The First Step To Getting Paid: The Proposal
How much should you charge? How much information should you include in a proposal? What does it take to get the job? My proposals have evolved quite a bit over the years since I first struck out on my own. In this post, I share my current proposal structure and the things to consider including in your proposals.
For me, one of the most difficult parts of a job is putting together the proposal. What if I overprice it? Or underprice it? Or don’t include something that someone else does and it makes me look like I don’t know what I am doing? And there is just the ick factor of having to sell yourself that makes me procrastinate the proposal creation process. But you can’t get hired without giving some kind of proposal.
Before you get started on the proposal, you should ask the potential client for some information. They may not be able to articulate all of the answers, but you should at least ask and take what you can glean from that information to craft a custom proposal. Here are the questions to ask before getting started on the proposal:
Why are you looking to hire someone for digital content? You’ll want to understand if they are stretched thin internally, if they were unhappy with another provider (and why), or if this is a brand new endeavor for them.
What are you hoping to achieve with digital content?
Who is your target audience?
Do you have a budget in mind? Even a range is helpful. Just so you know, nine out of 10 times, they will tell you they don’t have a budget. They do, but they don’t want to tell you. This is okay. Put your best thoughts into the proposal, sell your skills, and price it honestly. If the cost is more than they can afford, they will negotiate or never get back to you. Either way, it will work out for the best.
What existing resources to you have for content that I would be able to access? Here you are looking for photo libraries, video footage, stock photo subscriptions, contacts for news releases, etc. It is okay if they say they don’t have anything. This is important for you to know as your work through pricing.
What’s your timing — for a proposal, for a hiring decision, and for launch?
With this information, you can start crafting your proposal. Here are the sections of information to consider including in your proposal:
Strategy
Approach
List of Items To Be Provided By Client
Questions
Pricing and Deliverables
Here is what to include in each of these sections of your social media management proposal.
Strategy
In the strategy section, I like to talk about the importance of using digital content to meet the goals and objectives that the client has requested. You should list the stated goals or objectives that your client has provided you for this project. While there will still be a lot to learn once the client hires you, in order to put together a proposal for your potential client they should provide you with a bit of background on the company, why they are looking to hire someone to help and what they hope to achieve through social media and digital content. When you include this information in your proposal, you can then show how the recommended approach ties back to meet the goals and objectives.
Approach
In the approach section, you should detail what your activities will be to achieve the desired results for the client. These activities should align with the pricing line items later on in the proposal. Be sure to note if any of the items are dependent on each other. For example, I always detail out my research phase of the project and I price it as its own line item. However, if they client wants me to write posts each month, they can’t opt out of the research part of my work. I need that in order to write the first month of content. So I link those two together. The activities I typically include in the approach section depend on the client needs but can include:
Research and Initial Four-Week Content Calendar
Monthly Social Media Management & Reporting
Blog Content
Email Marketing
Website Content Management
Influencer Marketing Management
Paid Advertising
To Be Provided By Client
If the client has said they will provide anything that influenced how you came to your pricing, then you should list it here. Here is an example of items I have included in this section in proposals:
Access to admin on social accounts and website CMS
Access to Google Analytics
Addition of Facebook pixel to website
Photography (with specifics, if you have them — like number of photos, photo content, frequency, stock, etc.)
Video (with specifics, if you have them — unedited or edited, video content, frequency, stock, etc.)
Questions
If they client hires you, you are going to want more detailed information about the business. I’ll have a post all about that coming soon. Here you should give the client a heads up that you are going to request that they answer these questions.
Pricing
I recommend that you outline your pricing to align with your approach categories. I typically try to offer these as independent line items so they can select from a “menu” for moving forward to ease into the relationship a little bit at a time. Under each line item, get as specific as you can with what you are going to deliver — like the number of posts, the length of blog articles, the number of hours covered (and how you will track them).
Are you unsure how to calculate costs? When you think through the number of hours you will spend for each task, also consider any out-of-pocket costs associated with the work like a stock photo, video or music library subscription, a tool to schedule your posts, like Sprout Social or Hootsuit, and any tools you use for working with your client on post approvals, like Slack, Airtable or some other collaboration tool. You’ll want to make sure you are covering all costs you might have because you won’t want to be the person that is constantly going back to the client with new fees.
If you have payment terms, outline them here. Things like invoice date and expected payment date are things that are good to include.
If you are placing paid advertising, I recommend that you pre-bill the out-of-pocket advertising in case they are slow to pay your invoices. As a freelancer, it is difficult to float significant out-of-pocket costs like advertising. And clients are not always quick to pay.
Presenting the Proposal
When it comes to presenting the proposal, you’ll want to make sure you have no typos (a weakness of mine) and that it looks professional, with your logo at the top, consistent font use and size. I prefer to send proposals in a PDF so there is no formatting issues when the recipient opens the document. For larger proposals where you want to show samples of your work or share case studies, consider creating an unlinked page on your website just for that client. Not only is this a cool way to present the proposal, but you will know how many times the client views it and how long they stay on the page. I use Squarespace, so it is really easy to create and customize a new page for your site that is unlisted and easy to share.
My proposal format and content is continually evolving, but this is where it stands now as to the information needed to put together a proposal, the information to include in a proposal, how to structure the proposal and how to present it. Is there anything I left out? Let me know if the comments below! I am always looking for ways to make my proposals better and stand out from other, so give me your best tips and advice in the comments!
