Growing your agency means you need to attract and win more clients.
And part of that process involves creating and presenting proposals to prospects.
But what exactly goes into an effective social media proposal? And how do you qualify a client beforehand?
In this article, you’ll learn how to run a discovery session and create a social media marketing proposal, so that you can present your ideas to potential clients and generate more business.
Feel free to steal our social media proposal template! It's a fully customisable Google Doc, so you can easily adjust it to fit each of your clients and the type of services you'd like to offer 🎁.
A social media proposal is a document that you present to your prospective client outlining how you can help them achieve their goals.
Whether you're a social media marketing agency, a PR firm or an advertising agency, a service proposal is an essential part of your client acquisition toolkit.
It's not a pitch and is created after a consultation and thorough research into what your potential client needs.
This is how the process usually goes:
Your potential clients need to know what you can do for them and their business, and a proposal is a medium for you to convey your message.
In marketing and sales terms, a proposal is used in the conversion stage of the funnel. At this stage, the prospective client is aware of your agency and is considering using your services. The proposal forms part of the final push to convince them that you’re the best option.
The strongest proposals are goal-driven, concise, and, most importantly, speak directly to the pain points of your prospect and how you could help solve them.
Image source: Ahrefs blog on marketing funnels
Before you can write a proposal, you need to understand what your potential client needs:
❔ What do they expect to gain from social media as a marketing channel?
❔ Which audiences and channels make the most sense to tackle now?
❔ And how can you help them?
The best way to find out is to hold a ‘discovery session’.
Ideally, you should either have a face-to-face meeting or a video conference call. Putting a face to a name at this stage helps humanize the process and builds a relationship. Plus, it saves time pinging emails back and forth.
The goal of a discovery session is to ask questions and listen to what your potential client has to say. Aim to find out:
It’s also important to remember that a discovery session helps you decide if you’re a good fit. For example, you may find out your potential client wants a service you don’t provide or doesn’t have the required budget for your services.
In marketing terms, the discovery session qualifies your lead as a definite prospect. Or, disqualifies them and helps you avoid wasting time on creating a proposal that will most likely get declined anyway.
Here are some discovery session questions to consider asking your prospective client - feel free to adjust them as needed!
Start with an overview of their current business and marketing plans:
❔ What are your current goals for your business and how do these align with your marketing goals for social media?
Your client's overarching business goal will always be to increase their customers base, so you could look to the networks most suitable to their audience and set out clear KPIs for them. For example:
However, if they're just getting started, it would be unrealistic to expect social media channels to drive brand awareness and leads at the same time. In that case, you'd want to focus on growing an audience and engagement instead.
Next, you'll need to evaluate what they’ve tried to date and find out what’s worked and what hasn’t:
❔ What areas are overperforming and underperforming?
❔ What does success look like for you?
❔ Where would you like to be in 12 months? Describe the ideal but realistic situation to me.
Find out your potential client's marketing personas, so you can propose the right goals and social networks to focus on.
Then, dig deeper and ask them about their best (or worst) customers and what motivates them. By understanding the pain points and relief customers experience, you'll be able to come up with even more creative content ideas for all social media channels.
Determine their target audience with this four-category approach:
Next, determine their business competitors. It might be a local business like another restaurant or an international brand. Ask questions like:
❔ Who is your main competition?
❔ What social media networks do they use?
❔ Are there any types of content they create that you'd also like to see on your social media channels?
This is also a good time to set the expectation that most global brands have huge advertising budgets and large content teams. While it's good to aspire for their greatness, business owners need to be realistic and remember to focus on what will help them grow.
Finally, find out what they need help with and how much they’re prepared to invest. This could range from a single campaign or upskilling their team to a fully managed, monthly retainer service.
Ask questions that will help you understand their budget:
❔ What are your goals for this project?
❔ How soon would you like to start?
❔ What is your allocated budget for this project?
The more you know about the value you can provide to the business and what their budget is, the easier it will become to negotiate a good rate for your social media services.
Each prospective client is different. The size of the business and their experience with social media marketing will vary just as much as their needs and budget availability.
For instance, they might be a brand new company with no previous history or experience. In which case, they'll most likely need a package that's inexpensive while focusing on all key aspects of audience building on one or two platforms.
On the other side of the spectrum, the brand might be well-established and be needing to switch up its strategy on several social networks and introduce more video content.
That’s why hosting a discovery session is vital before you create your social media proposal. Especially, if you want the highest chance of winning new business!
Your proposal needs to demonstrate an understanding of the prospective client’s requirements and how you are best equipped to fulfil them.
We go through the process of creating your own template below, but you're most welcome to download our free and customisable social media proposal (it's in Google Docs format).
Your document needs to address the following questions:
Here's how you can incorporate these answers in your proposal for social media marketing services:
The opening paragraphs set the scene for your proposal based on the discovery session you held previously. You want to set your prospective client’s expectations and show you understand what they require.
Use words like you, yours and we to address the prospective customer directly and establish a relationship. For example:
Hi Ellie,
We’re delighted you’ve asked us to show you how we can help grow your audience and acquire more leads with our social media skills.
This proposal outlines precisely how we can use our proven expertise and strategies to deliver effective, growth-driven results for your business.
Please review this document and let us know if you have any questions. If you'd like to work with us, the next steps after the review are to choose your package and finalise the contract terms.
Next, you can go into a little more detail matching their business goals to social media goals and objectives.
Try to avoid giving generic descriptions of the services you'd like to provide, and instead focus on measurable objectives or SMART goals.
For example, if the prospective client indicated they wanted to grow their target audience of young consumers, you could say set this SMART goal:
🎯 SMART goal example: Increase the number of Instagram followers in the age range 25-34 by 20% over the next six months.
For smaller brands, it could be more pertinent to focus on growing their audience. In which case, try tying the broader goal with the number of posts you'll be publishing for the client:
🎯 Output-based example: Grow the total audience of the brand by 15% by posting consistently on all 3 social media accounts.
Here’s where you state what activities you’re going to perform for your prospective client. It’s worth adding why you’re proposing to do each item, so they understand the reason behind it.
If you're planning to offer different types of packages, it's worth clearly highlighting what will be included in each package at the end of the proposal.
It’s useful to break this section into subsections, so it’s clear for everyone. Typical subheadings in a social media proposal include:
For larger accounts, you might also want to nominate individuals who’ll be involved. For example, the lead copywriter, designer, and project or account manager.
If your agency has a large range of services, you can also mention what’s not included in the proposal or set packages but can be purchased as an add-on.
Add-on example 💰: Content creation excludes creating Facebook ads management but it's available as an additional service upon request.
Use this section to define how you’ll measure the project’s success. Don’t forget to benchmark current performance levels so you can measure the growth.
For example: Increase Instagram Engagement Ratios over the next 6 months. To get this data, use Instagram Insights and social media analytics tools like Sendible to measure engagement ratios; e.g. reaching and interacting with more followers per month.
It’s highly likely that your prospective client will review several proposals. So aside from explaining what you plan to do, you should show why you’re the best option.
Clients who’re looking for a marketing agency need to be convinced that the agencies they’re looking to hire are trustworthy, and will deliver a return on their investment (ROI).
An excellent way to show your value is to use results, case studies, and testimonials from other clients. The key is to select examples from your marketing portfolio that closely match your proposal. The more relevant they are, the stronger your case becomes. Here's an example:
When we started working with ABC Company, they had 300 followers on Instagram. Over the next six months, we were able to increase that number to 1500 by posting regular content, replying to comments, and sharing user-generated content.
Use this section to propose your fees and payment terms.
Fees: Depending on the scope of the work there may be several components including a fixed project or an hourly or monthly retainer.
If there are several options, list them clearly. Tables usually work well here as you can itemise project activities.
Payment: Specify how you invoice and what your payment terms are.
Termination: Include how either party may end the agreement.
Draw your proposal to a conclusion by outlining the next steps for the client in the process. For example, you might include:
Once you’ve completed your proposal, proofread it or ask a colleague to double-check it.
When it comes to presenting it, you have a few options.
Now that you know what goes into creating a winning social media proposal, it's time to implement all that knowledge!
Create yours from scratch OR use our free Google Docs template to save time (which as you know = money).
The best part is, you can make a copy of the proposal template and edit it, and then reuse it as many times as you like!
Plus, there's plenty of additional guidance to help you personalise your offer, including a one-page social media channel audit you can carry out on your client's accounts and optional add-ons you may want to charge extra for in the future.
As with all templates, remember to personalise your proposal as much as possible and add images where applicable. It's so important to be authentic and build trust with your future clients!
Creating a social media marketing proposal for prospective clients is an essential part of winning more business and growing your agency.
Ultimately, the more detailed and tailored you can make your proposal for each prospective client, the higher the chance of closing your next deal! One way to make it so is to host an in-depth discovery session prior to crafting it.
Use templates whenever possible. They'll help you save time, be more effective, and avoid missing anything important.