7 Proposal tips to avoid being being ghosted

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👋 Today, we’re looking at how to propose a sponsorship comprehensively yet concisely.

Competing forces aside, let’s dive in! 🚀

How 2 Propose

I got a marvellous two-part question asked on LinkedIn a few weeks back. Last week I answered the first part (discovery questions). This week we’re looking at the 2nd part:

🥅 Focus on the WHY.

The most important thing to do in any proposal is to focus on the WHY. For campaigns, this is usually a goal, problem, launch or product to promote.

Don’t just talk about the WHAT (your audience/campaign). Talk about the WHY

Talk their language. Use their terminology.

Read Simon Sinek’s Start With Why.

Every word counts, so make every word matter.

🧱 Email Structure

Formatting your email proposal can help keep you organised, concise and visually appealing.

The typical headings (after the intro) I’ve used are:

• About Us (optional) - the story behind the publication, written in a way that resonates with the prospect’s business and mission.

• Audience - a summary of your audience, focusing on the most relevant facts for the deal.

• Campaign Approach (optional) - Summarise the goals and the approach you’d like to take to hit those goals.

• Proposal - the actual options of placements avec pricing.

• Availability/Timeline - did you discuss a timeline? What’s your current lead time? You can use this to drive honest urgency.

• Next Steps - Did you agree to a follow-up call? Are they waiting on a decision-maker? Briefly lay out the route to signing and getting started.

How long? 🤷‍♂️ The length of each should depend on:

• How keen were they? If they are already sold, then keep it super concise and even skip a few sections.

• Are they a decision maker? If not they’ll be sharing it internally so you’ll need more context setting or a Loom. Ideally, get the decision maker on a call of course.

• Are they more numbers-focused/data-driven or are they more story-focused?

📜 To PDF or not to PDF?

A snazzy way to propose is using a PDF, if you’re going to do this here are a few guidelines:

• Keep it short 4-7 pages

• Keep the style clean, on-brand and simple

• Use a page (or half a page) for each section mentioned above

• Template the PDF in Canva to make it efficient

Personally, I like a PDF proposal with a very brief email summary, especially for larger deals. Should you use one?

• If what you’re proposing has multiple parts and would benefit from an infographic-like visual, then do it.

• If it’s a rather long campaign or a large deal. Do it.

• If they’ve mentioned they like PDFs. Do it.

Let’s finish off with some proposal quickfire points…

🤖 Template intelligently. Segment and personalise it to their goals.

🎯 Know your audience, rotate the stats & case studies to fit the prospect.

👏 Make it easy to say yes to. Yes, including 3 options is good. But if you’re sure about their budget and what they want already, just send one.

🐘 Yes you ideally want to get the length right the first time. But, in follow-ups, you can summarise with a more concise version. Or expand on elements in more detail. So it’s not the end of the world.