A marketer is a crucial member of the organization who not only generates revenue for the brand but also undergoes the hassle of creating marketing promotion proposals. And to top it off, there can be consecutive days of ‘NOs.’
When you get a confirmation for your proposal and the client wants to avail your services, you realize that it’s just not the client you might have wanted to work with.
Ever thought about what’s making the entire plan fall apart?
Could it be your proposal that doesn’t intrigue your readers and forces them to drop?
Well, here’s the scariest part: a lame proposal is worse than no proposal. You put in your efforts in creating proposals, but they get rejected by your prospects, frustrating right?
But the fact that all of us must remember is the Pareto rule, 80 percent of marketers approach the 20 percent of prospects. And this easily makes the competition fierce. The project you are applying for could be approached by many other service providers like you. So if you don’t submit proposals that stand out from the competition, we are sorry then you’d be hearing a series of NOs before you actually land up a client.
It’s no big deal for you to realize the importance of the marketing department. Without marketing, your organizations will not make sales. So, writing marketing copies that convert is equally important and so we’ll explain how to write marketing proposals that win.
As the heading suggests, let’s look into the common mistakes you make while crafting proposals that make your readers turn your proposal down.
1. Focusing on your needs more than that of the prospect’s
This is a very common mistake most of the marketers make. You focus more on explaining about yourself and don’t give your prospect the deserved space in your proposal. Prospects are no doubt interested to know more about you as they would be spending their money for your services and will have to trust you, but you shouldn’t overdo it.
Knowing more about your organization adds more to your credibility, but tells nothing more about the value you can bring. It’s important that if your proposals are even slightly inclined to explaining more about your organization, then you change it and give more value to your prospects and explain how you can bring value to their functioning.
2. Chaotic structure and no talking points
Nobody likes to read pieces that are not structured and jumps from one topic to the other. If your proposal covers multiple topics but is not in a proper order, has scattered questions, and the absence of logical sequence, it’s high time that you work on your proposal and structure it the way your readers will be interested in.
Even if you have genuine talking points, but the proposal is chaotic, your prospect would never understand the message your proposal conveys.
3. Abundance of irrelevant details
Sometimes there could be possibilities that you write details that are irrelevant or illogical. And such information will definitely get your readers frustrated.
4. Poor presentation of marketing plan
When creating a marketing plan, it’s important that your readers can understand the long-term vision. Don’t use jargons or terminologies that are unknown to the reader. Use simple language, explain terminologies, and avoid using too many facts or details. Just stick to the core concept and explain the rest directly to the prospects after winning the deal.
5. Spending time on creating new templates
Agreed, that your proposals must be customized and personalized, but it doesn’t require you to invent new proposal templates every time you sit down to draft proposals. You can most of the time reuse the proposal templates. If you are someone who has been creating new proposal templates every time without reusing, think about the amount of time you’ve wasted!
It’s time to get back to the core topic and explain 5 steps to improve and write better marketing strategy proposals. Let’s dive in.
1. Make your proposal prospect-oriented
It’s in fact good that you’re letting your prospects know more about you, but don't overdo it. Provide successful past projects but make sure that the projects are relevant to the existing prospect’s business or problem. While you’re letting them know why you’re the best fit, do it focusing more about the prospect’s issues than your credibility.
Provide genuine information and keep it straight to the point.
2. Adhere to a consistent structure
As explained earlier, your great proposal content could be rejected if the structure of your proposal is chaotic. So try to maintain a universal structure of your proposals like,
Problem statement: Show the prospect that you understand their problems well.
Proposed solution: Provide a list of recommended solutions for the prospect’s concerns and explain the advantages of each of your listed solutions.
Pricing: Your proposal will be incomplete if it doesn’t cover the pricing details. Provide clarity and detailed breakup of the charges and your strategy to arrive at the prices.
3. Keep it concise
Your prospect is a human after all, so you must consider the length of your proposals every time. Just how you would hate to read repetitive information again and again, your prospects would hate that, too.
Make sure the length of your proposal is desired, and avoids sections that look repetitive. Use a formal yet a friendly tone so that it engages better with the readers. Provide details and don’t leave a gap in your proposal that can be pointed out by your prospects later.
4. List your objectives and expectations
When you are creating a proposal for a marketing plan, it’s important to be transparent with the strategy. Don’t use terms that are strange for your readers. Strategically represent your plan in a simple manner.
Also, make sure to highlight your expectations, inputs, and feedback to show your interests, grasp, and understanding regarding the prospect’s requirements.
5. Create your proposal with software
When you are spending your time creating proposals, you are taking away the opportunity from your day to focus on the more important task at hand. A proposal making software comes handy and helps you create proposals in minutes.
You get a variety of templates within the software that can be edited to your requirement and sent across. Trust us, you can save a lot of time with a proposal software.
Well, it's time that you stop WRITING marketing proposals and adapt to a marketing proposal creator or software that can help you build proposals easily in minutes. You not just create proposals, but you can send them, track them, get them electronically signed, and follow up with the prospects with the help of a proposal making software.
And which one is the best in the market? Of course, 'yakkadraft'.
If you wish to try this exciting proposal making software today, get in touch with us.