Social Media Proposal: How to Win Clients in 2025

Growing your social media agency in 2025 means going beyond pitching—you need to build trust, showcase results, and close confidently.

A powerful way to do that?

A tailored, data-driven social media proposal.

But what exactly is a social media proposal, and how do you create one that converts?

What is a social media proposal?

A social media proposal is a strategic document that outlines how your agency plans to help a prospective client meet their business goals using social media. It includes your approach, scope of work, timelines, pricing, and expected outcomes—customised based on a discovery session.

Unlike a generic sales pitch, a well-crafted proposal is:

• Based on real goals and challenges discussed during a discovery call

• Tailored to the client's industry, audience, and budget

• Designed to convert prospects into long-term clients

When should you send a social media marketing proposal?

The ideal time to send a proposal is after a discovery session when the lead has been qualified. At this stage, they know who you are and are actively considering your services. This is the conversion stage of the client acquisition funnel.

Don’t skip the discovery call. It’s how you:

• Uncover their actual pain points

• Get insights into goals, budgets, and decision-making

• Avoid wasting time writing proposals for non-serious leads

What you need to know before writing a social media proposal

Use your discovery session to uncover:

• Their goals (e.g., more leads, brand awareness, sales)

• Their challenges (what's not working today)

• Their target audience (age, habits, platforms, behaviours)

• Their competition (who they're benchmarking against)

• Their budget and scope (what they can invest in)

The best way to find out is to hold a ‘discovery session’. 

The goal of a discovery session is to ask questions and listen to what your potential client has to say. Aim to find out:

• Their current challenges.
• Their overall goals and what they hope to achieve.
• The state of their social media marketing (e.g. what’s worked and hasn’t worked so far).

Our must-ask discovery session questions to create a detailed proposal

Here are some discovery session questions to consider asking your prospective client - feel free to adjust them as needed!

#1 Ask about business and marketing goals

Start with an overview of their current business and marketing plans:

Your client's overarching business goal will always be to increase their customers base, so you could look to the networks most suitable to their audience and set out clear KPIs for them. For example:

• Facebook goal: increase visits or orders for the online shop.
• Instagram goal: increase profile visits, inquiries, and direct messages.
• X goal: increase website visits and direct messages.
• LinkedIn goal: increase website visits.
• The overall goal for social media: increase leads and conversions.

However, if they're just getting started, it would be unrealistic to expect social media channels to drive brand awareness and leads at the same time. In that case, you'd want to focus on growing an audience and engagement instead.

Next, you'll need to evaluate what they’ve tried to date and find out what’s worked and what hasn’t:

#2 Get granular about their target audience

Find out your potential client's marketing personas, so you can propose the right goals and social networks to focus on.

Then, dig deeper and ask them about their best (or worst) customers and what motivates them. By understanding the pain points and relief customers experience, you'll be able to come up with even more creative content ideas for all social media channels.

Determine their target audience with this four-category approach: 

• Socio-Demographic: age, gender, occupation, family size, etc.

• Geographic: do they live in the city or the countryside, are they part of a large community, etc.

• Psychographic: what are their values, how do they spend their free time, what are their favorite activities, etc.

• Behavioural patterns: what are their shopping behaviours, how often do they go out, travelling patterns, hobbies, etc.

#3 Figure out their main competitors

Next, determine their business competitors. It might be a local business like another restaurant or an international brand. Ask questions like:

This is also a good time to set the expectation that most global brands have huge advertising budgets and large content teams. While it's good to aspire for their greatness, business owners need to be realistic and remember to focus on what will help them grow.

#4 Get clarity on their scope and budget

Finally, find out what they need help with and how much they’re prepared to invest. This could range from a single campaign or upskilling their team to a fully managed, monthly retainer service. 

Ask questions that will help you understand their budget: 

The more you know about the value you can provide to the business and what their budget is, the easier it will become to negotiate a good rate for your social media services.

#5 Be open and flexible

Each prospective client is different. The size of the business and their experience with social media marketing will vary just as much as their needs and budget availability.

For instance, they might be a brand new company with no previous history or experience. In which case, they'll most likely need a package that's inexpensive while focusing on all key aspects of audience building on one or two platforms.

On the other hand, a well-established brand might need to change its strategy on several social networks and introduce more video content.

That’s why hosting a discovery session is vital before you create your social media proposal. Especially, if you want the highest chance of winning new business!

What to include in your social media marketing proposal?

Your proposal needs to demonstrate an understanding of the prospective client’s requirements and how you are best equipped to fulfil them.

We go through the process of creating your own template below, but you're most welcome to download our free and customisable social media proposal (it's in Google Docs format).

Here's how you can incorporate these answers in your proposal for social media marketing services:

1. Executive summary (a.k.a. the introduction)

The opening paragraphs set the scene for your proposal based on the discovery session you held previously. You want to set your prospective client’s expectations and show you understand what they require. 

Use words like you, yours and we to address the prospective customer directly and establish a relationship. For example: 

2. Goals and KPIs

Next, you can go into a little more detail, matching their business goals to social media goals and objectives.

Try to avoid giving generic descriptions of the services you'd like to provide, and instead focus on measurable objectives or SMART goals.

For example, if the prospective client indicated they wanted to grow their target audience of young consumers, you could say set this SMART goal:

For smaller brands, it could be more pertinent to focus on growing their audience. In which case, try tying the broader goal with the number of posts you'll be publishing for the client:

3. Scope of work

Here’s where you state what activities you’re going to perform for your prospective client. It’s worth adding why you’re proposing to do each item, so they understand the reason behind it.

If you're planning to offer different types of packages, it's worth clearly highlighting what will be included in each package at the end of the proposal.

It’s useful to break this section into subsections, so it’s clear for everyone. Typical subheadings in a social media proposal include:

• Content creation and curation: Highlight your main responsibilities like creating a social media content calendar, designing images, taking bespoke photographs, recording videos, writing captions, and curating industry-related content. Note: You can also outline the steps of the approval process in this section to help clients see at which point they need to get involved.
• Platform selection: Outline why you’ve chosen specific social networks. For example, they may be more suited to the target audience or their competitors are active there.
• Posting schedule: State how often you'd propose posting to each network and why. For example, we’ll post once a day to Instagram using different types of content (including visual content creation and captions) to build traction on your account.
• Brand monitoring: Advise on some of the brand keywords and hashtags you could be tracking.
• Engagement and community: Advise how often you’ll engage with followers. For example, a set amount of time each day or replying to engagements within a set number of hours. 
• Timelines and milestones: These are used for specific campaigns, e.g., holiday promotions, in addition to the regular posting schedule.
• Analytics and reporting: Include the frequency of the reports and details of what you’ll be tracking and why.
• Review meetings: Schedule regular catch-ups to review overall performance and exchange ideas.
• Working arrangements: If applicable, include a section stating where and who will do the work. For example, will this work be done remotely or in the prospective client’s office?

For larger accounts, you might also want to nominate individuals who’ll be involved. For example, the lead copywriter, designer, and project or account manager.

4. Project milestones and deadlines

Use this section to define how you’ll measure the project’s success. Don’t forget to benchmark current performance levels so you can measure the growth.

Set expectations with clear deadlines and deliverables. For example:

• Week 1–2: Onboarding and content plan

• Week 3: First round of posts scheduled

• Monthly: Performance review and strategy adjustments

5. Proof of work

It’s highly likely that your prospective client will review several proposals. So aside from explaining what you plan to do, you should show why you’re the best option. 

An excellent way to show your value is to use results, case studies, and testimonials from other clients. The key is to select examples from your marketing portfolio that closely match your proposal. The more relevant they are, the stronger your case becomes. Here's an example: 

6. Terms of the agreement

Be transparent. Whether you charge a retainer, hourly rate, or fixed project fee—outline it clearly. Use tables to keep it digestible.

Include:

• Package name

• What’s included

• Monthly/total cost

• Optional add-ons

Example:

7. Next steps for the client

Draw your proposal to a conclusion by outlining the next steps for the client in the process. For example, you might include:

• Accept the proposal as-is or discuss changes 
• Request and sign the contract
• Submit an initial payment 

How to deliver a social media proposal?

Once you’ve completed your proposal, proofread it or ask a colleague to double-check it.

When it comes to presenting it, you have a few options. 

• Best: Present it on a live video call and walk them through it

•  

  Good: Send a PDF or Google Doc via email and follow up with a call

   

   

• Always include an expiration date to create urgency

Download our free social media proposal template

To make your life easier, we’ve created a free Google Docs social media proposal template. It’s editable, reusable, and includes everything you need—plus a bonus channel audit checklist and upsell add-ons.

Plus, there's plenty of additional guidance to help you personalise your offer, including a one-page social media channel audit you can carry out on your client's accounts and optional add-ons you may want to charge extra for in the future.

As with all templates, remember to personalise your proposal as much as possible and add images where applicable. It's so important to be authentic and build trust with your future clients!

Wrapping up

Creating a social media marketing proposal for prospective clients is an essential part of winning more business and growing your agency.

Ultimately, the more detailed and tailored you can make your proposal for each prospective client, the higher the chance of closing your next deal! One way to make it so is to host an in-depth discovery session prior to crafting it.

Use templates whenever possible. They'll help you save time, be more effective, and avoid missing anything important.