Marketing A Proposal

Late last week I took a call from a PR and communications agency who are looking for search marketing consultancy for a client of theirs. It’s an interesting project and one that I’d like to be involved in.

Whilst beavering away for some time in my hot office yesterday (tight deadline for this one!) before joining my children in the garden for a well earned lolly ice, I was thinking that there’s quite a fine line to be drawn when submitting a proposal.

From my point of view I don’t want to offer the nitty-gritty, this is what we’ll really do information in my proposal because, understandably, that’s the information that I want to charge for. On the other hand, if the proposal is too high level you’re not really giving an indication of the services that you believe need to be applied. It’s a difficult one to judge and I hope I’ve pitched it at the right level. Presumably we’re not the only party to be invited to offer services and of course we don’t know who else would like the business.

The other thing that I can never avoid when being asked to submit a proposal is to spend time looking at the current position of the potential clients website. To get a feel for what the project might entail I’m right in there, looking at the website, looking at the HTML, spotting problem areas, dabbling in keyword research, etc. It’s a little time consuming and could be deemed to be wasted time if you’re not invited to become involved in the project. But what can you do? You need to get a feel for what you might be getting into and subsequently what might be appropriate fees for both parties.

I’ll let you know if my proposal is successful or not.

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