How to craft a winning marketing proposal template

How to Craft a Winning Marketing Proposal Template

For digital marketing agencies, the times ahead are as exciting as they are nerve-wracking. According to a recent eMarketer report, a 17% increase in global digital ad spend in 2021 will enable the market to reach $389 billion.

Undoubtedly, this presents an ideal environment for you to scale your business and increase your market share. However, achieving those goals is not as straightforward as it may seem.

With increasing opportunities also comes a rise in competition. To get ahead, you must become more aggressive, creative, and effective in your marketing efforts when pursuing a prospective client.

In your pursuit to win a potential client’s digital marketing campaign, you’ll need to demonstrate your capacity to deliver by marketing your services. To consistently turn those leads into new clients, you’ll require a compelling digital marketing proposal. 

Depending on each client’s needs, a digital marketing campaign may demand different elements. These range from social media marketing to email marketing to PPC ad management. With each of these, you’ll probably have to tweak your digital marketing proposal accordingly.

In this regard, it’s extremely beneficial to have a marketing proposal template. As a marketing tool, a template can reduce your workload when writing proposals and significantly improve the chances of converting your target audience. 

What Is a Marketing Proposal?

A marketing proposal is a document marketers submit to a potential client that outlines a marketing project strategy that will address the client’s business needs.

A winning proposal communicates suitable and customized courses of action, the scope of work, and potential results, all accompanied by supporting data and testimonials.

As a marketer, your digital marketing proposal may ultimately prove to be the difference between bouncing off leads and turning them into high-paying long-term clients.

Why Is a Marketing Proposal Template Important?

As you may well know, the conversion rates of various digital marketing channels can be as low as two percent. This means that you’ll need to interact with tons of potential clients to convert enough to meet your target number.

With this in mind, it would be highly inefficient if your team had to start from scratch each time they needed to send a digital marketing proposal. A marketing proposal template makes the creation process repeatable, fast, and consistent, affording them time to handle more important tasks.

Elements of a Winning Digital Marketing Proposal

As with most marketing scenarios, the purpose of a digital marketing proposal is to demonstrate that you understand the client’s problem and that you can solve it. Therefore, for it to be compelling, you must conduct thorough research on each prospective client. 

Focus on the client rather than your brand. Provide as many details as you can about the marketing campaign without going overboard and be sure it’s relevant. 

Since you are the marketing expert, try and identify problems they may have but don’t realize are issues. Accompany this with customized solutions that can deliver beyond average results. 

Once you’ve taken all of these factors into account, all you’ll need is the right format to deliver your digital marketing proposal. You can use a pre-made marketing proposal template, like the one offered by Welcome, or build your own following the steps below. Here’s how:

1. Design an Appealing Cover Page

The value of your offer is arguably the most important component of a digital marketing proposal, but first impressions can make or break any deal. This is why the cover page design is essential. 

As the initial point of contact with your target audience, it should be visually appealing. More importantly, it should demonstrate that the proposal specifically targets them. One of the best ways to achieve this is by including the client’s brand on the cover. 

2. Demonstrate Your Knowledge About Their Needs in the Executive Summary

The executive summary should highlight the value you can offer a potential client. Provide all the details and insights you have gleaned during the discovery session or research on the client.

Such insight should focus on the marketing campaign’s goals, budgets, and deliverables. Provide in-depth analysis on some key points to highlight your extensive research and dedication to their satisfaction.

3. Lay the Groundwork for Your Services by Highlighting Their Goals and Challenges

Your pitch to any potential client should focus on the marketing or overall business challenges they face. You need to demonstrate that you understand them fully for your prospects to consider the solutions in your marketing proposal.   

Use this section to highlight the client’s problems, how you can address them, and the transformative effect the outcome will have.   

An effective way to align their needs and the solutions you offer is to ask the stakeholders questions concerning:

• Their revenue targets for the upcoming sales period
• The revenue goals for previous sales periods and whether they achieved those goals
• What challenges might prevent them from achieving their objectives
• The metrics they use to measure performance
• The resources available to meet objectives
• Competing priorities that may take precedence over the goals they highlight
• Whether they can revise goals and timelines if they are on course to achieve their objectives

Despite the knowledge that marketing is an investment, clients often view it as an expense. This can make it challenging to convince organizations to budget for marketing efforts accordingly. 

In light of this, communicate to your clients the actual cost of falling short of their goals. You want to demonstrate that the cost of inaction is far greater than marketing and completely without the potential benefits.

4. Go In-Depth Into The Marketing Strategies You Want to Employ (Deliverables)

If you have done thorough due diligence and compellingly presented your findings, your clients will be eager to learn what to expect. Depending on the type of digital marketing proposal you submit, you may refer to this stage as either ‘Deliverables’ or ‘Approach.’

Begin by giving a high-level overview of the marketing service you wish to provide. Give specifics about the marketing plan and outline the project phases, client responsibilities, and completion timelines if you’ll be working on a project basis. 

You can use the following structure for clarity:

Project Name

Phase 1

• Deliverables
• Timeline

Phase 2

• Deliverables 
• Timeline

If you will have a long-term relationship using a retainer model, you’ll also want to highlight everything included in the retainer. 

When creating a digital marketing proposal and highlighting deliverables, use the following template as a guide:

Project ABC (Month 1-3)

• Initial discovery sessions and assessment
• Developing the inbound marketing strategy
• Create the editorial calendar
• Competitor research
• Keyword research
• Perform onsite and offsite SEO audit and planning
• Develop Social media marketing strategy
• Create buyer personas

Deliverables Per Marketing Period (Month/Quarter)

Deliver x number of (specify for each):

• Blog posts
• Ebooks
• Whitepapers
• Landing and thank you pages
• Calls-to-action

This phase may also outline how you will launch and nurture different content marketing campaigns through social media and other channels. 

Monthly Retainer Deliverables

• X Blog posts
• Keyword analysis
• X eBooks
• Email marketing
• Link building
• Training
• Social media marketing activities such as running influencer campaigns, creating contents, and tracking performance
• Periodic reporting

Deliverables Available Outside the Retainer Agreement

• Retargeting
• Sponsorships
• PPC advertising
• Media relations management
• Guest blogging
• SlideShare Creation and promotion
• Content promotion
• eCommerce integration
• Video production and promotion
• Call tracking and nurturing

For each deliverable, provide details on how you will approach it and what the client should expect.

5. Provide a Scope of Work

For individuals who are not aware of the nitty-gritty of digital marketing, it may seem like a simple task one can accomplish with a few mouse clicks. Subsequently, this may make potential clients underestimate your services or value.

Other than the potential benefits of the marketing efforts, the client must also understand the work required for a successful campaign. Provide details on the processes behind the scenes and the work required to achieve their marketing objectives, but try to limit this section to one page.

6. Outline the Metrics You Will Use to Measure Success

Working from a combination of the client’s business objectives and the specifics goals of the marketing campaign, provide the necessary metrics to assess performance.

Such metrics may include an X% increase in traffic, email subscribers, conversion rates, or leads.

7. Show That You are the Right Agency for the Job 

After showing clients that they have a problem and that there are reliable solutions, you only have one more task: convincing them that you are the right marketing agency for them. 

This is where you gain their trust and confidence in your capacity to work with them and deliver on your promises. Provide insight into your company, such as your values, culture, and measures you take to foster healthy relationships with clients. 

8. Use Case Studies to Show Why You are Right for The Job

It’s one thing to say you can turn their fortunes, and it’s another thing altogether to show that you can. Reaffirm your capacity to deliver beyond their expectation with testimonials and case studies from previous clients.

9. Clarify the Terms and Conditions of the Contract

All parties need to know what they should expect in every business relationship and what other parties expect from them. Prepare the contract with the assistance of an attorney. It should include all important details such as payment terms and deliverables. 

Creating a Marketing Proposal Template Has Never Been Easier

As a digital marketing professional, many things may rank high on your priority list. These include balancing the search for new clients, serving existing ones, and keeping tabs on evolving and emerging marketing trends. As such, it’s crucial to have a tool that can assist you with creating winning proposals quickly and effectively. 

Welcome is a software designed to help digital marketers gain more control over their efforts by serving as a one-stop solution for all your marketing needs. It enables you to manage your marketing workload, communications, and content marketing, all accompanied by a free marketing proposal template.

Get started free to see how Welcome can boost your team’s agility and productivity, allowing your digital marketing agency to scale.