How To Write Your Proposal for a Marketing Funnel Project

By the end of this blog post, you'll be able to write proposals for your funnel projects faster and easier than ever.

Better still, you'll increase your conversion chances and make sure that every proposal gives pricing that's healthier for you.

Funnels are a relatively new concept. Marketing, online and sales funnels are still in their early stages. No one has a clear idea of what they're delivering. Customers might want them, but it's important to make it very clear what a marketing funnel can deliver and what it costs.

Don't treat marketing funnels like a website

Back in the bad ol' days, we might try to treat marketing funnels like a website. But they're more complex than that.

We have CRM systems, email marketing, social traffic, remarketing lists and more. You need to have a really clear idea of what you're using, what it costs and how long it'll take.

It can seem very complicated. But the good news is that it's way more simple than you're making out. Focus on the results your customers want and stay away from jargon.

Listen to the results your customer wants

When you're consulting with your customers, make sure that you spend as much time as possible understanding their reasons for talking to you.

The better you understand what your customers want, the more likely they are to buy. It's a very simple process.

Many businesses make the mistake of trying to “pitch” their product or solution to the customer. Particularly with marketing funnels.

It's usually a sign that you don't understand the customer's needs when you feel you're “selling” to them. If you want your marketing funnel proposal to seriously convert, listen to what they want.

The more you understand about their business, what they want, what their goals are and what their roadblocks are, the better your proposal will be.

For example, a florist might talk to us and explain that they want more customers and sales. It might sound obvious, but WHY do they want more customers?

If we dig a little deeper, it might be that what they really want is more steady income through the year. Or higher average sales per customer. Or that really they need more leads. Keep digging down until we understand the root of their wants.

Once you've got their goals, wants and problems, the rest of the proposal writes itself.

If you're struggling with asking “why” for everything, think about asking what the benefit would be if you could solve that problem. Or if you could help them reach that goal, what would the benefit be to them?

Usually, this will show you some higher motivation they've got for taking these actions.

Focus on benefits and results

Think about the results and benefits that your customer wants. Do they want more traffic, more email sign ups, more YouTube subscribers. What is the result that they're looking for?

What is the point in doing those things? Is it because they want to hire staff? Take more time off? Your proposal should be designed to show them what they could look like or be.

In its simplest form, you can describe a benefit as the result that someone receives after using your product or service. This is the short answer to the question, “What’s in it for me?” Deborah Owen, marketingfunnelautomation.com

Our job is to reflect back the results and benefit that your customer wants. The better you can repeat back their goals, the more likely they are to trust that you can help them.

Stay away from jargon like 'conversion rate optimisation', or 'remarketing funnel'. Stick with the results that they want, the problems you're going to solve and the benefits you're going to deliver.

What does their business look like after they work with you? They don't care that they now have a 3 silo content funnel with lead conversion.

They care about having traffic reach the site every day and more of those visitors converting into leads. Because that gives them more people to market to.

Do those results need to be every week, every month or one off?

Here's where the marketing funnel project becomes more specific. If we've got a list of their results, wants, goals and problems, can you solve those things one off?

For example, an online automation platform, disguised as a website might be just a one off project. But consistently driving traffic to the website will need to be done every day.

Email campaigns to drive new sales is done every month. Whereas security, updates and backups to the new site are taken care of every day.

By understanding and being realistic about the types of recurring work, you increase the chances of creating a monthly retainer package.

This is the EASIEST method to start building recurring revenue clients. By planning ahead and thinking about what needs to be done every day, week or month, we can position regular support for the customer.

If you're able to help someone once, they'll want you to help them again. If you can guarantee them new traffic every day, say so and make that a monthly expense.

If the website will only need to be built once, make sure that's the case and charge once for it. But will the updates and security require ongoing care? Then make sure to account for that every month.

How long will it take to deliver those results?

The rule of thumb for projects in my experience is to take whatever time you think it'll take, and triple it.

Think it'll take one month? It'll probably be three. Why? Because even if you're the most kick-ass funnel builder in the world, you still have to rely on customers to send payments, content, invoices and revisions.

Write out how long each result will take to get and be generous with your estimations. It's way better to deliver something ahead of time, rather than disappoint and be behind schedule.

It's also going to be critical for your monthly expenses and time management to know what's coming down the pipeline.

It also gives your customer an idea of timescale. If they say they need it faster, that's fine, but there's a cost attached.

Finally, what a time estimation gives you is a better idea of your resources. If you can only deliver one funnel project a month, and you've got two new customer come in, that means the projects are going to take twice as long.

What is it going to cost you to deliver those results?

Lastly, let’s look what it's going to cost you to deliver those results.

First, with our time estimates, we can decide how long this project will sustain ourselves and our business. If it's going to take all your time up for two months, then you need to make sure it can sustain your finances for two months.

How much do you need to pay for business overheads during that time? What is your rent or staff costs or other expenses which would have to be paid even if you didn't make any money?

What software, CRM, plugins or apps do you need to buy, for this project to exist? This is the most common mistake made by new funnel businesses and their proposals, is that they fail to take into account the cost to them of setting up the customer anyway.

Do yourself a favour and add a healthy margin to cover your costs, your business costs and your living costs for whatever price you settle on.

Writing a proposal is hard

My favourite part of writing a funnel proposal is the pricing. At first I thought it'd be a killer every time. Boring, hard work etc. But now we've done it a few times, we have an accurate price matrix that is already written. We can just copy and paste our prices over from previous projects because we know what we're delivering.

I often hear funnel building businesses tell me that writing a proposal is the hardest part. I totally understand how you feel, but that's usually because we don't know where to start. Understanding your customers and asking more questions is the key to finding proposal writing easier.

Even better, betterproposals.io has tons of templates to make writing proposals as easy as possible. Combined with your new approach to understanding pricing, the customer goals and timescales, you'll find writing proposals a cinch.

About Mike Killen

Mike just wants to help funnel builders sell more marketing funnels to customers. He runs sellyourservice.co.uk which coaches and trains businesses on how to find more customers and sell funnels to customers.

Since 2015 when Sell Your Service started, Mike has trained over 500 funnel builders to find more customers and sell more funnels. Most recently he helped generate $100,000 in 30 days using a basic marketing funnel for a customer.

If he’s not writing blog posts or creating training, he’s training at Muay Thai or surfing.