Win more partners with a professional influencer marketing proposal template that demonstrates your expertise and makes it easy for brands to choose your agency.
Many creative agencies struggle to explain their ideas, which loses them potential clients who can’t see the value being offered. This guide will show you how to build a proposal template that explains your services simply and shows how you’ll help brands succeed with influencer partnerships.
You’ll see the key sections every winning proposal has, learn how to price your services fairly, and get practical tips for managing client relationships throughout the campaign process.
What is an influencer marketing proposal?
It is a document that creative agencies create when they want to sell influencer marketing services to their clients. The proposal outlines the plan, its objectives, and the rationale behind investing in influencer partnerships. The goal is to convince clients that using influencers is a smart way to increase brand awareness, engage potential customers, or boost product sales.
How an Influencer Marketing Proposal Template Benefits Your Agency
- The proposal outlines the campaign's objectives, its operational approach, and the anticipated outcomes. It helps everyone understand the plan, whether it's to increase brand awareness, excite customers, or boost sales.
For example, a skincare brand's proposal clearly states, “We want 100,000 people to learn about our new face cream through beauty YouTubers posting tutorials." This way, everyone on the team knows exactly what success looks like instead of guessing.
- When agencies present organized plans, results from past campaigns, and demonstrate an understanding of the client's needs, it builds greater trust among clients, a key component of effective client retention strategies. They feel more confident working with agencies that offer clear, innovative ideas rather than vague ones.
- The proposal outlines the work to be done, its timeline, the influencers to be used, the content's focus, and the associated costs. Thus, everyone knows what their role is during the campaign.
- Agencies can demonstrate how working with influencers creates genuine, honest connections with the right customers. By tailoring the proposal to the client's specific brand and problems, the agency can demonstrate why influencer marketing stands out and differs from other advertising methods.
- An influencer marketing proposal template helps agencies stay professional, tailoring proposals to different clients. The document also allows agencies to track the campaign's progress, manage finances, meet deadlines, and measure success.
Why You Can't Skip an Influencer Marketing Proposal
Without a structured influencer collaboration proposal, creative agencies and their clients run into big problems:
- Campaign goals, what work needs to be done, when it's due, and how much it costs become unclear. This leads to confusion, as people expect different things. Without a written plan, teams don't know what success looks like or how to reach it.
- Without a proposal, agencies might forget important rules (like telling people when content is sponsored). This can lead to fines, damage to their reputation, or even lawsuits, especially for businesses that have strict rules to follow.
For instance, a health supplement company partners with fitness influencers who often forget to include "#ad" in their posts. The government fines the company $50,000 for breaking advertising rules because the requirement was overlooked in their planning.
- Simply discussing plans or exchanging casual emails can lead to misunderstandings or overlooked details. If there is no proposal to refer back to, people forget what was agreed upon or argue about what ought to happen.
- Without clear ways to measure success against influencer campaign benchmark stats, it's hard to know if the campaign was effective, prove it was worth the investment, or make future campaigns better. Agencies struggle to show clients why they should pay their fees.
- Costs might skyrocket, or essential tasks might get overlooked if nobody is clear about what's included in the campaign. Extra work and surprises are inevitable without a detailed proposal.
- Without official paperwork, it's harder to resolve disagreements about responsibilities, deadlines, content usage, or payment amounts. This can lead to lawsuits or broken trust.
- A well-organized proposal shows that an agency is professional and knows what it's doing. Without one, agencies appear unprepared or unreliable, which makes it harder to attract new clients or retain current ones.
What to Include in Your Influencer Marketing Proposal
When creating an influencer campaign proposal for clients, include these essential parts that focus on brand strategy, creative ideas, and examples of work:
1. Brand Strategy Parts
- Introduction & Brand Overview. Introduce your agency and talk about the client's brand. Explain what makes the brand special and show that you understand their business, problems, and goals.
- Campaign Goals. A clear goal should be stated for the campaign, such as growing brand awareness, promoting products, engaging customers, and other goals.
For example, "Our goal is to get 25,000 new people to follow your bakery's Instagram account and increase weekend sales by 30% through food bloggers showing off your custom birthday cakes."
- Target Audience Information. Describe who you're trying to reach– their age, interests, where they live, and how they act online. This should match the followers of the influencer, so it makes sense.
- Influencer Selection Rules. Explain what types of influencers you'll work with (small, medium, or enormous followings), what platforms you'll use (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube), and how you'll pick the right ones (like how much their followers interact with them).
2. Creative Ideas Examples
- Content Themes and Messages. Describe the style, tone, and main messages influencers will share. This includes hashtags, storytelling ideas, how the brand should sound, and any creative concepts or mood boards.
- Visual and Media Examples. Show sample creative ideas or mockups of posts, stories, videos, or other content types to help clients see what the campaign will look like.
For example, "We'll create Instagram posts with bright, sunny photos of people drinking your smoothies after workouts, plus 15-second TikTok videos showing the '3-ingredient breakfast smoothie challenge' using your products.
- Brand Matching. Explain how the creative ideas match the brand's values and marketing story to keep everything authentic and consistent.
3. Sample Work Examples
- Content Types and Amount. Say exactly how many and what kinds of content influencers will make, like 3 Instagram posts, five stories, 2 TikTok videos, or YouTube reviews.
- Timeline and Important Dates. List key dates, including when the campaign starts and ends, when content needs to be finished, when posts go live, and when clients review content.
- Approval Process. Explain how content will be checked and approved by the client before it goes public to ensure it meets the brand's quality standards and is safe for the public.
For example, "Influencers will send us draft posts 48 hours before publishing. We'll check that they mention your key benefits and use proper hashtags, then send everything to you for final approval within 24 hours."
- Usage Rights & Reusing Content. Clearly define the rights the client has to use influencer content, including whether they can use it for paid ads or other marketing channels.
Flexible Campaign Options and Pricing Structure
Different Campaign Types:
- Single Campaigns: One-time campaigns for a specific time, perfect for launching new products or special promotions.
- Monthly Plans: Ongoing influencer marketing help over several months, great for building brand awareness consistently and creating regular content.
How Pricing Works:
- Use different price levels based on the campaign's size and the size of the influencers you work with (from small to huge followings).
- Pricing can work in three ways:
- Fixed Price. One set price for specific work that's clearly defined.
- Percentage of Budget. Agency fees are based on the amount spent on advertising or paying influencers. For example, if a restaurant spends $10,000 paying food bloggers, the agency charges 20% of that ($2,000) as their fee for managing everything.
- Results-Based. Fees are tied to the campaign's performance, measured by metrics such as engagement or sales numbers.
- Influencer costs vary significantly depending on the platform and the number of followers they have, from $20-$100 per post for small influencers on Instagram, to thousands for big influencers.
- Include extra money for creating content, obtaining necessary approvals, and addressing any unexpected issues that may arise.
Timeline Planning:
- List essential deadlines, including bringing influencers on board, creating content, getting approvals, posting schedules, and when reports are due.
- Keep timelines flexible to accommodate revisions and ensure alignment with influencers' availability. For instance, if an influencer falls ill and can't film their yoga video on Tuesday, the schedule is adjusted by 3 days, rather than panicking or scrambling to find a replacement at the last minute.
Reporting Plan:
- Give regular updates during the campaign.
- Provide detailed final reports that include key metrics such as the number of content views, engagement rates, sales figures, and return on investment.
- Make reports easy to understand so you can see what worked and improve future campaigns.
ManyRequests keeps your influencer campaigns organized in one place, eliminating the need to juggle emails and spreadsheets. All instructions, guidelines from your influencer outreach template, and client feedback are stored in the same system, making them easily accessible to everyone. Content approvals happen smoothly as influencers submit work, you track each piece, and automatic reminders ensure everything follows brand rules and goes live on time.
Hey Digital uses this same approach to manage ad campaigns for companies like Posthog and Hotjar. While they handle ad creatives instead of influencer content, they face similar challenges– multiple clients, content deadlines, and team coordination. Their success with 75+ brands shows how proper organization prevents the chaos that comes from scattered communications and missed deadlines.
Client Experience and Project Management
To ensure a smooth experience for clients and successful projects in influencer marketing, agencies should follow client onboarding best practices that establish transparent processes that include organized revision rounds, regular reports, and rules about who owns what content.
Client Experience Flow Parts
- Revision rounds. Determine the number of times clients can review and modify content within the campaign (e.g., 2 or 3 times per piece). Explain how effective client communication works for feedback, how long changes take, and what happens if they need lots of extra edits.
- Reporting how often. Set expectations for updates with weekly or monthly reports during a campaign. These reports should show essential numbers (like how many people saw content, engagement, and sales), helpful insights, and what to do next. Give a final summary report when the campaign ends.
- Asset ownership: Clearly explain who owns the images, videos, and creative content that influencers make. Include rules for how content can be used, whether it can be turned into ads, and how it gets stored. This prevents legal problems or brand issues later.
FAQs
How do you create a compelling collaboration pitch for influencer marketing?
Start by learning about your client's business and problems before you meet with them. This shows you care and understand what they need. When you present your ideas, use real examples from other similar companies to help them picture how it will work for them. Keep the conversation friendly and always explain how your plan will help their business succeed, while being ready to talk about costs and how long things will take.
How do agencies structure influencer marketing proposals?
Agencies build proposals that flow from start to finish, beginning with introductions and brand understanding, then moving through goals, audience targeting, and influencer selection. They show content examples and explain timelines, budgets, and reporting methods. This clear structure helps clients follow along easily while building trust in the agency's approach.
Conclusion
A strong influencer marketing proposal can be the key to winning new clients for your agency. When you organize your proposal well, it shows potential clients exactly what they're getting and why you're the best fit for their campaign. Use the framework and strategies we discussed to create proposals that clearly explain your services and prove your value.
Start with the important pieces like brand strategy, creative examples, and detailed project plans, then add flexible pricing and explain how you'll handle everything from start to finish. Clear communication and professional presentation help build trust with clients who are deciding whether to work with you.
If you want to make your proposal process easier, try ManyRequests for 14 days free to see how good project management can help you deliver better results and keep clients happy throughout their campaigns.
