time awaiting approval, etc.)?
Possible application would be to set content reminders so users can be reminded to go back to update content on a certain date. Also if there are ways to surface broken links on the site or have an approval queue those would be helpful.
In Part 3, section 5, letter d, item vii. Does the LCVB have a preference for the search (powered by the CMS vs. a third-party search mechanism such as Google Site Search)?
We anticipate that the site will use the CMS search functionality but are open to other third party search mechanisms if vendor finds them advantageous for the site.
