Content planning iteration #3: win strategies, themes, and evaluation criteria
Build why the customer should select you in early
Instructions for the third step:
- If your proposal formatting template has placeholders for themes (for example, at the beginning of each major section), then you should replace them with the actual theme.
- If the Proposal Writer will be responsible for writing the theme statements, then insert an instruction as a placeholder to explain what they should write there.
- Also include instructions for how to substantiate, prove, or explain the theme statements.
- After analyzing any evaluation criteria in the RFP, include instructions to the writers regarding how to maximize the score.
- In some cases, you may need to modify previous instructions to tell the writers how to put them in context based on the themes and evaluation criteria.
At the completion of this iteration, the Content Plan will show not only what must be written to address the RFP requirements, but also how to incorporate the messages required to win. It positions the Proposal Writers to substantiate the themes and produce a proposal based on them. You should also be able to analyze your use of strategies, themes, hierarchy of themes, and keywords to maximize your evaluation score.
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