You’ve spoken to your potential client and gotten to grips with their needs, you feel confident that you are a great fit and at this point, are ready to woo them into selecting you as a marketing partner. To seal the deal and win that perfect partnership, craft a seductive and compelling proposal that they’ll find impossible to turn down. 

To ensure your proposal is concrete, these are the elements you MUST include:

• An explanation of how social media marketing can benefit their business
• A list of the strategies and steps you will take to achieve their goals
• Proof that you are qualified and evidence of your previous successes
• A breakdown of the important details e.g. deadlines and costs

Include all of these in your proposal and you’ll be on your way to success. Your potential client will have all the evidence they need to make that final decision. Before you begin writing your proposal, keep reading as we’ve put together a step by step guide on how to do it best.

Determine the client’s goals

A great place to start is by finding out what their business and social media goals are. Once you know what they’re working towards, you can start to figure out how social media will help them get there. 

Suss out the client’s audience

Don’t make assumptions about their audience when writing your proposal. Collect as much data as you can about the client’s audience and use it to help you plan your strategy. If you have a relationship with the client at this point, ask them to provide you with any data or analytics they may have. 

Research their competition

Identify at least five of their main competitors and monitor their activity. Gaining an insight into their social media activities will help you identify any gaps, then you can put together a plan for how you’re going to fill it with your social media strategy. You should also ask the following questions when researching their competitors:

• How often do they post content?
• Is their content entertaining enough?
• Is their content useful?
• Which types of content do better than others?

Having answers to these questions will give you clear direction for your social media strategy. 

Run a social media audit

Investigate which social media channels your client is already using, identify which ones are most successful, and assess the metrics. Having a good grasp on what they’ve been doing, what’s been working and what hasn’t will help you identify growth opportunities. 

Create a content strategy

At this point you should be in a good position to begin planning your content strategy. Decide what content you’d like to produce on which channels, considering design, style and voice. Make sure you identify the strongest elements of your client’s brand image and capitalise on these. 

Remember, communicate with your client whilst you’re planning the content strategy, at the end of the day it’s their needs you’re trying to address so use them as a source of information. 

If you’re having difficulties putting together a great social media content strategy, check out this article we wrote. 

Write your proposal

If you’ve completed the last 5 steps, it’s time to put everything together into one great winning proposal. Remember to include:

• The client’s needs and goals
• Social media goals and objectives
• An outline of your tactics 

We hope you found this post helpful if there’s anything we can help you with, get in touch. 

Good luck!