When creating a pitch for a client, you may see that they tend to focus on the cost aspects above all else. With enough time in the game, you learn to create short sales pitches that are geared more around talk of lifetime value and positive ROI rather than keywords and page 1 rankings.
In order to pitch a business, you must first understand what problem you are solving for the client, and most of the time that is to increase sales and revenue for the business. This may not be the case for a big brand name who may want more market exposure and visibility, but for most clients a healthy ROI is the number one goal of hiring an agency to help with SEO.
Setting a realistic goal is not something that may have crossed your mind, but it is paramount when it comes to pitching a client and getting them to understand what is realistic when it comes to budgets and length of time to turn things around; SEO is always a long-term process, and it’s vastly important you explain the value that the client will receive if they stick with you over the long run; having some long-term case studies will help to persuade them.
Setting long-term expectations upfront is a great way to avoid negative feedback that you may receive when you are in month 2 of your service. This is simply way too soon to see any results, but the client may not understand that and will wonder why they are giving you money in exchange for very little results or sales. Explaining what value you are bringing to the table for the client should be done as part of the initial proposal.
One of the ways to create a good proposal is to put yourself in the mindset of the customer. You also need to do plenty of homework beforehand; you should learn all about the client’s industry and how their website is currently performing SEO-wise. You should learn about how much revenue they could be generating from SEO, and then you need to create a plan for how you can improve their visibility in search engines.
As you take on more and more clients over the years, you get a feel for what business owners really care about and how to shortcut the process so you can get them to sign on the dotted line and start paying you some money for your services and expertise. One thing you need to do is correct course as you go along, note down some changes after every client meeting, and then evolve your pitch and proposal to ensure you can answer a client’s question and can present the value to them in easy-to-understand words.
One thing to remember is that clients will often get lost when you start explaining keywords and rankings, so switching it over to talk about revenue and sales is a great way to start. ROI is critical for clients to understand; you should be able to explain how ranking for certain keywords will increase sales and also talk about how getting new customers will then start a chain of events that will produce more word-of-mouth marketing and better long-term customer value.
When doing your proposal, it’s important to discuss the industry and also highlight some of the metrics from the clients’ competition; this will give you an idea of how long it would take to beat them, and the client will also gain some insight into how this information could be used to improve their current revenue and also how they could be beating the competition.
Showing the client a page with their competition ranking for a keyword is a great way to get them to understand the value of ranking in that position; most clients already have an understanding of how large their competition is and probably have a good idea of how much money they generate every year. If you display how you could show a strong SEO strategy that could be used to beat the competition, then you will give them an idea of how much value you could bring to the table.
Clients will need to be impressed, so you should do an endless amount of research to present to them in your proposal; this will leave a very good impression with them and also enable them to understand that you have done your homework. If you do this level of homework upfront, imagine how much value you could bring to the table if they kept you under contract. This should be your mindset when you put together a proposal: create value before you ever ask to be paid any money.
There are many things that can derail a proposal, but one of the things many companies fail to realise is that businesses will likely have multiple pitches aimed at them, so you can’t just turn up and assume you’ll get it. If you do a small amount of homework, you must understand that there are many things that a client will consider, including how your SEO process is different from the rest being pitched, pricing, time scale, trust indicators and perhaps the most important one, which is previous case studies in a similar or exact industry.
Clients will expect you to be prepared when you present a proposal, but at the same time, you don’t want to overdo it either; giving them every answer they need may lead them to think about why they need to hire you in the first place. They may even give some of your answers to a rival firm that is willing to do it much cheaper. Always be careful when crafting a proposal not to give away too much information, but make sure you include enough so that the client understands you have done some homework.
You must demonstrate expertise when it comes to your proposal. You should include a plan for what happens if the client decides to go in a new direction; perhaps they want to launch new products, a new marketing campaign or even go after a different set of keywords. Your proposal should demonstrate that you can be adaptable to whatever changes they may need to make.
It can be very difficult when just starting out in SEO to really give the client an idea of your value since you don’t yet have the data to back this up in the way of case study examples. One of the best ways to get around this quickly is to build out your own website; it could be a personal blog, an affiliate site or even ranking your business for some local terms. Either way, before you show your proposal, it’s best to have a wide range of case studies that show you can rank for different keywords in different markets.
Many clients will be getting sales pitches and proposals every day from various digital firms, so something else you need to consider is how much value yours has. No one wants a copy-and-paste proposal, as it shows you really don’t value them or their business; instead, you should take the time to craft a personalised proposal and really study the client’s business to find out what problems they are currently facing.
Clients these days are becoming more savvy to digital marketing and dealing with digital agencies, so to set yourself apart, you should have something unique, a fresh idea, a marketing philosophy or even a special SEO technique that would set you apart from your competition. If you know that you can’t be the best option due to resources, then instead try to be the most unique option; in other words, have something the client can’t find elsewhere.
Value is decided by the marketplace, so even if your proposal is perfect, you may price yourself out of the market. Sometimes that’s by charging too much, and sometimes it may be because of charging too little. If you charge hardly anything, then companies won’t take you seriously and will assume you haven’t prepared for a business that operates at their level of scale.
Another important part of a proposal is keeping it short and concise. You should be going through your proposal and deleting out non-essential fluff; this will ensure you just highlight the issues and how you can fix them. You don’t want your client to get bored when reading it or start skipping over the sections; keep it simple but effective and easy to understand.
When thinking about value for your services, you should look into how your SEO services would boost both sales and the company’s profile. You may want to think about what could happen if the business is expanded, how that would affect revenue and brand visibility, and the owner could increase the value of the business by adding more staff members and even purchase a new location in another town or city to expand the retail side if they sell products. Start thinking about the bigger picture and sell the benefits of that rather than just keywords and rankings.