By Jo van Vuuren — Fractional CMO
Most bids fail for the same handful of reasons, and none of them is bad writing. They fail because the response was built around what the organisation wanted to say rather than what the evaluator was scoring, because claims were not backed up, or because it landed after the deadline. A winning bid is less a piece of writing than a piece of engineering: get the structure and the evidence right, and the writing looks after itself.
Start with the criteria, not the brief
Before drafting anything, read the evaluation criteria and weightings in full, more than once. Most tenders and grant applications publish exactly what will be scored and how much each section is worth, so treat that as the actual brief, not the narrative description sitting around it. Build a simple matrix mapping each criterion to the section that will answer it, with the weighting noted alongside. Time spent here saves rewrites later, because it stops confident, well-written answers being drafted to the wrong question.
Answer the question that was actually asked
Assessors mark what is on the page against a checklist, not what the organisation is generally capable of. If a question asks how risk will be managed on this contract, answer that, specifically, instead of defaulting to a general capability statement, however strong. Repeat key terms from the question back in the answer; it signals directness to a time-pressed assessor working through dozens of submissions, and reduces the chance a valid answer gets missed because it was not obviously there.
Evidence every claim
Unsupported claims read as marketing and score accordingly. Every assertion of capability, quality or track record needs something behind it (a method, a process, a named role, a relevant piece of prior delivery) described specifically enough to be credible. Vague adjectives without evidence attached usually cost marks, not earn them, because an assessor cannot verify an adjective.
- State the claim clearly and specifically
- Show the method or evidence behind it
- Show the outcome, or how it will be measured
Write for the assessor’s convenience
Assume the person marking your response is reading many others in a short window. Use the structure and headings from the question itself, keep paragraphs short, and put the direct answer in the first sentence of each section. Do not build up to it. Plain, well-organised English scores higher than dense or elaborate prose, because it is easier to mark quickly and with confidence.
Get the commercial and impact narrative right
Technical competence rarely wins alone. Tenders usually score value for money and social value alongside quality; grant funders score impact and fit alongside deliverability. Make the connection between what will be done and what it achieves explicit, in the funder’s or buyer’s terms as well as your own. This is where many technically strong bids underperform: the delivery plan is sound, but the case for why it matters, stated in the funder’s language, is left implicit.
Where good work loses anyway
A handful of avoidable mistakes account for most losses that have nothing to do with the quality of the underlying work.
- Generic content reused across bids without tailoring to this criteria set
- Sections that miss a stated requirement, even a minor one
- Claims made with no evidence attached
- Submission after the deadline, or in the wrong format
- A structure built around the organisation’s logic rather than the question’s
None of these are writing problems. They are process problems, and every one of them is preventable with a proper read of the criteria before the first word is drafted.
Common questions
What is the single biggest reason bids lose?
Missing or under-answering the published criteria, usually because the response was structured around the organisation’s own narrative, not the evaluator’s scoring framework. A technically excellent submission that answers the wrong question, or answers it too generally, will consistently lose to a more ordinary one that hits every criterion directly.
How long before the deadline should bid writing start?
As early as the criteria and evaluation weightings are available: ideally with weeks in hand, not days. Early time goes into reading the criteria properly, mapping evidence to each requirement and drafting calmly; late time gets spent firefighting gaps and formatting under pressure, which is when avoidable mistakes and missed requirements creep in.
Does a well-written bid still need evidence, or does strong writing carry it?
Evidence carries it; writing makes the evidence easier to find and credit. Assessors score against criteria and look for proof, not prose quality, so a plainly written answer backed by specific evidence will consistently outscore a polished answer that asserts capability without demonstrating it.
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