How to Write a Business Proposal Email (With Example)

A business proposal is an email used to persuade clients to do business with you. Writing a solid business proposal is a skill that will help your company succeed. To help with revenue growth, business proposal emails can be sent in a variety of formats to both new and current clients. In this article, we go over how to write a strong business proposal email.

Main conclusions:

• Provide the buyer persona, needs analysis, goals, schedule, scope, and expenses of your proposal.

• Ensure your email is legible, professional, and contains all the information the recipient has requested.

• Add any necessary follow-up actions or a call to action asking readers to take a particular action.

What is a business proposal email?

A business proposal email is a letter sent in the early to mid stages of a sales pipeline. The majority of these proposals are made in business-to-business exchanges.

A business proposal may be sent after a prospective customer has consented to examine the conditions of a sales transaction. We refer to this as a requested business proposal. Emails solicited for business proposals can be used as stand-alone sales documents or to respond to grant, research, or bid requests.

Another option is to send the buyer a business proposal email as your initial point of contact. It's an unsolicited business proposal in these circumstances.

In either case, a business proposal email needs to be successful if you want your business to expand. A well-crafted proposal begins with a clear objective statement, explains the idea briefly, adheres to the proposal email format and demands acknowledgment from both parties.

How to draft an email business proposal

Think of your email proposal as a sales pitch for your business. What should this draft contain to close the deal? First, it must be convincing. Second, a business proposal email should accurately represent the services or products provided.

Take the following actions to draft your email business proposal:

1. Complete a buyer's persona

A buyer's persona is a document that contains the buyer's values, motivations, and demographic data. Think carefully about the target audience for your business proposal. By determining the buyer's persona, you can make essential decisions about tone, expected formality, and sales content.

Interviewing current customers is one technique for developing a buyer's persona. You could, for instance, send your clients an email survey. The study can gather personal demographic data to help you better understand the age, gender, and occupation of the buyers within your clientele.

You might discover that despite your targeting marketing directors, chief executives make the buying decisions.

Popular social media platforms are nowadays a source of targeted user information for many resources. Regardless of the approach you take for your client research, utilize the data you gather to create a generic buyer profile—your buyer's persona.

This description should be considered in all of your sales communications with this audience and similar audiences—also referred to as look-alike audiences.

2. Perform an analysis of needs

Look up any information pertinent to the particular client your proposal is aimed at. We call this a requirements analysis. Ideally, you will sit down with the prospective client and ask them questions during a needs analysis.

"If you could wave a magic wand and solve one problem in your business, what would it be?" is an example of a needs analysis question. Consider asking, "Imagine we solved the problem you mentioned earlier." as another example of a question. How much would that save your company time, money, and other resources? These questions aim to get information that can be used to create a proposal. You might only have limited information available if you respond to a proposal request or send an unsolicited proposal.

If appropriate, you should also speak with other members of your network who can provide you with information about your potential client's needs as part of your needs analysis research. You could also research the business online to foresee its issues and offer a solution.

3. Pay attention to your goals and schedule.

You should begin your email business proposal with an objective statement. This is what an executive summary would be called in a formal setting. A proposal email differs from other emails in that it does not need an executive summary; however, you still need to state your goal clearly at the beginning of the email.

Think about the following inquiries to determine the purpose of your proposal:

• What is required by the client?

• Which client problem is this proposal meant to solve?

• In what way does your solution address the client's problem appropriately?

• For instance, "Bizzy Commercial Floor Care's goal in submitting this proposal is to use only direct-hire labor to reduce the cost of Family Grocer Company's nightly cleaning service by 15%."

• This objective statement provides solutions to two issues for Family Grocer Company. Keeping cleaning in-house lowers the client's floor care costs and guarantees that quality standards are upheld.

• A solid objective statement at the top of your email will generate curiosity, which is crucial, particularly for unsolicited proposals where you must learn the recipient well.

You should also consider the project timeline. When Bizzy Commercial Floor Care takes on Family Grocer Company's business, they might need to hire labor for 30 days, and the contract's duration could be six months, a year, or month-to-month. These things must be considered and included in the email process for a business proposal as early as possible.

4. Describe the proposal's scope.

Once a general timeline and goal have been established, the scope allows you to be specific about how the project will be carried out.

• The who, what, where, when, how, and why of the proposal are often referred to as its "scope":

• Who will be involved in the project? This encompasses the workforce, account managers, and stakeholders. Who will be the client's primary point of contact? Who will provide the good or service?

• What: What is scheduled for delivery? What's the project going to cost? What terms apply to payments? What obligations does the client have? What responsibilities will you be taking on?

• Where: What location will the project be held?

• When can I expect to receive the goods or services? Does it get delivered once or regularly? When can a customer contact customer service with a problem?

• How: How are matters conveyed? How is the project going to be carried out? If it is recurring, how frequently? How will you ensure you are fulfilling the client's expectations?

• Why should the client cooperate with you? Why did you use this particular good or service to address the client's issues?

5. Provide cost estimates

The client must be able to recognize the cost and accept it for the proposal to be successful.

Put a price in your proposal based on the data you've already collected. If you had the opportunity to conduct a needs analysis and converse with the client, you may already know the client's preferred cost. However, you can still develop a price that works for you and the client by projecting labor costs and other business expenses.

An example email proposal for a business

Create your own by utilizing this sample email for a business proposal: