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FBO DAILY - FEDBIZOPPS ISSUE OF NOVEMBER 16, 2017 FBO #5837
DOCUMENT

R -- VHA Marketing and Advertising Project (VA-18-938141) - Attachment

Notice Date

11/14/2017
 

Notice Type

Attachment
 

NAICS

541820 — Public Relations Agencies
 

Contracting Office

Department of Veterans Affairs;Program Contracting Activity Central;6150 Oak Tree Blvd, Suite 300;Independence OH 44131
 

ZIP Code

44131
 

Solicitation Number

36E77618Q9124
 

Response Due

12/15/2017
 

Archive Date

3/24/2018
 

Point of Contact

Jeremy Gulden
 

E-Mail Address

7-8300
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Description

RFI, Version 6.0, 14 Nov 2017 REQUEST FOR INFORMATION DEPARTMENT OF VETERAN AFFAIRS Description 1.1 The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in support of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is seeking information from interested contractors to provide continued assistance in developing and designing marketing and advertising strategies for the implementation and maintenance of recruitment and retention programs for a variety of hard-to-fill healthcare professional and technical positions. 1.2 THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. This request for information does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, the VA is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. Respondees are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party s expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP, if any is issued. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized on the Federal Business Opportunities (FedBizOpps) website. It is the responsibility of the potential offerors to monitor this site for additional information pertaining to this requirement. Background The expanding shortages in physician specialties, nursing, pharmacy and other occupations, coupled with an aging work force, make it imperative that VHA maintain a first-class, competitive recruitment and retention program. As VA continues to expand managed care and primary care, the need has shifted to physicians who are generalists and the mid-level practitioners who support the delivery of care that promotes health and prevents disease, supported by a highly competent tertiary underpinning. Many critical health care occupations within VHA are predominately staffed by a cohort of employees at or near retirement age. The shortage of new professionals entering the workforce in many of these occupations is stimulating intense recruitment competition. Effective marketing efforts, including recruitment advertising in existing and developing media will be a key element in efforts to achieve the approximate mix of healthcare provided to support the change from inpatient to outpatient care. To achieve these recruitment objectives, the VA uses USAJobs and USA Staffing for processing job applicants. Because the VA currently is not able to place a tracking pixel or cookies on either the USAJobs or USA Staffing websites, collection of critical tracking and related application data remains a challenge. Scope of Work Contractor shall manage and oversee the VA s nationwide recruitment, marketing and advertisement for critical medical occupations and associated technical support personnel. Contractor assess the return on investment (ROI), effectiveness, and performance of the recruitment, marketing and advertising campaign using industry standard best practices and a comprehensive metrics/analytics tools and techniques. Q1. Describe your firms demonstrated experience with managing nationwide healthcare recruitment programs as well as marketing and advertisement for major recruitment initiatives. Provide, at a minimum three (3) and a maximum of five (5) instances of comparable scope and complexity. For each instance, include the following: A narrative case study that describes the details of each project and why it is relevant to this requirement, including difficulties and successes. Describe your Self-Performed* effort (as a Prime) as it relates to the requirements in the scope section of this RFI. Be specific and provide a complete reference to include, at a minimum the project name (and the government contract number, if applicable), contract award amount, start and completion dates, scope of work, type of media purchased, amount of media purchased by dollar. Additionally, provide the Contract Type: Firm Fixed-Price, Time and Material, etc. *Self-Performed means work performed by the company themselves, NOT work performed by another company for them for any of the project examples provided. Contractor shall be responsible for establishing and maintaining an integrated, coherent, recruitment marketing campaign. This includes creating and developing themes, concepts, strategies, and promotional items to maximize VA exposure and foster a positive awareness of VA in the minds of the targeted audience. The contractor will design material such as ads, videos, Public Service Announcements (PSAs), and brochures that promotes VA as an employer of choice. Contractor will design strategies to encourage the targeted group to apply for, and accept, employment with VA and to encourage retention. The effort is a year-round, programmed approach that must be responsive to changing priorities and shifting staffing requirements. The contractor must be immediately available and flexible enough to meet short deadlines (24hr) that may arise from the VA mission requirements. Q2. What are the innovative approaches currently in the marketplace, or under development, for highly-effective recruitment marketing? Q3. Discuss marketing and promotional strategies your firm recommends to target qualified applicants to pursue career opportunities with the VA? Q4. What promotional strategies will be employed for the following marketing fundamentals: VA Brand Marketing Lead Generation Lead Nurturing Q5. How will your firm provide the availability and flexibility necessary to ensure expeditious responsiveness to emergent deadlines and requirements? Contractor shall develop and maintain the VA Recruitment websites on the Internet and Intranet. This includes all aspects of site development, maintenance and management. Contractor will design dynamic web pages that are aesthetically pleasing yet functional. Pages will not be static and will be maintained on state-of-the-art platforms that include sophisticated database capability, including the ability to accept electronic applications, remote vacancy posting, and remote updates. Contractor will develop all necessary electronic underlying databases, forms for electronic applications and management reports. Contractor shall design pages, logos, banner ads, and any other element of a successful recruitment website. All web pages and web sites developed by the contractor shall comply with the VA Tier-1 graphic standard and all applicable government and VA standards, such as meeting privacy standards, accessibility standards (i.e., section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act), etc. Contractor shall integrate VA Recruitment websites with the Choose VA website (https://www.choose.va.gov/). Contractor will integrate all components of the Choose VA website that promotes the VA as an employer of choice. Target audience is health care professionals and associated technical support personnel. Coverage may be expanded to include other occupations as the needs of VA require. Q6. Describe your firm s experience with recruitment of health care, allied health professionals, and associated technical support professionals. Target area is nationwide; however, VA needs will also require streamlined approaches on a regional, statewide, or local level as demands arise. Q7. What marketing and promotional strategies are recommended for satisfying the VA s recruitment efforts at national, state and local levels? When feasible, each advertisement must reflect, and contain, a specific reference to VA's policy for providing equal employment opportunity without regard to non-merit factors (race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, or handicap). All advertising material must be supported by the facts. All materials developed either print or electronic must comply with governmental and VA policy regarding accessibility and privacy. All web development activity must comply with section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Contractor will establish measurements to maximize the effectiveness and assess the return on investment (ROI) for select media channels based and recruitment marketing media best practices. Contractor will ensure effective monitoring, evaluation, and optimization to enhance the VA s nationwide recruitment, marketing and advertisement for critical healthcare and associated technical support occupations. Monitor. Contractor will ensure sufficient collection of data to effectively monitor the performance of select media channels and recruitment marketing as per industry best practices. Baselines for each monitored metric will be established, which become the basis for an effective alerting method. Contractor will monitor the hiring pipeline (the VA uses USA Staffing and USAJobs) to provides a snapshot of each major step in the recruiting funnel for a selected timeframe. The following are examples of key performance indicators (KPIs) that may be used in the hiring pipeline: Number of clicks Cost per click (CPC) Click-through-rate (CTR) Cost per applicant Cost per quality applicant Completed applications Conversion from click to completed application Conversion rate Quality of candidates Number of hires Conversion of applicants to hires Cost per hire Q8. Discuss your firm s approach for collecting sufficient data to effectively monitor the performance of select media channels and recruitment marketing and advertising from advertising impression to employee hire. Q9. What industry standard metrics and best practices does your firm use to assess media campaign performance? Recruitment marketing and advertising performance? Q10. What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) does your firm propose to gauge measures of effectiveness for select media channels? Q11. What Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) does your firm propose to gauge measures of effectiveness for select recruitment marketing and advertising? Q12. How will metric baselines be established and used to detect potential performance issues with media channels and recruitment marketing and advertising to cost per hire? Evaluate. Contractor will provide performance reporting on select media channels and the VA s recruitment marketing campaign. This report will be used to evaluate results and monitor the overall performance and success of the media plan. Contractor analysis shall be focused on extracting meaningful, actionable insights, which can be used to enhance and improve the media plan. Contractor will include a review of all media run in the quarter and annually, which are most relevant for the overarching media campaign (e.g. job board performance, paid per click campaigns, etc.). Q13. What best industry standards and practices does your firm employ to report on the performance of media programs? Recruitment marketing and advertising? Q14. What reports are recommended to assess quality, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of select media channels? Recruitment marketing and advertising? Q15.How are measures of effectiveness and the ROI determined for select media channels. Recruitment marketing and advertising? Q16. Provide recruitment marketing and media performance report examples. Q17. Offer examples of evaluating national and local advertising. Examples, surveys, etc. Optimize. Contractor will provide recommendations for optimization to include results of specific recruitment campaigns and media vendors. Optimization considerations include but shall not be limited to: Maximizing hiring efficiency (minimum number applicants per hire) Removing underperforming media Increasing investment on successful media Increasing or decreasing Cost Per Click bids Expanding or reducing geo-targeting, adding new markets Adjusting keywords Adjusting targeting (such as occupation targeting) Quantify the marketing and recruitment strategies using predictive analytics Q18. What best industry standards and practices does your firm employ to optimize the performance media programs it manages? Recruitment marketing and advertising? Q19. What innovative strategies does your firm employ to minimize the number of applicants per hire? (Improved quality) Q20. Describe how predictive analytics can be used to improve hiring efficiency and enhance the effectiveness of recruitment marketing. Q21. Provide a rough order of magnitude for what your firm believes is an accurate figure to accomplish the scope of work identified in Section 3 on an annual basis. In oTHER words, based on the information herein, what do you believe VA s annual budget should be in order to reach its target audience sufficient to accomplish the healthcare recruitment goals? Responses 4.1 All potential sources are invited to submit, in writing, a capability statement with sufficient information to substantiate your business is reasonably capable of performing the work. The capability statement must clearly demonstrate a business s ability to fulfill the requirement. The burden of proof rests with the contractor; therefore, written responses must provide clear and unambiguous evidence to substantiate capabilities appropriate to satisfy this need. 4.2 Responses shall be in Microsoft Word compatible format and are due no later than 12PM December 5, 2017. Responses shall be limited to 20 pages, 12 pt font min. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned. Responses shall be sent to Joseph Senkovich at Joseph.Senkovich@va.gov and Nicholas Sparks at Nicholas.Sprks@va.gov. 4.3. Responses shall provide administrative information, and shall include the following as a minimum: 4.3.1. Company Name, DUNs number, Company mailing address, phone number, fax number, name of designated point of contact and e-mail of designated point of contact. 4.3.2. Recommended contracting strategy. Specifically, propose from the industry s perspective what the most appropriate contract type is for this acquisition as well as what you believe the appropriate North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) should be used for this procurement based on the scope identified above. 4.3.3. Either 1) copies of executed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with the contractors supporting VA and VA-supported PEOs in technical evaluations or 2) a statement that the respondee will not allow the Government to release its proprietary data to the Government support contractors. In the absence of either of the foregoing, the Government will assume that the respondee does NOT agree to the release of its submission to Government support contractors. 4.3.4. Company business size and status (i.e., Large Business, Small Business, Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, Women-Owned Small Business, etc.), the number of years in business, affiliate information: parent company, joint venture partners, potential teaming partners. 4.3.5. Responses to Qs 1 21. 5.0 Industry Discussions VA representatives may or may not choose to meet with potential offerors. Such discussions would only be for market research purposes and the intent would be to obtain further clarification of potential capability to meet the requirements, especially any development and certification risks. 6.0 Summary THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY to identify sources that can provide healthcare recruitment marketing and advertising The information provided in the RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. The VA has not made a commitment to procure any of the items discussed, and release of this RFI should not be construed as such a commitment or as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement would be required or sought. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.
 

Web Link

FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/VA/ISC/OISC/36E77618Q9124/listing.html)
 

Document(s)

Attachment
 

File Name: 36E77618Q9124 36E77618Q9124_2.docx (https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=3906135&FileName=36E77618Q9124-007.docx)

Link: https://www.vendorportal.ecms.va.gov/FBODocumentServer/DocumentServer.aspx?DocumentId=3906135&FileName=36E77618Q9124-007.docx

 

Note: If links are broken, refer to Point of Contact above or contact the FBO Help Desk at 877-472-3779.
 

Record

SN04739634-W 20171116/171114231124-f7250afd9ff1f0bd9dfec188438a7328 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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