59-P2389 Addendum # 1.pdf.pdf

North Carolina A & T State University

1601 East Market St.

Greensboro, NC 27411

Amendment to 59-P2389

FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BID ADDENDUM IN ACCORDANCE WITH INSTRUCTIONS MAY

SUBJECT YOUR BID TO REJECTION ON THE AFFECTED ITEM(S).

BID Number: 59-P2389 COMMODITY:

ADDENDUM # Number: 1 USING AGENCY: NC A&T STATE

UNIVERSITY

PURCHASER: Stephen Pass OPENING DATE/TIME: 9/23/2024 @ 3:00PM

INSTRUCTIONS:

• Bid date has been moved back to 9/23/2024 @3:00 PM.

• Questions and University (in Red) Response attached

Bid has NOT been mailed and ANY CHANGES resulting from this addendum will be included in our bid. Bid has already been mailed. NO CHANGES resulted from this addendum Bid has already been mailed. Changes resulting from this addendum are as follows:

Execute Addendum:

BIDDER: _______________________________________________________________

ADDRESS (CITY & STATE): ________________________________________________ AUTHORIZED

SIGNATURE: _________________________ DATE: _______________

NAME and TITLE (Print): _____________________________________________________

Electronic address for delivery of Bid Proposal https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities

INCLUDE THIS ADDENDUM IN YOUR BID PACKAGE

Questions and Responses

1. Is there any budget breakdown that can be provided related to this RFP in the categories below?

Undergraduate Annual Cost Proposal No Established Budget

Graduate Annual Cost Proposal No Established Budget https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities https://ncat.bonfirehub.com/portal/?tab=openOpportunities

PhD Annual Cost Proposal No Established Budget

2. Please clarify the University's expectations around the call center requirement. Would the vendor be responsible for staffing a team of enrollment counselors to field calls from potential prospects?

No

3. Is the University only wanting to see the grand total cost/price as shown in Attachment A or are vendors to also provide a more detailed breakout of their cost/price assumptions within their RFP response? For example, assuming a vendor chooses to bid on the UNDERGRADUATE COST PROPOSAL (Year 1-3), do you just need the unit price and total cost entered or would you like to see the breakout of the various functional areas such as marketing, enrollment management, and so on? No provide a total inclusive cost per year.

4. Please provide additional detail around the level of support required from an enrollment management perspective.

Is the vendor to assume they will be responsible for nurturing leads from inquiry to application using its own enrollment management staff? The campus will nurture inquiries using our current CRM. However, the partnership will have some flexibility for both the university and the vendor to nurture inquiries to applications. Or will we just be supporting the University's existing enrollment management and/or admissions folks? The scope of the work for the RFP is beyond undergraduate admissions and the graduate college will have different expectations.

5. The RFP is labeled, Digital Marketing and Student Search.Is there a student search component that is requested, but not listed in the deliverables? Only scope listed is requested.

If not, Does NC A&T have a current student search partner and will we have access to their program strategy to augment it with the deliverables of the RFP? Yes, A&T has worked with a partner in the past but the relationship has matured. The new partner will produce new program strategies the support our student search efforts

6. How many prospect names does the university procure on an annual basis? Refer to Exhibit D

7. Research and Analysis, Pg 5Does the university possess historical enrollment data and if so, how many years of data will we have access to? Refer to Exhibit D

8. What are the top 10 cross- app competitors for NC A&T? Refer to Exhibit D

9. What are the expected goals and values from this engagement? We expect this relationship to produce qualified inquires and the creation organic lead generation of high school, college graduates and people interested in Online Education

10. What is the current CMS of the university website? Refer to Exhibit D

11. Since the university uses Slate, would the university be open to establishing portals instead of landing pages for the digital campaigns? We are currently in the development of portals to sever this purpose.

12. Content Creation and Social Media Marketing, Pg 6

Does the university have a MarComm office and social media staff, or will the selected firm be expected to act full time in this capacity? Previously answered in Exhibit D

13. How would the university prefer the newly developed content to be deployed, i.e. blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, and social media posts? Digital advertising in social media, connective TV, YouTube, Xbox, Play station etc, What social media platforms would the university like to focus these efforts on? Previously answered in Exhibit D

Will the selected firm have access to the university’s Slate instance to build and recommend populations and segmentation strategies for email marketing? NCAT is open to giving access to the new partner to build recommended segmentation strategies. Currently, we have communications built in SLATE for

Inquires, Applicants, Admits, Deposited/IE and current building a comm flow for our transfer population.

14. Does the university have a current partnership with a digital agency, if so, what sorts of campaigns are currently running? No Current Relationship with a digital agency

15. Does the university currently have an applicant portal? Yes, we currently have an application portal and an acceptance portal.

16. If so, is the university looking for strategies/production to redevelop it with additional functionality to enhance the applicant experience? Our current application portal is high functioning. We current support our SLATE

Application and we currently accept the Common Application.

17. Does the university have a current virtual campus tour, or will a new one need to be developed? Yes

18. Can you please provide a description and/or an example of the "InquiryDETECTOR" technology you are looking to have implemented? This is a well know technology by many companies.

19. Can you please provide a description and/or an example of the "MatchBACK" technology you are looking to have implemented? Refer to Exhibit D

20. Under Section 5.0 that details the SOW, it mentions that content creation includes blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, and social media posts. Is this for paid media, or organic, meaning will the selected vendor be responsible for producing and creating this content? Refer to Exhibit D

21. Website Optimization: Are you expecting the vendor to do the development work within your CMS, or will the vendor provide recommendations, mock-ups, etc., to be implemented by NC A&T resources? The vendor will help A&T leverage the foot traffic from our website and documenting the information into A&T’s CRM.

22. Can you please provide a more in-depth description of the "Ghost Voice Mail Message(s)" requirement?

23. Is this a multi-award RFP? As in can vendors respond to only portions of the RFP ? Yes

24. Can you share any budget guidance for the expected services or share the pricing in the global cost structure mentioned in the RFP Q&A? No budget has been established

25. Would NC A&T be open on an agency providing a response to the RFP that was just SEO focused or site experience/optimization focused, across the all the listed scopes of work (Undergad, Grad, A&T Online, etc)

Vendor can decide to focus and submit on a single scope.

26. Question: Is there a % weight that will go into the decision making process for Agencies with enrollment management experience? While our agency does not have direct enrollment management experience we have extensive experience in digital marketing and advertising that drive direct KPI impact? The evaluation criteria is listed in Bonfire.

27. Can vendors provide a supplemental pricing proposal? No additional pricing is requested at this time solely what is in the RFP. If so, where should that be uploaded?

a. there a budget allocated for this project? If so, could you share the estimated budget? No Budget is established

b. Do you have specific goals that would be ideal to achieve on the outset of this project? For example, increase a percentage of enrollments or prospective students by a specific period. Previously answered.

c. What are the number of users that would use the system by role? NA

d. Do you have an understanding of your student success service maturity? Refer to Exhibit D

e. Do you have a modern integration and data synchronization strategy in place?

f. Have you mapped out or defined what success looks like in terms of the outcome of this solution? We are looking for continued growth in application, admit, enrollee’s. We have experience 11 years straight with positive enrollment growth.

g. How are technology decisions made at your University? For Example; do you have a technology Center

Of Excellence or committee that decides on these solutions? Input from the CIO and Information

Technology.

h. Have you identified the Executive Sponsor(s) of this initiative? What are their roles?

No Executive Sponsor for this initiative

i. Do you desire advisory services to review and validate current strategic plan and roadmap and provide a gap analysis with recommendations? NO

Are there any other details you would like to provide in terms of what you desire during this project or as an outcome? Previously answered in Exhibit D

3. What are some top challenges you and your enrollment team face in managing the pipeline effectively and efficiently? Previously answered in Exhibit D

2. What stage do you have the most bottleneck in your pipeline? Previously answered in Exhibit D

3. Is your current contact strategy mostly automated? Do you seek improvement in this area? No

34. What are the primary ways a prospect can inquire with University? Complete an RFI Form, request for information using scrive scan, NICHE, Other Hand rising Opportunities

Do you desire improvement in your lead import process? No

Do you desire improvements of your lead validation process? No

Describe your lead capture forms? Host site? Who manages? What is the size of the team? RFI

Form into our CRM, Automatic Connection with Scrive Scan, We have a team of three working with data management within our CRM

35. Do you currently have any active paid advertisements that generate leads? What is your approximate spend? What are your approximate conversion rates? We have used this in the past but services are not active at this time.

Are your student personas defined? Are you interested in persona development?

Interested in persona development.

Are you interested in journey mapping?

What channel is your highest volume of your leads currently sourced from?

ACT, College Board and NICHE

What is your current channel mix?

What are the primary methods prospective students learn about NC A&T?

Direct Student Search and Digital Advertising

Are you currently segmenting your marketing by program? If not, would you be interested in this approach? Yes, we are actively marketing by segmentation

Are there specific programs you are targeting to increase enrollments in the next fiscal year? We have identified focus growth opportunities across our academic portfolio

Is NC A&T open to incorporating more sustainable methods of communication (speaking specifically to the call out for postcard mailers) and if there might be other options that would allow the University to continue community and multi-generational outreach?

36. What technology platforms are you currently using for Enrollment Marketing, CRM and Reporting?

Previously answered in Exhibit D

What are your challenges and pain points in your current technology platforms? CRM or Marketing

Automation? Previously answered in Exhibit D

What are your current challenges with data quality and your ability to gather data and drive insights? We don’t have this type of problem… last cycle we had over 45,000 applicants to the university with an 83% application completion rate. We are looking for a partner that will allow us to continue our current success.

What are the current challenges with your multi-channel communication strategy that you feel require augmentation?

What are key metrics that you are tracking and are focused on improving throughout this project? Conversion rates from App to Admit to IE to Enroll

6Integrations - Are there any systems that will need to be integrated with and if so is there an integration(s) tool you currently use/prefer? Refer to Exhibit D