Writing a killer brand strategy proposal

A key to gaining new and/or more Brand Strategy work is proposal writing. The more effectively you’re able to communicate the benefit of Brand Strategy to your client and their business the more likely you are to win the project or add this scope of work.

There are four important parts to writing a Brand Strategy proposal:

01. Brand Strategy Experience and Expertise.
Most often Brand Strategy is one part of a larger scope of work. You may be adding it to a marketing strategy, or as the first step of a brand identity and product packaging design project. In these cases it’s important that a client is confident in your ability to deliver all aspects of the scope of work. It is not enough to add a step to the project and costings page, you must also ensure that when you describe and talk about your agency, your capabilities and experience in your proposal, you include Brand Strategy.

Including projects and case studies that have included Brand Strategy is an important proof point of your experience. If you have not previously delivered Brand Strategy for clients, consider running a couple of Brandvas projects for existing clients with strong profile businesses in order to provide you the valuable credential of having some case studies.

02. Brand Insights.
Perhaps the most powerful way to demonstrate your Brand Strategy Experience and expertise is to provide some insights into the challenges the client is facing within yiur proposal. By delving into and having the prospective client clarify their most significant brand challenge you can find yourself ahead of the game in terms of convincing them you are the best agency to navigate to the solution. Likewise, your knowledge and experience of the category and/or the target audience could provide you with insights as to the challenges the client may not even realize they’re facing and potential solutions you’ve seen before.

Demonstrating your knowledge and expertise of the category, audience and market through successful case studies and war stories in your proposal is a powerful way to establish the value of Brand Strategy and your expertise to deliver it. The market research information available through Brandvas can provide you with a rich source of information from which you can draw this type of insight to add the sort of weight to your proposal that will give you an edge over competing agencies or consultants.

03. The Value Proposition of Brand Strategy
When outlining the steps for a project, Brand Strategy should be seen as a significant component deserving of it’s own ‘Step’ in any project. As a rule of thumb, if a project component is important enough to have it’s own Step, then most clients will expect it to have a valuable deliverable and a relatively high price point. Both assumptions are correct when it comes to Brand Strategy.

For many clients (especially SME business owners and marketers) the concept of Brand Strategy is a new one. For all clients, but especially those not familiar, an introduction paragraph or two that outlines the value proposition (business benefit) of brand strategy will be important.

For different projects, the value proposition of Brand Strategies varies. Typically most brand strategy projects can start with a general overview such as:

Brand Strategy is the critical first step for every brand identity project. By defining a brand’s strategy we research, test and come to understand which audience is most important to that brand, how it sits in it’s competitive context, how it can most effectively be positioned to differentiate from it’s competitors in a way that is valuable and meaningful to its audience, and what it should do each and every day to demonstrate that brand positioning.

This general overview can then be followed by a more specific description of relevant to the project type, for instance:

• For a brand identity project:

Having a shared understanding of the brand strategy is critical to directing the design of the brand identity so that the choice of logo, typeface, brand colours, and imagery all work together to communicate the brand positioning. This strategic approach ensures all design decisions are made to align with your brand positioning rather than based on personal preference. The end result is then strategically connected to the business vision, product benefit and identified key audience.

• For a marketing strategy:

Once we establish this strategic foundation we are perfectly positioned to develop a marketing strategy that builds upon the agreed Brand Strategy which directs each aspect and tactic of product, price, place and promotion. The Brand Strategy directs both what the messaging should be across all marketing activities as well as the tone of voice and imagery used.

The investment in Brand Strategy to provide a strong foundation for all marketing activities will provide clear value in return by ensuring all activities are aligned and work in concert to most effectively position the your products/services.

• For a packaging design project:

By providing clarity on the target audience, the competitive set, and the differentiated value proposition of the brand we are best positioned to design the packaging to stand-out on-shelf and connect with the consumer in a way that ensures they understand the product benefits. Designing packaging without a clear brand strategy is like stabbing in the dark, our Brand Strategy process provides clarity and certainty for the packaging design brief. The outcome is increased shelf presence, trial, and over time brand recognition, customer affinity and loyalty.

04. Costing Brand Strategy
Just as we recommend Brand Strategy is a separate step in your project overview, we also suggest it be a separate line in your proposal costings.

For smaller clients you may wish to simply title the line “Brand Strategy” and charge $6,000.

For larger clients or where we feel smaller clients may be cost sensitive, we suggest breaking the brand strategy into several stages which could include any or all of the following:
• Discovery / Project Planning $2,500 - $4,000
• Market research and Customer Personas $5,000 - $15,000
• Competitor Analysis & Review $3,000 - $12,000
• Brand Strategy Workshop $3,000 - $12,000
• Brand Strategy Write-up and refinement $3,000 - $9,000

You can see from this approach how a $6,000 process can be broken down into a number of high valuable deliverables that may be presented to your client in a way that more clearly sets-out the business value you are providing and increases you billings by two or three times.

We trust our guide has provided some valuable tips to writing a proposal for your next brand strategy project. Good luck and happy proposal writing.