Writing Compelling Content

In the competitive world of bidding for contracts and projects, there is no room for subpar bid responses. Your bid response is your opportunity to showcase your expertise, professionalism, and unique value proposition to potential clients. To ensure that your bid responses stand out from the competition and increase your chances of success, here are some key pointers to consider:

1. Client. Client. Client!

A poorly written bid talks about yourself and tells the client what you are going to do. But the client is only interested in, well, themselves! They care about their own needs and problems, so to write compelling responses the key is to talk about what the client will get and clearly highlight the benefits for them in your offering and proposition.

2. Answer The Question

Bids can be treated much like an exam. They ask a series of questions and are often prescriptive on how to answer them. Keep it simple and do exactly as they ask you to. Now is not the time to go off script. By following the instructions and answering the question fully and clearly you make it easier for the client to evaluate and find the information they're looking for. Use the clients structure, terminology and signpost your answer wherever possible to lead the reviewer straight to the information to gain the marks.

3. Evidence

It's not enough to just tell the client what you're offering and how that solves the problem. In order to build trust and confidence in your solution, you need to prove they can depend on you by evidencing where you have done the same before. Include relevant best-in-class case studies, images and testimonials to prove how experienced you are and why you are a safer pair of hand than your competitors.

4. So What?

Often bid writers can fall into the trap of listing features rather than clearly identifying benefits to the client. However, as we have already mentioned, the client is less interested in you and what you have / will do and much more interested in the benefits they will get. This is where asking "so what?" can help! So instead of saying, we will provide you with x, try saying, we will provide you with x which means y and will allow you to z. When you can't ask "so what?" any more, you can be confident you have clearly highlighted a strong benefit to solve the clients pain points.