As one of the top franchise marketing suppliers, we’ve reviewed hundreds of RFPs over the years. After analyzing 25 RFPs from 2024 and 2025, we identified what separates an effective, streamlined process from one that causes unnecessary confusion and delays.
Our insights are your gain: here’s how to craft a franchise marketing RFP that saves time, aligns stakeholders, and helps you identify the right long-term partner for your brand.
Tip #1: Provide a Clear Project Plan and Evaluation Criteria
Only a few marketing teams we’ve seen keep their RFPs fully on track. The difference comes from having a clear timeline and associated milestones, evaluation criteria, and communication touch points for key stakeholder buy-in.
A strong RFP should set expectations from the beginning. This helps agencies craft relevant proposals and allows your team to evaluate efficiently.
Here are some non-negotiables:
- Include Key Milestones: Create a project schedule with proposal due dates, evaluation periods, and contract award timelines.
- Define the Buying Committee Early: Avoid surprises late in the process, such as realizing you need FAC approval after making a decision. Loop in key stakeholders to get buy-in for agency criteria so everyone is speaking the same language.
- Standardize Evaluation Criteria: Use a scorecard to compare vendors fairly, such as “Experience & Fit (25%), Strategic Approach (25%), Fee Structure (20%), Support Model (30%).”
Tip #2: Keep It Concise but Complete Enough to Convey Priorities
We’ve seen RFPs with more than 30 questions. This often happens when teams are afraid of missing something critical. However, lengthy questionnaires can overwhelm both your internal team and potential vendors.
Instead, focus on your brand’s top pain points and goals. The right partners will stand out without needing a 40-page submission.
Best practices for structuring your initial RFP include:
- Breaking Questions into Phases: Start with a short first-round submission, then expand once you’ve narrowed the field to your top two or three vendors.
- Asking for Visuals: A picture is still worth a thousand words, so don’t rely only on text in a word doc to tell the story of an agency partner. Visual examples help vendors show their capabilities instead of just describing them, and help you to better understand what they are bringing to the table.
- Providing Context: Include an introduction with brand background, success metrics, goals, and a clear picture of what a winning partnership looks like.
Tip #3: Establish Firm Requirements for Technology, Data, and Reporting
Modern franchisors expect their marketing partners to be transparent, data-driven, and technologically capable. Your RFP should clearly outline technical and data-related expectations, including:
- Account Ownership: Specify that all advertising accounts, Google Business Profiles, and digital assets remain franchisor-owned. This ensures you don’t lose key access to the channels that matter most to your business/
- CRM Integration: Require seamless integration with your CRM and related marketing technology platforms. Franchisees typically prefer one source of truth, and ensuring data from your CRM is effectively integrated into your MarTech stack with aid in buy in from this key audience.
- Transparent Reporting: Expect access to dashboards showing both national and local performance, including media spend, management fees, and key KPIs.
- Data Management: Ask how each vendor handles first-party data, which is one of your brand’s most valuable assets. Confirm security protocols and access processes.
- Request a Demo: Any strong partner should be able to demonstrate their reporting tools and campaign management platform.
- AI Capabilities: Would this be a marketing conversation in 2025 if we DIDN’T bring AI to the conversation? Top franchisors have added AI needs to their RFPs to ensure that they can automate and provide more effective levels of support to their franchisees
Tip #4: Define the Partnership Structure
Every vendor packages their offerings slightly differently, and trust us, we get as frustrated with this as you do! The more you can define the partnership structure and how you would like to see the program packaged and funded, the better you’ll be able to compare apples to apples.
Oftentimes marketing teams don’t know what the structure should be, which is fine, but will lead to more questions and back and forth down the line. To avoid confusion, establish the following components internally first and communicate it within the RFP:
- Funding Breakdown: Clarify which program components are funded by corporate, your national brand fund, or franchisees.
- Commitments: Outline your expectations for contract length, budget levels, and the number of participating locations. Vendors often offer better pricing for longer-term or higher-volume commitments.
- Support Expectations: Define what “support” means at both the corporate and franchisee levels, including frequency of check-ins, onboarding steps, and reporting access.
A well-written RFP sets the tone for a productive, transparent, and scalable partnership. By aligning your internal stakeholders, defining success clearly, and setting measurable criteria, you will save time and find a partner that delivers value across your entire franchise network.
Want a head start on developing your own RFP? Download our RFP Best Practices Template here: Access Here
It’s also available in our Resource Center to help you start your next RFP with confidence.
