Learn to Write a Digital Marketing Proposal for Client

Get Ready to Take On New Projects

Digital marketing has emerged as the biggest buzz in the field of marketing in the last couple of years. To a newcomer, digital marketing is something that utilizes the internet. To experts, digital marketing is an essential thing you must do to keep your brand breathing and growing both today and into the future. 

So, if you’re one of those experts who offer digital marketing services that help clients thrive in this technology-focused world, then congrats! You’ve just discovered a wealth of information on proposal creation. 

It all starts with an effective proposal.

But the moment you start writing the proposal, you develop uncertainty and fear- fear of rejection. 

You feel stuck and probably a bit depressed. 

Which is why you need a manual on how to write a digital marketing proposal:

• Because it’ll help you avoid those same basic mistakes
• Because it will give you some practical steps to follow
• Because it will get you rid of all your doubts

After reading this guide you’ll be ready to take on new projects with the right digital marketing proposal in hand and greater confidence than ever. 

Let’s go!!!

What is a Digital Marketing Proposal?

A digital marketing proposal is a sales document used to win a prospect’s business. It includes all the information related to key deliverables and services and an overview of timelines and costs. This sales document mainly focuses on how your digital marketing services will help potential clients achieve their goals.

At a higher level your digital marketing proposal will generally include the following (discussed later):

• Client testimonials or examples of case studies to build trust.
• Agency’s background information to prove your worth.
• Scope of services, realistic timelines, and costs
• Value of your digital marketing services.

An Overview of your Digital Marketing Proposal

An overview section is the first thing your prospect will go through before they read your proposal. That’s why you need to make sure that you set your expectations from the start.

Here are a few tips when writing an overview of your proposal:

Be brief

Don’t scare off your clients at the start with too many facts, you’ll get plenty of chances in your proposal further to clarify your digital marketing services. The key to your overview is to make every word count. Trim down all the fat and you’ll have a stronger and more convincing overview of your proposal.

Be clear

In some cases you’re sending proposals to such clients who might not have heard of SEO or, PPC; that’s to ensure that your writing is effective and keep your recipient engaged be sure to avoid jargon and replace it with easy-to-understand terms and phrases.

Substitute every word

While writing the overview of your digital marketing proposal it’s good to write to an audience with a 9th-grade reading level. To do this, skim through your writing and hunt for words that could be harder to understand without a dictionary. Then replace such words with those that the average person would understand.

Mistakes Digital Marketers Make While Writing a Proposal

 

Over-Promising Campaign

The first rule of digital marketing is- keep your promise reasonable so you can exceed your prospect’s expectations.

Ideal digital marketing proposals never go overboard with their promises because its always better to surprise your prospect with fantastic results rather than letting them down with unfulfilled expectations.

Addressing Specific Problem with General Solution

A successful digital marketing proposal will paint a clear picture of what your services will do to solve your prospect’s pain points. If their goal is to convert visitors into customers then provide specific details about the actions you’ll take to achieve their goal.

Not Defining the Results After Every Stage in the Timeline

Never forget to highlight results in the timeline your prospect can expect after every stage in the digital marketing campaign as it is one of the most crucial elements of the timeline table. It lets your prospect know that the marketing campaign is well-defined and perfectly planned.

Preparation Before Writing The Proposal

 

Step 1: Talk with your client to find out what they want

The better you know your prospect the better your sales proposal is going to be. 

Each prospect is like an individual Rubik’s cube that you’ve to solve. Fortunately, there are ways to make it easier to understand your prospect. Let’s explore one by one,

• Research your client’s business: This will include as many stories, articles related to the business of your client as possible. Forums, online communities even social media are great platforms to gain a general understanding of your client’s brand and industry trends. 
• Identify their decision-makers: Identify the decision-makers and the decision-making process before you set up a meet. Once you’ve identified the decision-makers, you can then decide your approach for engaging them.
• Research the competition: This information will give insights about what your prospect’s competitors are doing and then with the same data you can tell what your client will need to do in order to compete with others in the industry.
• Identify their business KPIs and goals: Discuss your client’s goal with them If they can’t define the clear project goal, guide them. Give them examples of how your digital marketing services can help them achieve their ultimate goal.

Step 2: Verify the communication

To avoid misunderstanding always repeat what the client says to verify whether you’ve understood what they wanted. If you talked over the phone, write the summary of your conversation in an email, send it over, and ask them to confirm the information. 

Remember to include as many important details as possible to avoid any further surprises. 

Step 3: Get right set of tools to make your job easier

Writing a sales proposal is like doing a high-school assignment, it’s not your favorite part to do but then you have to do. Even though composing business proposals is an inevitable part of any marketer’s life, it shouldn’t have to be that painful. You can find ways to make that process much easier.

Thanks to the online proposal management tool, it saves you from the hassle of editing/ writing frustrations of traditional MS Word kind of tools. 

You heard it right, proposal writing can be extremely easy and time-saving if you choose the right proposal software.

Format of Your Digital Marketing Proposal

 

Even though the exact format of sales proposals varies depending on the company and the project, but every successful digital marketing proposal consists of these sections,

Front Cover

This may sound obvious but make sure your cover page clearly features,

• Name of your organization and logo
• Project title
• Date
• Contact information (personal contact name, address, country, phone, email, website)
• Name of the client you are applying.

Pro Tip: The cover page of your digital marketing proposal doesn’t have to be glamorous, but it needs to be well-designed.

A Perfect introductory Pitch

Your introductory pitch is nothing but an executive summary of your digital marketing proposal.

Most people put a lot of effort into crafting their business proposal (which is not wrong!) but they, unfortunately, spend only a few minutes on the executive summary or the cover letter which they often consider as an unimportant formality. With the help of this review of our own cover letter, check out whether your cover letter has all the elements that are necessary to create a compelling one.

It efficiently provides information given in the proposal’s body so that the reader can quickly summarize the main key findings of the entire document. Here are a few key tips while writing an executive summary,

• Express the understanding of their pain points
• Highlight the benefits they’ll get from investing in your digital marketing services.
• Showcase your valuable assets that sets you apart from your competitors.
• With a strong CTA, recommend which sections of the proposal that a person should read next.
• Always keep the copy focused and purposeful.

Detailed Specification

Now, after winning their attention successfully, it’s time to blow their mind away with all the details. In this section, give details about what you are trying to do for your prospect and how you will do it. While doing so, recall the conversation you had with your prospect even before you started writing the proposal.

The best practice for making this scope of services section extra powerful is by

• Clarifying the method you are going to be following
• Mentioning The set of tools you’ll be using for this specific digital marketing campaign.
• Including the KPIs (metrics) you’ll be using to determine the success of the digital marketing campaign.

The main purpose of this section is to give a rough sketch of the process you will use for the execution. Based on these key pointers we’ve re-examined a scope of services section of our digital marketing proposal and also addressed the mistakes and scope of improvements.

Timeline

The timeline table is one of the most crucial elements in your digital marketing proposal. The more realistic it is, the more your prospect can gain clarity of when they can expect to see the result.

No matter how the timeline table is built, the following key pieces of information need to be captured by a digital marketing proposal timeline,

• List of activities to perform
• The dates on which the activities should be completed (start and end time)
• Expected duration required for each task

A detailed breakdown of your timeline will give your prospect more confidence that your agency can make their digital marketing campaign successful.

Get more insights with this digital marketing timeline evaluation.

Investment

The second most important element of your digital marketing proposal is the investment fee table. The main goal of a pricing table is to clearly communicate all the information your prospect needs to get them to make a purchase.

Many digital marketing agencies have a complicated set of offerings that might overwhelm the prospect. There are a few strategies to make your pricing section as clear as possible. One of them for effectively pricing your sevices is by creating an interactive pricing table.

If you don’t know how the interactive fee table looks like then its right here. Go check it out.

Use a pricing table with a range of options that let your prospect or customer edit the quantities, select the digital marketing services that best fit their needs, and allow them to customize your solution.

Proof of Past Work

The purpose of the case study in your digital marketing proposal is to tell potential customers how a similar customer succeeded in their business with your services. You can fill out this section with the expertise you have, the awards you won, the big list of your happy clients.

A great case study(always divided into 5 parts) in your digital marketing proposal gives prospective clients a real insight into the benefits of your digital marketing services and also an idea of what it’s like to work with you.

It can make your clients visualize themselves working with you.

Do your best to make them feel secure if they decide to hire you.

With the help of this analysis of our own case study, check out whether your case study has all the elements that are necessary to create an epic one.

Terms and Conditions

Always keep the contract and your terms and conditions part of your proposal and get them signed together to avoid future conflict.

Next Steps

It is where you need to explain in-depth what you want your client to do next to get the things rolling. You can include something like,

• Sign the proposal (digitally with e-signature)
• The initial amount to be payable while signing the contract
• Schedule the next meeting call to discuss further steps.

Don’t expect to submit your proposal and assume your work is done. Take the initiative to indicate you’ll be in touch to discuss the proposal further.

8 Potential Digital Marketing Service 

Now is the time to give a brief about your potential digital marketing services to your client. The following are the most common digital marketing services you must include in your proposal.

1. Content Marketing: Describe how they’ll be able to attract, acquire, and engage their target audience through the creation of relatable and valuable content.
2. Email Marketing: Explain how this service can help them stay their customer’s top of mind with engaging newsletters.
3. Search Engine Optimization: Describe how you’ll help your client double their traffic, leads, and sales with search engine optimization.
4. Social Media Management: Describe how you’ll promote their business with social media campaigns on different social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and more.
5. Pay per click (PPC): Describe how PPC can help them drive more qualified leads to their website in no time.
6. Website Design and Development: Explain your process of web design and development 
7. Branding: Describe how you’ll develop a full-proof branding strategy with the help of top-notch technologies and innovative methods.
8. Landing Page Design: Explain how you’ll help your client drive great revenue through the landing page. 

Tips for Concluding Your Proposal

A digital marketing proposal without a close is definitely a missed opportunity. Closing a proposal means summing up all the main points, resolving challenges, and finishing with a flourish.

Summarize Key Points

Craft a summary of your proposal, keep it brief. Again remind the prospect about their pain points and how you can fix it. Indeed, these issues were likely covered in your proposal but the closing should include the bullet points or visual examples of your key benefits.

Move Them to Actions

A clear call to action because obviously, you can’t expect the buyers to move forward on their own. Tell them exactly what to do next to get your offer. What they can expect to happen and how excited you are to be able to help them.

Even if the customer isn’t ready for the sale yet, be sure to keep the prospect on the journey and move forward with a follow-up meeting or a trial period. 

Make it easy for a recipient to communicate

Whichever type of communication you choose, make sure you list all in the closeout: email, phone, address, are usual. In certain cases, website addresses and social media accounts will also work. 

Wrap Up

So, before you begin writing the first draft of your digital marketing proposal go through this guide. I hope this guide helped you clear so many doubts about the digital marketing proposal.

If you are still feeling it a bit challenging, then you can always use our customizable and free digital marketing proposal template to create a winning proposal in a matter of minutes.