How to Write an Effective Marketing Proposal in 5 Simple Steps

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It is difficult to overstate the importance of writing an effective marketing proposal. A good proposal will put your marketing agency on the path to a fruitful and prosperous business relationship with the client. A poor one will damage your brand, end up in the trash and could harm your ability to generate clients.

When a business owner reads a marketing proposal, they expect to see clear evidence that you are competent and can have a positive impact on their business. Your proposal needs to engage business owners and wow them. It needs to highlight your agencies strengths, while simultaneously focusing on their needs. Striking this balance is not easy. Many marketing agencies use Qwilr’s marketing proposal template software to put together effective marketing proposals quickly and efficiently.

Here are five simple steps to help you put together a killer marketing proposal that will finally get you that elusive client.

Step 1: Identify the Client’s Needs

The very best marketing proposals focus on the client’s needs. The first step in any proposal should be identifying those needs so that you can formulate a structure and build an argument around those specialized needs.

This will allow your proposal to focus on why your agency is best suited to meet your client’s individual requirements. Marketing approaches are not ‘one size fits all’ and managers will be impressed at your ability to both effectively identify their needs and prescribe solutions for them.

Step 2: Establish a Clear Structure

One of the biggest weaknesses many marketing proposals have is they lack a clear structure and coherent talking points. They can come across as verbal diarrhoea, erratically jumping from one topic to another in just a few short sentences.

Avoid falling into this trap by devising a clear structure with a set of identifiable objectives and talking points. When you come to start writing the proposal, you can follow this structure to create flow and a coherent stream of consciousness a business owner can follow.

Step 3: Present the Information in the Form of a Problem Statement and Solution

A persuasive marketing proposal contains a problem statement, a proposed solution, then ties it all together with information on the agency, including pricing details. For example, if you have effectively determined that a chain of fast food restaurants wants to increase the volume of users on their app by 30%, your problem statement should reflect that. It should offer a short explanation of the underlying factors inhibiting their ability to increase the number of app users, then offer several solutions for how to remedy the situation.

The solutions should be specific. For example, if you recommend using a social media advertising campaign, you should include what social media platform you will use, and how long the campaign will run for. The very best solutions will also include a brief cost-benefit analysis.

Step 4: Edit the Language

Now you have your proposal, you should revisit it and ensure the language is clear, succinct and easy to understand. Try and keep industry jargon to a minimum. Remember, the reader is under no obligation to read your proposal. If it is too difficult to read and the meaning is not instantly apparent, they will quickly become bored and abandon the process.

Step 5: Weed Out Irrelevant Details

Before you send your proposal off, you need to go through the whole thing from top to bottom and remove any irrelevant details. Even leaving one in can result in the reader abandoning the proposal halfway through and refusing to read on.

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