No.7 in the Marketing for Growth series | Most tenders are lost long before procurement read them, which is why we are sharing the uncomfortable truths and steps that will finally move the needle in your favour.

In reality, tenders are lost much earlier in the process, when vendors skip discovery, ignore the evaluation model and submit information dumps that never quite speak to the buyer’s specific needs.

If you’re a large freight forwarder, your teams are probably flooded with tenders. If you’re a smaller player, every RFP looks like a chance to finally land the “anchor” customer. Either way, win rates often feel frustratingly low compared to the effort involved.

The difference between “participating” and “winning” is rarely about how many RFQs you answer. It’s about how selectively you qualify, how you structure your responses, and how you use marketing assets to make those responses easier to score and harder to ignore.

Big forwarders are invited into global tenders by default, which means you see everything from serious strategic bids to pure benchmarking exercises. Smaller forwarders often get invited late or only for specific regions and feel they must respond to everything just to stay on the radar.

In both cases, the result is the same: overloaded tender teams, rushed answers, boilerplate copy, and a growing belief that “procurement just buys on price” because every response looks and sounds the same.

To turn tender chaos into a repeatable win process, here are nine practical steps that any forwarder – from global 3PL to ambitious independent – can apply.

Step 1: A Harder Go/No-Go For Big Players

For large forwarders, the first marketing decision is actually a commercial one: which tenders deserve a full, structured response.

• Define a clear “ideal customer profile” (ICP) for tenders (sectors, lanes, complexity, margin expectations, strategic fit) and score every invitation against it.
• Treat tender capacity as a scarce resource: if a global RFQ doesn’t fit your ICP or offers no realistic chance of margin, decline or offer a tightly defined alternative.

A disciplined go/no-go protects your teams from low-value bids and frees up time to build stronger, more customer-specific responses where you can genuinely differentiate.

Step 2: A Smarter Go/No-Go For Smaller Forwarders

Smaller forwarders often feel they cannot say no. Yet chasing every RFQ can be fatal: your best people spend weeks on global events you cannot win, while you miss mid-sized opportunities where you can offer real advantage.

• Prioritise tenders where your local knowledge, niche lane strength, or specialist service (e.g. customs, project cargo, e-commerce fulfilment) creates a clear edge.
• Be honest about capacity and network gaps. If you need partners to cover certain lanes, decide that upfront rather than patching it together mid-bid.

This lets you punch above your weight by focusing on tenders where your story is stronger than “we’re cheaper”.

Step 3: Shred The Tender – Then Assign

Whether you’re a global 3PL or a regional forwarder, the worst thing you can do is hand the whole RFP to one person and tell them to “have a go”.

Instead:

• Break the tender into logical modules (network, operations, IT, sustainability, customs, account management, implementation, pricing) and assign each to the right subject matter experts (SME).
• Build a storyboard: for each question, agree the interpretation, key messages, evidence, and owner before anyone writes full prose.

This structured approach is what allows large organisations to move coherently and gives smaller forwarders a way to look just as disciplined as the multinationals.

Step 4: Use Clarification Windows As Strategy

Many shippers still issue loosely defined RFIs/RFPs/RFQs, often via legacy platforms, with vague guidelines and limited discovery, especially in global tenders.

• Large forwarders can use Q&A to reshape scope, test evaluation priorities and challenge unrealistic assumptions. It signals seriousness without giving away your whole playbook.
• Smaller forwarders can use clarifications to highlight where their model adds value (e.g. hub choice, consolidation strategy, control towers) and to avoid being judged on a design that favours only the biggest carriers.

Viewed this way, clarification windows become part of your positioning, not just compliance.

Step 5: Build Answers The Way Evaluators Actually Score

Procurement teams are under pressure to justify decisions and often follow strict scoring matrices. They are not looking for the longest document; they are looking for the clearest, lowest-risk choice.

A practical framework both big and small forwarders can use:

• Answer – Mirror the question and state your approach in one or two sentences.
• Method – Describe the process, tools, governance and roles you will use.
• Evidence – Add proof: metrics, case studies, KPIs, certifications, references.
• Benefit – Translate what this means for this shipper’s cost, service and risk.

For large forwarders, this prevents sprawling “global capability” sections that never tie back to the question. For smaller players, it makes each answer feel tighter and more focused than the incumbents’ boilerplate.

Step 6: Stop Listing Services, Start Proving Outcomes

Most logistics tenders are full of the same service lists: global network, multimodal options, control towers, visibility platforms.

The shift that helps both large and small forwarders is to anchor every major section with outcomes:

• Explain how your consolidation strategy reduced CPU, improved container utilisation or lowered LCL exposure – with numbers.
• Show how your visibility tools prevented demurrage or aligned warehouse capacity with arrivals.
• Connect your tracking, reporting and governance to specific improvements in OTIF, stock availability or lead time stability.

You’re no longer just saying “we have a system”; you’re showing how that system solved problems similar to the shipper’s.

Step 7: Use Marketing To Pre-Build Your Proof Library

This is where marketing stops being “nice to have” and becomes central to winning tenders.

For large forwarders:

• Treat every major implementation and continuous improvement project as a future case study – with quantified results and buyer-approved references.
• Maintain a structured library of sector-specific proof: fashion retail, automotive, industrial, healthcare, etc., each with ready-made storylines and metrics.

For smaller forwarders:

• Focus on fewer, deeper stories that showcase your niche: a regional fashion retailer, a critical spare parts program, a complex customs setup.
• Turn those into reusable one-pagers you can drop into tenders as evidence, even when the RFP doesn’t explicitly ask for “case studies”.

This preparation massively reduces the time needed to produce a “high-scoring” answer when the next RFQ lands.

Step 8: Make Your Brand Easy To Remember Under Pressure

Tender panels often review multiple similar proposals in one sitting. The provider that sticks in mind is often the one whose story is easiest to retell after the meeting.

For big and small forwarders alike:

• Use a simple, repeatable positioning line (“We are the X specialists for Y shippers”) and weave it through your executive summary and answers.
• Use consistent diagrams to explain your operating model, control towers and governance so different sections of the bid feel connected.

When a procurement lead asks, “Remind me, which one were they?” you want an answer that goes beyond “the cheapest”, and that comes from clear, consistent messaging.

Step 9: Build A Feedback Loop – Even When Shippers Say No

Most forwarders, especially at scale, rarely get detailed feedback on lost bids, which means teams keep repeating the same mistakes.

• Large forwarders can create a central win/loss library capturing what was known about pricing, solution fit, relationship history and feedback, even if it’s anecdotal.
• Smaller forwarders can treat each loss as a discovery call. Ask for a short feedback session, offer insight on their process in return, and refine your go/no-go filters accordingly.

Over time, this data changes the conversation from “we’re unlucky” to “we know where we win and where we shouldn’t bid”.

Why This Lets Smaller Forwarders Punch Above Their Weight

Structured tender discipline is not just a big-company advantage. In fact, smaller forwarders can adopt it faster because they have fewer internal silos and fewer legacy templates.

When you:

• Qualify ruthlessly
• Use a disciplined answer structure
• Anchor everything in outcomes
• Reuse strong, buyer-relevant proof

…your responses begin to look like they came from a much larger organisation – without the internal friction that often slows the multinationals down.

Every forwarder wants the ‘tender silver bullet’ – the uncomfortable truth is that tender “magic” is 80% qualifying hard, structuring responses properly, and only 20% polish. The good news is that once you build that discipline, marketing finally starts to move the needle instead of just decorating bids.

Next Week

In the final article of Marketing for Growth: The Logistics Business Playbook, we’ll explore:

Sales and Marketing: Better Together

Why aligning sales and marketing creates stronger customer relationships, better-qualified opportunities and more sustainable business growth.

We’ll examine how the most successful logistics businesses break down internal silos, share customer insight and ensure every marketing activity supports meaningful commercial outcomes.