The Winning Marketing Proposal: 8 Crucial Steps for Success
00: 18 - Talk to the right people
00:38 - Make a master template
01:15 - The executive summary
01:53 - Clearly define solutions
02:44 - Project summary
03:33 - The ‘About’ section
04:22 - The contract
04:40 - What you DON’T want to do
05:32 - Benefits of the master template
Do you want to know how to create a marketing proposal that is guaranteed to win 80% of the time?
Today I’ll reveal the 8 Steps I’ve used to creating a proposal that won clients like Legal Zoom, Hitachi, and AT&T. Discover the exact strategies & systems we used to 2X our close rate & scale faster.
Writing a winning marketing proposal is key to winning new business. Over the years, I have written many bad and good ones but learned over time how to write winning proposals. Here’s what I’ve learned about the elements to have in your winning proposal, from the logical progression to the best way to tell your story.
Make sure you’re talking to someone who’s qualified to make decisions. To this end, you’ll have to qualify them using the NBAT framework and make sure to ask those questions during the first ten minutes of the meeting.
Make a master template. Too many agency owners are constantly creating new proposals over and over when they could just have a master template and keep improving it over time. This is the key to start creating proposals in under 15 minutes each time.
Create an executive summary. A proper summary should be structured around what the client reveals during the initial conversation. What do they want? What are they struggling with?
Define your solutions. Don’t just list out the solutions and put a pricing on each. Really walk them through your plan with visuals that clearly indicate the steps to take and each of the different phases and deliverables.
Project summary. This is where you want to put the pricing because you want to go through the proposal with the client without them getting held up on a price. I also include a timeline so the client is always informed of what’s going to happen and when.
The ‘About’ section. This is where you’ll talk about your organization, what makes you different, and present each team member and what they do. The most important thing about this part is that you make sure to do it at the end. No one is ready to hear about you before the project summary and hearing the solutions.
The contract. Some people separate the master service agreement from the proposal. However, I believe in keeping things simple so I prefer to have it all as one document. Also, if you’re dealing with a bigger brand, be prepared for them to have you sign their own master service agreement.
Don’t send ahead of time. Never send the proposal to the prospect before you’ve had the time to review it with them. Some clients may request it in advance, just explain you understand why they want it ahead of time but it’s just not how you work. You want to review it with them to answer any question that may arise.
