You’ve been asked to share a proposal of ideas in line with a brief that involves the creation of content and distribution.
Where do you begin? Knowing how to write a winning proposal for content marketing will benefit your business.
We know
content marketing trends come and go, and it can be tough to recognise what content your brand or business should be making in order to meet objectives. The first thing to
outline is your objectives. Are you looking for more engagement on social? Do you want more sales? Or maybe you’re aiming for a PR moment to make lots of noise.
Once you’ve outlined the objectives you can start planning how you will reach them. Here are
5 of our top tips on how to write a winning proposal for content marketing!
1. Open notes and make a slide plan!
These are
the most important elements to include in your proposal. Writing some notes on each before you get started will help you see the direction, and make sure you don’t miss anything out. Don’t worry about how it looks visually, as soon as you have the basics you can make it look great afterwards!
- Recap the brief, budget and objectives,
- Your experience (sell yourself and why they should work with you!)
- What does campaign success look like?
- What audience are you trying to reach? Is there a secondary audience?
- What audience insight can you include? (Research)
- When is the campaign being delivered?
- What is your strategy?
- What channels and why do they work for the brief and audience?
- Content examples (show off your best work!)
- Creative touch points – can you mock up some creative examples?
- Stretch ideas – show them what they could do with more budget!
- Summary, timeline and next steps.
2. Nail the strategy, the creative can follow!
This subheading pretty much speaks for itself! This is important and one of the best pieces of advice we can give. You may not have in your mind exactly how the content looks, but if the
strategy is solid, clients will buy into your campaign ideas.
Build a story, whilst you present your slides each moment should be showing you understand the brief and are meeting the campaign objectives.
3. Add audience insight
Do a little
research into the audience your campaign is for. Show in your proposal you understand everything about the behaviour and interests of your audience. This can be a quick google into what
Gen Z are engaging with online, or trends around when parents purchase products for their children.
This will not only help develop ideas for your campaign but will show that you are creating a campaign that will seamlessly fit into the lives of the audience.
4. Give your recommendation
Remember you are the expert! Give your recommendation at each step throughout the proposal.
If you’re proposing a social strategy and leading with Instagram as the main channel of distribution,
make sure you say why. Explain why you are choosing Instagram over Facebook, or TikTok for example.
If you are creating a multi-platform campaign, suggest how you would allocate budget to each platform. 50% on social, 30% with influencers and 20% on digital audio – for example.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t end up launching the campaign exactly like this, it shows thinking and expertise!
5. Ask questions
When you are sharing ideas with the person you are presenting ideas to,
ask questions throughout.
Asking questions helps you understand throughout the pitch what they like, and what they don’t like so much. You can then
tailor your response or ideas to help shape the proposal with them.
By the end of the proposal, they will have created a campaign outline they like, and you’re closer than ever to get it signed off.
Takeaways!
Whether you are writing your first proposal for a client or presenting ideas internally, all these tips will help!
Apply each step and remember to tell a story, keep slides visual and try to bring your ideas to life with imagery and text. Your ideas and strategy may make sense when communicated verbally, but if your slides are sent around the office they make not make sense out of context.
Always follow up with the next steps and control the conversation, remember they are looking for an expert to help and that person is you! You can always use marketing websites for ideas and inspiration such as
The Drum too!
Written by Sophie Thirlwell
