How do you design bid documents that both convey the detail required, but are also easy to read and share with senior stakeholders? Our client was facing this dilemma when building bid documents to present technical logistics solutions to their clients.
They wanted to leverage the power of behavioural science to create behaviourally compelling bid documents that maximised the impact and fully demonstrated the value of their proposals. They brought us in to help make it happen.
First, we identified some key psychological reasons why the documents weren't as impactful as they could be. Second, we re-designed the documents to improve readability and comprehension using behavioural design. Finally, we ran an experiment to understand how much more effective the new documents were. This helped inform the client's decision to integrate behavioural science into their bidding practice.
Enhancing existing propositions
Our client, operating in logistics, wanted to improve the process utilised by their internal bid team to create compelling documents. The team use bid documents to inform stakeholders about the advantages of choosing their service over another by conveying detailed solutions that are bespoke to the needs of their customers.
They often found that their documents worked well when presented. However, they wanted to generate more momentum and get readers more excited once the documents were shared as a file.
We identified some behavioural barriers that were preventing this from happening with the two main areas being:
We re-designed the bid documents using principles of behavioural science which we believed would enhance readability, and improve comprehension of the material.
Moreover, we knew that choosing a partner is an emotional decision, as much as a transactional one, so we used behavioural science to make the document convey benefits and other more emotional arguments, rather than purely transactional ones.
Two of the many principles we used are outlined below:
Cognitive Easing – We highlighted key messages and outcomes, and pulled out the most relevant material onto a separate section. This reduced cognitive overload and enabled key stakeholders to flick through the document with more ease.
Saliency –imagery and icons were used to aid processing of the document. Where important information was laid out, we used salient colours and icons to draw attention to that section of the document.
Prior to conducting a full rollout of the new bid documents, we conducted an experiment to test the behaviourally designed bid documents against current assets, with a representative group of participants.
The results (3 of 5 stated above) were statistically significant at 0.05 level and clearly demonstrated a compelling case for using behavioural science within documents moving forward.
Following this experiment, we provided a bid document guide shared with the broader bid team to incorporate behavioural science principles in the bid writing process moving forward.
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Cowry Consulting Ltd is a registered member of the Global Association of Applied Behavioural Scientists.