Request for Proposals

Proposals are due by April 25, 2008 and should be sent electronically to:

Terry Meisenbach

eXtension Communications & Marketing Leader

terry.meisenbach@extension.org

760-318-0276/760-641-9354

If you have questions while preparing your response to this RFP, please contact Terry Meisenbach.

Purpose and scope of work

Successful investor education programs target a specific audience, address their specific learning needs, and help to overcome barriers to changing behavior. While many American adults could benefit from instruction in investment basics, the target audience for this program is farm households.

eXtension has identified a program entitled Investing for Your Future (IFYF) which is available online at http://www.extension.org/pages/Investing_for_Your_Future). This program will be taken to a national scale through the Online Investor Education (OIE) for Farm Households project and delivered to farm households via eXtension. Farm households are interpreted broadly where one or more residents owns/operates a working lands enterprise (e.g. farming, ranching, timber production). For more information about eXtension go to: http://www.extension.org/main/about.

IFYF has had success in various local and regional "markets." As it moves to national development and distribution, eXtension seeks to take the program to a larger scale. This requires implementation of a comprehensive audience/market analysis to determine current baseline information, particularly the investment concerns and learning preferences of farm households.

eXtension seeks a firm to provide an audience/market analysis that will include a situation analysis, consumer analysis, and competitor analysis.

eXtension, via the selected firm, will conduct a comprehensive market analysis of the target audience to determine investor education needs and concerns, baseline information on financial behaviors, learning preferences with Internet-based programs, and key messages to promote the program. We will seek to learn (at a minimum):

• Who are they? What is their demographic and psychographic profile?
• What are the baseline knowledge, information, concerns, and online learning preferences regarding personal finance, particularly, investments for this group?
• What motivates or demotivates them to develop a plan and buy financial products and services which will help them achieve lifetime financial security?
• What are their information seeking, decision-making, and buying processes?
• Who do they depend on for advice, especially related to personal finance and investment decisions?
• How often do they buy?
• How do they use the products/services?
• How do customers measure success?
• How sustainable are the effects of these programs?

A second component of the market analysis will be a comprehensive look at the market itself including its size, growth rate, stage of life cycle, level of vulnerability, performance levels, etc. We will also examine our competitors and their relationship to Cooperative Extension and eXtension. We will look at costs and adoption barriers related to financial planning and, in particular, where farm and ranch families fit within the market. Some questions that might be considered are:

• How is access to information about this topic different for farm families than the general population?
• Who are the providers?
• How do they provide information and evaluate change in behavior by farm families?
• What financial products are available to farm families that may not be available to the general population?

We will also be interested in future trends for the market, demographic shifts and patterns, social trends, technological trends with a special focus on the social networking aspects in the market.

The market/audience analysis will be used to design creative and effective messages about eXtension that will bring existing and new users to the eXtension public website. Included in this planning and implementation will be establishing and achieving media relations goals and objectives, identifying media targets, developing media opportunities, and reinforcing brand identity and equity.

Please Include

• A brief description of the qualifications of the organization(s) or individual(s) proposing to do the work.
• In addition to qualifications, success stories of previous market/audience analyses.
• A work plan, detailing strategies and tactics and timelines for planning and implementation.
• The total cost of the marketing/audience analysis but broken into incremental stages by quarters for 2008.

The awarded contract will be administered and paid through the University of Nebraska from funds granted by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.

Deliverables

• Market/audience analysis planning and implementation time table
• Implementation of analysis
• Regular briefings and updates as mutually determined by eXtension and selected firm.

Timeline

• Deadline for proposal submission - April 25, 2008
• Decision made on contract awardee(s) - April 30, 2008
• Attendance at OIE team meeting, Washington, D.C. - May 12-13, 2008
• Work estimated to begin on behalf of eXtension - June 1, 2008
• Work completion date (final report delivered) - August 15, 2008