How to Write a Strong Marketing Proposal
Posted on 16. Jan, 2009 by Kyle in Featured, Marketing
Writing a strong proposal is key to winning new business. It is the point of reference that both you and your client will reference when there is a need to establish expectations, objectives and successes.
Over the years, I have written a lot of proposals. Some were really bad and some were great. In the past year or so, I’ve begun to hone in on what I believe to be a strong proposal format. Since this is one of the keys to success, I thought I would share with you all how I write marketing proposals for my prospect clients.
Note: At the bottom of this post, you will find a Word template that you can download for your own use.
Step 1: The Overview
This purpose of the overview is to show your client that you understand the opportunity at-hand, the market conditions they are facing, and how you and/or your company can help them achieve the goals and objectives. Be careful to keep this section about the client, not you.
Step 2: Our Idea
The next step is to write a summary about your campaign idea(s). You want to be careful to not reveal so much detail that they run with your idea and never hire you. You want them to see that you’ve given it some thought and you have a plan when they hire you.
Step 3: Prove Your Idea
In step three, provide the prospect client with statistics and research that backs up why you think your ideas are viable. In some cases, you may be able to provide insight into an area of opportunity that they never thought of, thus giving you a competitive edge.
Step 4: Objectives *
In step four, list out the objectives that you plan to achieve and when. For example:
- Complete the 2009 marketing strategy and schedule within 30 days
This gives your client a list of deliverables and sets the expectations and benchmarks for success. It also empowers your client to keep you accountable for what you say you’ll deliver.
Step 5: Measurement of Results
In step five, you establish how you and the client will measure success. Be as specific as possible. For example:
- Increase the number of unique visitors at the website by 10% within 90 days of the campaign launch
The temptation is not to be specific because nothing is guaranteed. However, establishing measurable results will build confidence in your client and give you and your team a scoreboard in which you can measure your own success.
Step 6: The Value to [Client Name]
In step six, you establish credibility with your clients. This is where you talk about your previous successes, your technological advances, best-practices and current and/or previous client accomplishments.
Step 7: Timing
In step seven, you estimate how long it will take for you to plan, execute and provide proper analysis of the idea(s) and when you can start on the project.
Step 8: Methodology & Options
One of the keys to a proposal is providing options to your client. If you only give them one, they will see your proposal as take-it-or-leave-it proposal. That will leave you clientless in a heartbeat. However, providing them options empowers them to decide how they will use you based on their needs, not yours. Here are the options that I generally provide to my clients:
- Advisory – In this role, you typically serve in a short-term capacity. Perhaps, three to six months. Your aim is to establish the campaign plan, strategy and analytics, then empower their team to execute.
- Consultative – In this option, you do everything that you would have done in the advisory role, but you work with the staff individually to make sure they are trained to do the job well. You also help with the initial execution of the campaign, but leave the day-to-day details to them. The timing of this option could range from three to nine months.
- Collaborative – In this option, you do all of the above PLUS you work in the day-to-day. The estimated time of involvement will depend on the complexity of the project.
Step 9: Terms & Conditions
In step nine, you present the following:
- financial fees for each of the above options
- payment terms (how much you need upfront to start the contract; discount if contract is paid in full upfront, etc)
- expense terms
- any other conditions you want to put on the proposal
As a general rule, it’s a good idea to keep your terms and conditions minimal, especially with corporate clients. If you opt for the long detailed versions, expect delays due to legal involvement. It’s best to offer the minimal conditions and let their legal team take lead if they decide that your proposal needs legal involvement.
Step 10: Acceptance
In step ten, your client checks their desired option, signs and dates. Don’t forget to provide an easy way for them to send the contract back to you.
In Conclusion
While this process may seem long and drawn out, you’re right it is. The proposal is where we make our money. What keeps your clients coming back are results. Those results are determined by what objectives and measurements you provide within your proposal.
By no means is this template exhaustive, but it will give you the benefit of knowing what I know after years of writing proposals. If you have suggestions, comments or feedback, I welcome them by email or in the comments section below.
For your convenience, I’ve provided a Word template
you can download to get started on. I’ve also posted the template in Google Docs for your convenience.
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Pass it on…if you found this helpful, please Digg and/or StumbleUpon and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter.
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* Step 4-10 of my proposal template was modeled and adapted from the book, Million Dollar Consulting Toolkit, by Alan Weiss; a book I highly recommend.
24 Responses to “How to Write a Strong Marketing Proposal”
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29. Apr, 2010
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About Me
I am the VP of Marketing for Halogen, Executive Director of Help-Portrait, casual blogger, husband to Kristy, & dad of 2, with one in the oven (due 1/1/11).-
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Matt Fehrmann
16. Jan, 2009
How many pages does this usually become? Just curious. I do Web development proposals at Zgraph, where I work. There is definitely stuff I can glean from this, so thanks!
Kyle
26. Jan, 2009
@Matt – My proposals usually range from 2-4 pages; depending on how complex the project is. I try to keep it as simple as possible.
Alan Weiss
17. Jan, 2009
I appreciate your mentioning my work, but more of what you print here is from my work than you credit, specificially, everything from “objectives” through “acceptance,” and originated over ten year ago in my book “How to Write A Proposal That’s Accepted Every Time,” and reprinted in the book you do credit. I’d appreciate your making this clear in your column. Thank you, Alan Weiss
Kyle
26. Jan, 2009
Mr. Weiss,
First, thank you for stopping by. I’m honored to have you as a visitor.
Most importantly, I have corrected my post to reflect the amount of influence your work has had in crafting the template I use in my business. My apologies for under crediting you. It wasn’t intentional.
Kyle
lblack01
14. Jul, 2009
I think this is a great outline and I would love to download the word template but it is not allowing me. Is there something else I can do?
Kyle
14. Jul, 2009
I’ve posted it on Google Docs for your convenience.
lblack01
14. Jul, 2009
I searched it on google docs and it was not there.
I tried clicking on the link on your page and it is not working. Maybe it is because I have a MAC?
Ralph Morton
18. Jul, 2009
Thank you for your help, the steps you provide will help me with various promotions I will take on in future.
Trey King
01. Sep, 2009
Kyle – Thanks so much for a great template. Iw as really struggling with hoe to get what was in my head onto paper. With one paper you saved my day!!
Noelle E. Sewell
22. Nov, 2009
Kyle,
I just started working with a magazine that has no budget for marketing but we have been asked to submit a marketing plan to several companies. Are there any books you could recommend to assist us with this? I read the template but I don’t understand some of the tems you use.
Jamie Favreau
04. Jan, 2010
Thank you for your Google doc. I appreciate it. I am writing a social media proposal and needed the help.
Kyle
04. Jan, 2010
Glad I could help!
Victor
06. Jan, 2010
Thanks so much for the well thought out post. I have to turn a proposal in on Friday and this is just what I needed.
Aurea
28. Jan, 2010
This is a great post! Very Well Done!
ellabelle
18. Feb, 2010
Thanks for the Proposal Template!!! I was searching for a Marketing Proposal for a start-up in NYC and this should be a perfect outline to use to put the proposal together quickly.
Mitsu
19. Feb, 2010
Thank you for posting !! The format was a great help to me. I would also like to thank Allan Weiss for writing the book.
Wayne
20. Mar, 2010
Thanks a billion for the template, its direct and efficient, much appreciated!
Gulfraz
28. Apr, 2010
very well done
rakesh
05. May, 2010
thanks!!!!
it helped me
Diane Pascual
22. May, 2010
Thank-you so much for this! I've been researching online and stumbled upon this! How awesome that you have provided this! Thank-you!!!
Kyle
31. May, 2010
Thanks for leaving a note Diane! Enjoy.
Amy
03. Aug, 2010
Thanks for the template and general guidelines on writing a marketing proposal. It is helping me greatly on a huge proposal I am working on this week. Many, many thanks!
jackson osei owusu
04. Aug, 2010
I want to write a proposal to a company,to request for supplying them of autoparts.