Southside BID has 279 bid levy paying businessses, 150 friends or key stakeholders and 1000s of visitors each year.
Therefore we have two communication requirements, both B2C and B2B.

Budget – Would you be able to give me a steer on what is included within the £97,500 budget – is that agency fee, design/artwork costs and print of marketing collateral/event management [if necessary]
What is expected from that fee?

Everything included in the contract period, including design/artwork, a small amount of event management and the printing costs of our quarterly newsletter.

Board – Is there an extra information on who presides over the presentations, ie traders, council representatives ?

The presentation panel is made up of representatives of Southside businesses plus a representative from Marketing Birmingham.

2) Does the budget stated cover three years or 28 months? We’re assuming 28 months but wanted to double check!

As the tender states the contract is from December 2011 to March 2014.

3) Is the budget inclusive or exclusive of VAT?

As the tender states the budget is exclusive of VAT.

4) Is the budget inclusive of potential design and print costs?
The tender is inclusive of all potential design and print costs. We envisage producing 4 newsletters per annum.

5) Is the budget inclusive of any translation costs?
The budget is inclusive of all translation costs, if applicable, we work closely with the Chinese Community Centre and Chinese Schools who can help with Chinese translation.

6) Are there particular PR / marketing / communications skills or experiences that you’re looking for over others?
We need an agency who can consolidate our brand and give the public and our stakeholders plenty of positive press coverage amongst other PR tasks.

7) From a personal perspective, what do you think are the challenges facing Southside BID?
Lack of footfall, lack of distinctive identity, only recently branded, diverse area of different groups.

Again, from a personal perspective, what would you articulate as the real strengths of Southside BID?
A great leisure and business destination, inclusive, vibrant, diverse and interesting. A unique offer.

9) What do you think are the real highlights of Southside?
You tell us!

10) Do you think Southside currently has a cohesive identity and why do you feel that’s the case?
See point 7 above

11) Do you have a view as to the breakdown of the different components of the budget or is this all open to discussion?
It is open for discussion.

12) What would you judge as a successful contract?
Value for money, supplier capability, fit to the brief specifications and creative/innovative in approach.

13) Do you see the annual report as part of this programme?
Yes, performance monitoring will be key.

14) Do you see the production of Spotlight as part of this programme or is this something you’re looking to keep in house?
See above, newsletters are included in this brief.

15) Do you require financial information about the company?

Company and VAT registration number and registered address are required and all shortlisted companies are credit checked prior to final decision.

16) Do you require policy information (e.g. diversity, environment etc) at this stage?

Not required but diversity is a key issue for us, so you should tell us how you plan to cover diversity.

17) Do you require information re account management / billing arrangements etc at this stage?
We would be looking for who would be the named account manager and their CV.

Southside currently produces a Quarterly Newsletter, production, printing and postage costs (279 businesses) should be included for all years. (We would prefer you use one of our Southside printers). No other printed material is envisaged as part of this tender.

2. Do you need details of our daily rate in the tender? The number of consultancy days we can provide is affected by creative costs, hence my earlier question.

Anything provided (such as day rates) which helps us to calculate Value for Money will stand in your favour in assessment.

3. Just to clarify that you really do not want any more than four pages of A4 from us at this stage?

Not really as we need to read it and respond in good time, we want you to be as brief as possible whilst still meeting the tender specifications. Be concise, meet the specifications, provide us with all the data we need to assess you as a supplier, value for money and creativity/innovation and you should meet all the assessment criteria.

Applicants should note that in the previous tenders, companies who went the extra mile to provide more creativity/innovation whilst still being great value for money and good suppliers have been shortlisted, given the popularity of these contracts and the large numbers of submitted applications received.

1. Would it be possible to meet with you briefly to discuss Southside in terms of its marketing activity to date and your aspirations for the Southside brand?

I’m afraid in this procurement all questions must be in writing and posted on our website.

2. Is it possible for you to give some indication of the anticipated ratio of activity between advertising and PR? – eg 50:50, or 80:20 etc in favour of PR.

We do not envisage any advertising costs whatsoever, the tender is for PR services, communications, company newsletters (4 per annum) and press releases.

3. Could you elaborate on the anticipated scope of requirements from a PR point of view?

See above.

4. Could you elaborate on the anticipated scope of requirements from an advertising point of view?

We have a database of stakeholders and means to advertise on our websites and in print media, FOC. Therefore our requirements for advertising are just the broad general principle that we drive footfall to Southside and communicate effectively with our businesses and customer base.

You do need to issue all questions to me in writing due to ERDF procurement rules.

2 The briefing document says Southside BID wishes to appoint an agency to handle the BID’s marketing, PR and communications requirements. However, it appears to be labelled ‘PR brief’, so can you give any further clarification as to the extent of the services you are after and by ‘Communications’ do you mean Digital communications? We are an integrated PR, Marketing & Design and Digital consultancy so we’ve no problem addressing these areas – I just want our submission to be as targeted as possible. Many thanks.

We do mean print and digital communications to our stakeholders, customers and levy payers.

3 Your current website looks like it could be a stepping stone to something more comprehensive? Is the website part of the brief? Or is that being developed independently?

http://www.enjoysouthside.co.uk was launched last week

4 The Assessment criteria mentions us providing initial thoughts on how we would promote Southside BID to its stakeholders over the initial 12 months. So are we to focus on purely on stakeholder engagement? What about other audiences – the wider public, businesses who might be interested in trading area etc? Does that come in after or as part of this brief?

We have left the tender intentionally brief to encourage companies to tell us what they think we need for the first 12 months.

5 If we should be invited to the next stage following this submission, will there be any further information provided or is it all basically contained in this brief?

Next stage is presentation to panel, we will give you a date and time and the rest is up to you.

6 Can you provide any more detail on how you will score/ assess on ‘Value for Money? For example, should a consultancy achieve a low score for VfM because they are more expensive than others (we’re not by the way!) but they score more highly in other areas, do you add it all up? Or do you have an initial ‘knock-out’ round purely based on price and then look at the other criteria?

Value for money is based on cost, we have a budget for the work and companies who provide more for less or/and can demonstrate more bang for our buck will score highly in this criteria but it is not alone and bids who are more expensive but have more creativity and innovation whilst still fitting the brief may go through depending on the level of creativity/innovation within the brief.

Those are my initial questions, but am I okay to come back with more?

Of course as long as it is in writing, thanks.

Hope that’s helpful?

Julia (BID Manager)

I tryed to look on the birmingham.gov.uk/floraltrail but could not find any photos

so when wil it be on the webside the 2011 floraltrail