If you are ready to offer your advice, knowledge, and expertise to those who are facing issues related to social media presence to survive and grow as a business, knowing how to create a great consulting proposal will help you attract and win more clients.

Such a proposal plays a key part in the client acquisition process that converts a prospect into a customer. It’s used after a consultation and research into what your potential client needs.

High-quality social media consulting services are on high demand right now because thousands and thousands of companies worldwide are looking for solutions that will help them to improve the brand credibility and customer engagement on social media platforms.

Most commonly, such services include:

Optimizing social media, developing a comprehensive long-term social-media strategic plan aimed to increase and enhance the client’s presence on different channels
Creating a social media channel plan that specifies how, where, and when to reach out on the platforms
Developing a content calendar
Managing and executing an engagement plan

Currently, when the world is still struggling with the Covid-19, startups and small businesses are on the brink of survival. Providing them with comprehensive consulting services has become a matter of great importance that requires a very thoughtful approach.

Before we tell you how to create a great social media consulting proposal, it makes sense to mention that the essence of any great proposal is learning each of your client’s needs. All companies out there are different, they work under different circumstances, they have different goals and budgets, and each needs a specific approach. That’s why the very first step is a discovery session.

The discovery session will help you to identify if you are capable of providing the required services. You shouldn’t commit yourself to something that is beyond your actual possibilities and you shouldn’t operate at a loss.

Therefore, as soon as you talk to your client and you get the information you need, it’s time to create a proposal and this proposal has to show an understanding of the prospective client’s requirements and how you are going to fulfill them.

Let’s take a look at how to make that kind of a proposal that will reflect your client’s needs and convey your message invitingly and professionally.

Introduction

The more you know about your client and their situation as well as their story, the better your introduction will be. You should let your client know who you are and what you do as a company.

Also, your consulting proposal introduction should briefly cover what you aim to achieve with your consulting services and your vision of how it will work.

For example, if you are creating a proposal for a startup that designs productivity apps, you could discuss how market forces affected by the coronavirus pandemic have currently made such apps extremely popular. Provide information on why their presence on social media platforms is important and how it can help with growing their business. You don’t have to go into the details at that point. Instead, you just need to give an overview to engage your reader.

Project Context and Objectives

Project Context

Basic Project Context suggests saying that the Client is having difficulties in managing their social media presence on different platforms. It also can state that the client is facing issues related to decreasing revenue as the conversion rate is affected by the insufficient traffic on social media channels and a low lead generation.

Project Objectives

Develop an extended social media strategic plan
Employ social media optimization
Design a suitable content calendar

Process

In this section, you should describe your plan of actions developed in accordance with Project Context and Objectives with the assigned time frame for each step:

Online/offline meeting with the Client

Identify meaningful social media goals and objectives
Determine a flexible yet straightforward timeframe of your services

Optimizing social media

Conduct an analysis of the current client’s social media performance on different channels. Research your target audience, competition, and trends
Establish the most important metrics you can use when tracking your client’s performance ( conversion rate, time spent on the website, reach, brand mentions, sentiment, total shares, etc.)

Social media strategic plan development

Determine a budget and allocate resources
Identify the right tools
Develop an overall social media strategic plan and adjust it for each channel

Social media channel plan development

Design a plan for every platform you are going to work with the following areas to consider:

Brand awareness
Create engagement
Create a community
Driving traffic to the client’s website
Sales leads

Develop the content calendar

You should create a comprehensive social media content calendar to show what you wish to publish, when, and on what platform;

Manage and implement an engagement plan

Since you have already designed a channel plan for each platform and set the content calendar, it’s time to set the time frame for its implementation as well.

The pricing

After we’ve identified two crucial sections that every good consulting proposal needs to have, the third one is pricing. Be aware of the fact that the vast majority of clients skip the other sections and go straight to the page with the prices.

Since you will get quite familiar with your client’s situation prior to sending out the proposal, we believe you are going to take it into consideration and set the price in your consulting proposal thoughtfully, without pushing it up and scaring your client off. Quoting $50,000 when they can spend only $20,000 wouldn’t be the right thing to do and can shut the door to any further negotiations.

Money that your client is willing to pay for your consulting services is their investment – that’s how it should work, and that how it has to be called in your proposal:

Your Investment for Social Media Consulting Services Proposal

The best way to present your quotes is to describe the activities that you will be performing during each phase of the project as well as the set duration of each stage. By indicating the estimated cost for every stage, your client gets a clearer picture of services covered under the total project cost.

Also, you should specify how you’ll invoice them and what your payment terms are. It’s also important to include how either party may end the agreement.

Company Overview

This section is intended to provide information on your own agency. You should say that it offers professional and highly efficient social media services and you should identify what kind of services are those. For example:

Social media management
Search engine optimization
Pay-per-click (PPC) management
Social media advertisement
Content marketing
Email marketing automation solution
Web design

Adding your mission and vision in this section would be a nice touch but make sure that you give enough detail without having it seem overwhelming. The main thing is that your client has to get the impression that you are capable of creating unique social media strategies that will work for them personally.

Client Testimonials and Case Study Example

If you want to be taken seriously, you have to demonstrate that you understood the previous client’s issues and came up with a solution that was successful.

A few trustworthy testimonials that characterize your agency as a team of experienced and dedicated professionals is a must-have section for a great consulting proposal. The same applies to a case study example.

The key is to choose examples from your marketing portfolio that really match your proposal. The more relevant they are, the more convincing it will sound.

For example:

When we started working with ABC Company, they had 300 followers on Facebook. Over the next three months, our team managed to increase that number to 3,700 by posting engaging content, communicating with the target audience, and sharing user-generated content.

Your Team

It’s important to introduce your team members and tell your prospective client who is going to do the work.

Including a name, a nice photo, a brief description of their experience and their responsibilities in the current project will help to build trust and convince your client that you’re the best option.

Guarantee

It’s necessary to include a guarantee. You have to tell your client that you’ll get the job done, and if it doesn’t happen for some reason – a money-back guarantee isn’t good enough because everyone offers that. Try to be more creative.

Next Steps

Draw your social media consulting proposal to a conclusion by outlining the following steps for your client:

Accept the proposal as it is, or discuss any changes
Request and sign the contract
Submit the initial payment

Terms and Conditions

Your potential client will be very satisfied with a proposal if you write down all the terms and conditions as well as the stipulations. In case things go in the wrong direction, this is the section that will protect both parties.

Conclusion

Your conclusion should highlight the key strengths of your plan, summarise your vision, and remind your client why you are in a position to successfully execute the plan. If you are looking to raise funding with your plan, you should detail the finance required.

Social Media Consulting Proposal Template

Using a template is the best way to create an appealing proposal and with plenty of options out there you may choose anything you like. You can even create your own template out of Word file and use it for all your upcoming projects. Everyone knows how to deal with Word documents and if your client will get an email from you with the attached proposal, they will have no difficulties with managing it.

On the other side, plenty of us are concerned about the environment and are trying to go paperless anytime it’s possible. With the help of a few comprehensive apps, creating, viewing, editing, and signing PDF documents is no longer a problem.

If you choose to go this route, you can do so by using a tool such as PDF Reader that allows you to get full control over PDF documents, and what is especially important – sign them right on the spot within the app.

Speaking of templates, it’s a good idea to have different kinds of them at your disposal. For example, after your client accepts the proposal, you can use a social media contract PDF template to get things moving quickly and efficiently.

The last thing we would like to tell you about is the proposal length. It shouldn’t be too long otherwise your client will be overwhelmed with information and give up reading before reaching the end. But if the proposal is too short, it might not be taken seriously, so 8 to 12 pages is a good length to stick to.

Perfecting your consulting proposals is a super-efficient way to win new clients. If your potential client feels like you’re the right company to do the job with and you are capable of solving their problem, it means that you have managed to create a great proposal.

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