What is a Lead Generation Proposal?
A lead generation proposal is the document that succinctly outlines the client’s problem and then details the plan on how you will solve it. Great lead generation proposal’s win work because they provide the information prospective clients need to understand your strategy for solving their problem while highlighting your expertise and unique service offering.
The most important aspects of a lead generation proposal from the client’s perspective is your approach to the lead generation project, the process you use to generate leads and qualify them, and how much you’ll charge for the work.
However, the business proposal you create needs to do more than outline your strategy for bringing more qualified leads to the client. It also needs to:
- Create a positive impression
- Build trust in your marketing abilities
- Show your industry knowledge, and
- Set the pace for the project with a schedule.
When it does all of this, you are more likely to win lead generation projects.
A proposal template makes this much easier to achieve each time. When completed and submitted, it serves as a guide for working through your lead generation plan once you’ve won the contract.
Note: Sign up to Bonsai and start editing your free Lead Generation Proposal Template today.
The Importance of a Strong Business Proposal
Generating traffic and leads is one of the biggest marketing challenges. It’s a similar story for sales teams too, 51% of salespeople struggle with lead generation and prospecting is one of their most time-consuming activities. Yet quality leads are crucial for business success.
Whether using inbound lead generation techniques or outbound methods, efficient lead generation strategies that source and qualify leads for a sales team is vital. For these reasons, many businesses are turning to professional lead generation services.
Writing a lead generation proposal that explains your process for finding and qualifying leads is the first step to winning these projects. Using a proposal template can make it easier to focus on demonstrating your knowledge of a clients’ market, their audience, and help them understand your conversion techniques. It also allows you to present your services in a professional and memorable way.
What to Include in the Lead Generation Proposal
The more detailed you are with a lead generation proposal, the less room there is for misunderstanding. It’s also more likely that you’ll win the work. Although proposal writing can be laborious, it’s worth taking the time to get it right.
A detailed business proposal can be easily stripped back and saved as your personal lead generation proposal template, making the next proposal easier and faster to put together. This ensures you’ll have all the right elements for your proposal every time you make a pitch for a new project. Here’s a list of all the elements that go into a killer lead generation proposal.
Basic Opening Information
Proposals need to open with the information about the parties involved and the name of the project. These few lines of your lead generation proposal will be roughly the same each time, so it's helpful to save this as part of the proposal template.
You’ll only need to switch the name of the client and their contact details, possibly the company’s products that the work is related to and the name for the project for your next proposal.
Cover Letter
Sometimes referred to as the introduction, your cover letter reiterates the reason you are sending a proposal and leads into the detail of your lead generation proposal. You should show your enthusiasm for the project, provide pertinent information about your experience and briefly explain the service you intend to provide.
Your cover letter needn’t be long, most of the detail needs to be given in your proposal below. Anywhere between a half page to a page should be enough.
History of Lead Generation Projects
Providing a little background on your lead generation experience and successes with other companies you have worked with can build trust with the potential client. As lead generation work doesn’t readily lend itself to a portfolio, testimonials from existing clients can really help.
Try to include client comments from businesses with a similar audience, industry, or products to the company you are pitching to. If this isn’t possible, great reviews from past clients will still work well here.
Lead Generation Project Description
A brief yet thorough description of the client’s issue is given in the description. Lead generation proposals are easier to write if you have a thorough understanding of the project. Give some thought to this section. Show the client that you grasp their specific needs and the purpose of the lead generation activities.
Lead Generation Proposal Outline
After detailing your prospective clients’ problem, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of your solution. Start with an outline and then provide further detail for your lead generation plan. You may begin by stipulating your intention to use inbound lead generation techniques or outbound methods such as cold calls.
The broad brush strokes of the outline serve as an introduction to the details of your lead generation strategies. Make sure you cover each step of your lead generation process in the proposal.
Great lead generation always begins with research. Who are the ideal customers for the business? What are the pain points that the business alleviates? What benefits does the business's product or service provide?
If you use inbound marketing to attract leads, detail the tools you intend to use. The engaging content you create may include:
- Landing pages with a form to collect prospect details
- Email marketing series
- Creating online content such as blogs and infographics
All of this can spark interest with a new audience. Even adding a button or form on an existing landing page to collect prospect’s information will be part of the detail you include. Promotion of this content is just as important as the content creation.
Similarly, if outbound marketing is your forte, the kinds of direct mail marketing, number of cold calls, direct messages and the platform you intend to use, and any other lead generation tool or method you plan to put to use will be included with your outline.
Your lead generation process is an important part of the proposal outline. Not only do you need to explain how leads will be generated for the sales team, but also how they will be passed on and any lead nurturing activity that is included with your services.
Marketing tools like a CRM that tracks leads and scores them for the sales team needs to be mentioned. Clarity of communication channels smooths the way for the project once it commences.
The process should also include a schedule for the work with milestones, deliverables and the project deadline. A schedule is a great way of showing what you will achieve, how you plan to generate new leads and when interim targets as well as the main project goal will be met.
The strategy you build needs to incorporate how you will measure success. This could be the number of new leads you will attract over a given period, a percentage increase on existing lead generation activities, or a particular impact you will deliver for the sales process.
Whichever method is used for tracking progress of the lead generation services you propose, it should clearly show the ROI your client will achieve through selecting your proposal over your competitors.
Payment Terms
As mentioned above, this is one of the most important parts of the proposal from the client’s perspective. It’s also one part of your lead generation proposal template that won’t change often.
Payment is usually tied to each new lead that is generated for the business or a company’s product. It is necessary to define what constitutes qualified leads to avoid ambiguity in your payment. Retainers and bonus plans are another common way of charging for lead generation activities.
How often you invoice, the payment terms for your invoices and how payment is to be received all get included in the terms section of your proposal.
It’s worth reviewing this section of your lead generation proposal template on a yearly basis to make sure it’s in line with the kinds of company projects you are pitching for.
Legal Obligations and Additional Information
This part of your proposal should also briefly display your understanding of the regulations for lead generation activities as governed by the Federal Trade Commission. Showing how outbound marketing activities will remain compliant with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act or, if lead generation is to include Europe, GDPR compliance, can assure your client that the service you deliver will meet their needs lawfully.
Additional ideas for the project, services you provide that can support your work with the client, expert team members who will be involved in the project and any other helpful information should be added here. This can help your proposal stand out and build confidence with the client in your ability to deliver.
Summarize and Close
The close of your proposal is just as important as the opening. You need to restate the client’s problem, your proposed solution and the method in which your lead generation activities will be delivered. Then segway into the next step, which is to agree to this proposal so a contract can be sent to get the lead generation campaign underway.
Although this section of the lead generation must be customized for each company you pitch for, large parts of it will remain the same. Saving each section of your proposal as a customizable part of a lead generation proposal template will make each section easier and faster to complete for the next client proposal you write.
How to Write a Lead Generation Proposal
Although there is a particular order for elements of business proposals to be presented in, there’s no need to start writing your proposal that way. Often, it is easier to begin by outlining your potential client’s problem and your strategy for solving their issue with generating leads. These aspects of the proposal inform the other elements of the document.
Find out exactly what the client wants
Your lead generation proposal is all about what the client needs and how you will solve their problem. Whether responding to a lead generation tender or following up from a sales call with a prospective client, a clear understanding of the problem and what they want to achieve is needed to be able to write better proposals than your competitors.
Clarify the Lead Generation Project
Succinctly outlining the client’s needs is an important part of the proposal. It shows you understand the lead generation problem and helps you to crystalize your ideas for the solution.
Explain Your Lead Generation Strategies
Outline your solution for lead generation and give in depth information about how you will deliver your services. Include the kinds of activities you will use to generate each lead, tools you’ll use such as direct mail marketing and cold calling or online content, landing pages, and other inbound techniques you know work.
Provide a schedule for the work that shows who, how and when certain activities will take place. If specific services are being delivered by different team members, note what they are and who is responsible.
Inbound marketing lead generation techniques may require actual content such as email marketing campaigns, landing pages with a form, and blogs to be written to attract interest from your client’s audience. The topics, type of content, when and how they will be created and delivered can be detailed in a content plan for the client.
Similarly, outbound methods such as direct mail and calling prospects should be scheduled. The person responsible for creating the copy for the mail outs or making the calls needs to be mentioned in the details of your lead generation strategy.
Highlight What Sets You Apart
To stand you, you need to differentiate your service from other lead generation companies. This could be the process you use to find and attract leads, your vast sales experience, a unique approach to lead generation that builds interest in a company’s product or any other way you add value for the client. This section helps potential clients remember your proposal long after reading it.
Demonstrate Your Lead Generation Results
It’s not enough to say how much your clients value your lead generation activities. Demonstrating the results you can deliver with facts and figures that are accompanied by customer testimonials about your service helps your lead generation proposal to stand out while building trust with the client.
Additional Proposal Sections
Once the most detailed parts of the lead generation proposal have been written, writing the standard additional sections - payment terms, introduction, additional information and final summary and close becomes a lot easier.
The detailed sections of your proposal will inform the other sections, so lean on these to complete your lead generation proposal.
After proofing and ensuring you’ve included everything you need while presenting your services in the best possible light, save it all in a new document so you can strip it back to create a reusable lead generation proposal template for future projects.
Writing lead generation proposals takes longer than simple quotes for services, but it has the advantage of working as a persuasive document that convinces the prospective client you’re the best solution for their problem.
Creating a Lead Generation Proposal is Simple with Bonsai
Writing business proposals can be time consuming and a little nerve wracking - there is a lot riding on getting your proposal document right! Bonsai’s lead generation proposal template ensures everything gets included in your proposal and a professional presentation of your services is delivered each time.
It's free and easy to sign up with Bonsai to access a wide range of templates and even download a free lead generation proposal template that you can begin customizing now.
Lead generation proposal templates make pitching for new projects easier. You’ll be able to submit your lead generation proposal with confidence that nothing’s been left to chance and turn your own new lead into a happy client faster!
Lead generation proposal FAQs
Why is lead generation important?
Businesses need customers to remain profitable. Lead generation services give sales teams more time to focus on nurturing prospects into customers for a company’s products. Without lead generation activities, sales teams are missing an important step of the process for keeping a company in business.
How does lead generation work?
There are various techniques and methods for generating leads. These activities are usually broken into two groups - inbound lead generation and outbound marketing.
Inbound marketing techniques involve attracting a new lead with content. This can involve writing online content such as a landing page with resources prospects can download in exchange for their contact information. Resources could be a free course, ebook or other low value item that engages the prospect. This first stage of conversion, qualifies the prospect’s interest in the company’s product.
Outbound marketing methods involve contacting a large number of prospects that fit a specific age group or other demographic and introducing them to a business’ services or a company’s product. This marketing method is considered to be far more intrusive than inbound marketing methods and there are strict guidelines around how it is carried out.
Is lead generation sales or marketing?
Finding prospects is a function of both marketing and sales teams. Lead generation blends the skills of marketers and salespeople to attract prospects and create interest in a company’s products or services. In some businesses lead generation falls to the sales team, in others it is the marketing team that shoulders this responsibility.
Outsourcing lead generation activities to specialist companies is a growing trend across all sectors. This is because a continual flow of good prospects is needed for sales teams to convert into customers.
