Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Have you ever shopped for something online, compared prices, and read reviews until you knew you were making the right decision?
That’s similar to what businesses do when they need to purchase something as well, except it’s a slightly more formal process.
In the business world, the process includes having vendors or companies submit RFPs (request for proposal) or RFQs (request for quote) so you can compare their products and services.

These documents help businesses decide which vendor they want to buy from. It’s similar to when we, as consumers, shop online and look at prices and reviews to compare, say, new phones.
Below, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about RFQs — from what they are, to how to write one, to how it’s different from an RFP.

In an RFQ, you’ll find a vendor’s costs, payment terms, and product specs or details. Most businesses use an RFQ when they know exactly what they’re looking for, the budget they want to spend, and are ready to make a purchase.
If you know what type of features you want to see, you plan to choose a vendor based on price, and you don’t need a service plan or supported contract, an RFQ might be right for you. When you have a bunch of RFQs, you can properly evaluate all the solutions based on price, quickly.
Now, what’s the difference between an RFQ and an RFP?
While an RFP gives more detailed information on the service itself, an RFQ mainly answers how much it costs. An RFQ implies this is a simple, on-demand purchase as opposed to a longer term project that will have a longer buying process.
So, now you might be wondering what this looks like in action. Let’s review below.

1. Preparation
As a company, if you want to use an RFQ, you first need to decide if you want to open the bidding to any vendor, or choose a select group of vendors.
If you’re going to send RFQs to several vendors, you need to decide which vendors you want to send the RFQ template to. You might make this decision based on reputation or people you’ve worked with before.
If you want the bid to be open to all vendors, you can use a procurement software to simplify this process — this will post the RFQ document on your website, allow vendors to upload, ask questions, etc. Plus, this will keep all the RFQs in one place, easy to review, and contact all the vendors that you say no to (more on this later).
Then, you need to create the RFQ document (see template below). This should detail a list of requirements, including a list of products (features required), quantity or duration, date of delivery, and payment terms. If you don’t use a standard template, then companies might give you different information and you can’t compare apples to apples.
Also, ideally you’ve included an introduction to your company, what you need, the deadline to submit, and how to submit. Introducing the problem you’re trying to solve will make it easier for sellers to recognize if this is a good fit.
As a vendor, when it comes time to fill out an RFQ, you need to look at the template that was sent to you, and start gathering all the information. How much will those products cost? Is it in the right currency? Did you include your contact information? As a vendor, your work is now done, unless you’re chosen of course.
2. Review
Now that you’ve sent your RFQ documents to your list of vendors, it’s time to wait until the deadline. When you start receiving the RFQs back, you can review them. Which company gave you the best price? Which company can provide all the products/services you need?
This process will be easier if you used a standard template and asked everyone for the same information. If this was thought out, and you included all the details you need in the template, then this process should be quick.
3. Choose and Close
Once you decide, you can either email everyone the decision, or use the software mentioned above to send out notifications and alert vendors who submitted an RFQ.
It’s best practice to wait to alert the vendors that didn’t get chosen until the one you did choose signs the contract and the deal is closed.
When you let vendors know they weren’t chosen, thank them for their time. It’s important that when you choose a vendor, you aren’t burning bridges with the other vendors because you might need to use them in the future.
RFQ Template
Below is a list of information that you might ask for in an RFQ. You can separate the document into buyer information, seller information, and review and evaluation.
Buyer Information

Company Name
Company Description
Product Details and Goals
Contact Information – name, title, phone, email of the point person

Seller Information

Product Details — name and specs
Product Quantity
Delivery Requirements
Product Price

Review and Evaluation

Evaluation Method
Timeline
Terms and Conditions
Submission Requirements and Instructions

If your company is deciding between multiple vendors, you know what you want, and it basically comes down to price, an RFQ might be the way to go.

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Coffee and donuts. Sonny and Cher. Sherlock and Watson. 
The most legendary teams are great individually, but truly magnificent together.
That holds true for some of the world’s most powerful, most popular business technologies, too. Campaign Monitor’s flexible, intuitive email marketing platform is a potent marketing tool on its own. But when we join forces with the legendary Salesforce CRM, together we become an unstoppable revenue-generating machine.
This is no ordinary martech pairing. The Campaign Monitor + Salesforce integration is the highest rated ESP on the AppExchange.
Campaign Monitor for Salesforce is easy, fast and seamless to integrate. It has enabled us to really reach out and get to know our clients. The customer service is brilliant; it’s responsive, helpful and personal, by people who really know their product and care about their customers.
– Paul Easto, CEO Wilderness Scotland & Wilderness Ireland
The Salesforce email integration dovetails the platforms seamlessly, helping you save time, send more relevant campaigns, track success more meticulously, and drive greater ROI. Watch this video to see just a few of the ways you can start taking advantage of it right away.
Watch the email integration in action

If you already use both these tools, here are some great ways to translate the Salesforce integration into tangible benefits for your email strategy. And if not, consider it a list of reasons to consider taking on two of the most trusted, effective customer engagement tools on the planet.
Design and build out email campaigns directly from Salesforce
As your technology stack broadens, it becomes tedious and even confusing to constantly jump between a growing list of marketing, sales, and operations platforms. The Campaign Monitor for Salesforce email integration streamlines your process, allowing you to orchestrate and execute your email strategy without having to leave your Salesforce instance.
You can even directly access our library of scientifically designed, mobile-ready templates, and modify them with our intuitive drag-and-drop builder. It’s all in one place, so you save time and keep your workflow simple.

Automate data management and synchronization
Integrating your customer and marketing data systems means you can spend more time being creative and analytical, and less time wrestling with technology and performing menial transfer tasks. 
The integration adds a level of seamlessness. The participant list for our bike ride is updated every hour, so I can just create a segment saying everyone who’s raised, say $100, show them this copy. It’s so easy. I’ve got more time to think in those strategic ways because I don’t have to be manually handling data.
– Amy Mulder, Communications Coordinator
Connecting your accounts lets you automatically synchronize your contact and campaign data so you never miss a new contact (or changes to an old one). And since you can dynamically map data from any Salesforce object to Campaign Monitor’s custom fields, personalizing your emails becomes easier and more powerful than ever.

Simplify permissions and opt-in management
The world of permissioned email marketing continues to become more important—and more complex. The Salesforce email integration keeps your customer and subscriber preferences aligned across systems and keeps your audience in control of how and when they hear from you. That not only means happier customers; it also makes staying compliant with opt-in laws and regulations easier for your team.
Stay in control with smarter data dashboards
Synchronized data gives you deeper insights into subscriber behavior and helps you track customers from first touchpoint all the way through the purchase funnel. Custom reports and dashboards that update in real time with data from both platforms can help you measure the success of email campaigns in driving engagement and revenue.

You can view who is engaging with your emails and who is not, and track your subscriber lists—all in one place.
It is great to be able to schedule the data import to automatically run a couple of times a week to send contacts to CM based on SF report criteria. Also the mapping fields fields functionality can keep fields updated between the two. Using both of those functions we are able to confidently have up-to-date recipient segments whenever we are ready to send an email.
– Rachael Arnott, System Analyst, on the AppExchange
Wrap up
Integrating high-powered business technology is a great way to improve results and save time. But not all integrations are created equal: some, like Campaign Monitor and Salesforce, fit together like paired puzzle pieces.
Integrating your Campaign Monitor and Salesforce accounts means you’ll save time and get better performance through superior data analysis and personalization capabilities. 
You can try this Salesforce integration free for 14 days. Check it out here, and don’t forget to browse our App Store for other ways to connect your email marketing with your favorite business tools.
 
The post How to Save Time and Drive Revenue with the Highest-Rated Salesforce Integration for Email appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

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Thinking about using email marketing for your hotel? Check out our 6-step process for doing successful email marketing for hotels.

​ I work in B2B education. We sent out a Padot email and I can see the results but I’m keen to see which types of users clicked the various links. Eg how many of them were teachers, how many librarians, how many principals/head teachers etc. How do I do this? Thanks
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