Free Marketing RFP Template

When a business owner decides it’s time to bring in a marketing agency, the process usually starts one of two ways: a referral from someone they trust, or a search that leads to a series of agency calls that all start to sound the same.

Without a formal Request for Proposal, you’re evaluating agencies based on how well they sell themselves — not on how well they understand your business, your goals, or your market. You end up comparing polished decks instead of actual strategy. Pricing feels inconsistent. And it’s nearly impossible to know who’s genuinely capable and who’s just experienced at winning business.

A well-structured RFP changes that dynamic entirely. It puts you in control of the evaluation. It forces agencies to respond to your specific situation rather than default to their standard pitch. And it creates a documented baseline you can refer back to when holding an agency accountable after the engagement begins.

THAT Agency’s free Marketing RFP Template is a Microsoft Word document built to walk you through every section of a professional marketing RFP — structured so that any agency receiving it has to respond with specifics, not generalities.

What the RFP Template Covers:

• Project scope and schedule — define the work, the timeline, and what a successful engagement looks like from your perspective
• Budget and resources — set clear parameters so agencies respond with realistic, comparable proposals rather than aspirational pricing
• Client references — request the documentation you need to verify track record and performance with businesses similar to yours
• Evaluation criteria — communicate exactly how you’ll be scoring proposals so agencies know what you actually prioritize
• Terms of service — establish expectations around deliverables, reporting cadence, communication standards, and contract structure
• Conflicts of interest — surface any competing client relationships or limitations before the engagement begins
• Additional sections tailored to marketing-specific considerations that generic RFP templates miss

Who This Is For:

Business owners, presidents, and marketing directors who are preparing to engage a new marketing agency, re-bid an existing contract, or bring structure to a search process that’s felt disorganized in the past. If you’ve ever walked away from an agency pitch thinking “that all sounded the same,” a formal RFP is the tool that fixes that.

This template pairs directly with THAT Agency’s free Marketing Agency Selection Scorecard — use the RFP to collect responses, then the scorecard to evaluate them objectively. Together, they give you a complete, repeatable framework for making one of the most important vendor decisions your business will make.

The agencies worth hiring will welcome a well-structured RFP. The ones that push back on it are telling you something important.