For anyone that provides social media services to clients, they should have an effective proposal in place for whenever any potential custom comes their way. If a proposal is not something that is already in place, it should be made a priority to create one, as you never know how soon one may be needed. However, knowing what to put into this document may not necessarily be all that straight forward if it is not something that you have produced before, which is why we have put together this helpful guide on what things need to be included.
The Proposal Overview
Every proposal should begin with an introduction and a summary of your proposal. Introduce your agency along with a short explanation of why your agency is a good match for the client’s needs. We recommend that you include the following aspects in your introductions:
- Your agency’s key services
- Mission statement
- What makes you different from your competitors?
These are one of the first things people notice about your business. Also, it is recommended to highlight any prior experience that makes your agency the right fit.
Make sure the prospect knows who they will be working with and what makes you an experienced social media marketer. However, remember not to overextend yourself while writing the proposal.
Analysis
Do some analysis that identifies what problems exist and then present these findings to the client. This helps to show that you have a good understanding of what their needs are for their social media presence and what you can do to help them with improving it.
The next arena is your chance to show that you understand how social media marketing will help the company achieve its broader objectives. In many cases, the goal of the customer isn’t only to develop their online following, but also to boost their number of leads and sales.
Identify three to five S.M.A.R.T. social media objectives. Each aim should have a platform, a measure, and an end date. The aim and the metric for success must be clearly defined. Setting excessively optimistic social media objectives might lead to customer attrition, so be sure to keep your expectations in check.
An audit of a client’s existing performance on each social media network is the next step after identifying their objectives.
There are several ways to increase your company’s social media presence, but one of the most common is doing a social media audit.
The first step in doing a social media audit is to locate and verify each of their accounts. Following the existing metrics of the prospect, a social media audit often includes:
- Platforms with the most fans
- Frequency of posting
- Amount of interaction per post.
- demographics of the audience
- The most popular posts
- How many individuals see each post, etc.
It’s usually helpful to add the month-over-month change in each measure to get an indication of how fast they’re growing on social media.
Social Media Strategy
Next, you should use your skills to design a quick social media plan after doing an assessment of the prospect’s present social media activity. The social media plan doesn’t have to be extensive throughout the company proposal phase since you’ll likely need more information after signing a contract. As a result, the better your approach is defined and implemented, the more are the chances of yours bagging the offer.
The following details should be included in the section under “Strategy”:
- The contents you wish to publish
- How you’re going to come up with the ideas
- Recommendation for the frequency of posting
- The kind of target audience you have in mind
- Voice and tone of the brand
Detail exactly what work you plan to undertake for the client. While this is likely to make up the bulk of the proposal, it can be broken down into more bite sized chunks for easier reading. For instance, you can include a section on the planned posting schedule, how content will be created and curated, keyword monitoring, reporting and analytics, and social media management.
Deadlines and milestones
Sometimes included in the scope of the work being undertaken is how the project will be measured for success. In those instances where the client is wanting greater brand exposure across social media, then counting the number of reposts and impressions should make up some of the metrics used. With the client’s current growth rate and numbers established, reasonable numeric goals can easily be set out in the proposal.
Work proof
Here you need to show off what you can do and set yourself apart from the rest of the competition that is out there also pursuing new clients. There are no hard and fast rules about how this information is presented. For instance, it can take the form of client testimonials, case studies, or just simply showing examples of previous work that you have done for other clients (especially within the same industry).
Terms of agreement
This is an important part of any proposal and should clearly set out how you work and what the contract terms are. You may want to include important things, such as fees, billing practices, how you work, and termination of the project. It is recommended that you include expenses incurred and a kill fee as part of the termination agreement. This means that if the client decided to terminate the contract early for whatever reason, then they must pay you the kill fee to do so.
If you do not have what it takes to produce a social media marketing proposal yourself, then visit HelloBonsai where you can download your very own proposal template completely free of charge so that there is nothing you miss from it.
As with any other proposal, a social media proposal requires effort on your part, starting with a thorough and well-prepared discovery session, which includes asking the right questions and getting to the core of the matter. Once that is done, the rest of the process is quite straightforward. The actual proposal writing process boils down to a set of best practices and technical hacks that will help you make a great first impression, and demonstrate that you are the best candidate for the job.
