Laura’s Winning Ideas

This marketing stuff can be confusing. Sometimes I hear marketing and advertising departments suggest that proposal teams deliver proposals in beautiful bindings with the branded company logo. Oh, boy. Sometimes I hear proposal teams lamenting that the marketing department refuses to “approve” proposal themes in time for implementation on their tight proposal schedule. Yikes!

Themes and Branding are very different and any confusion between them will dilute the impact of both.

Here are the Top 10 differences between Branding and Themes:

1. “All About You” VS. “All About the Customer”

Branding is “All About You,” and Themes are “All About Your Customer.” The aim is completely different.

When you are trying to attract attention, branding makes a statement about you and helps you stand out. When you are writing a proposal, you keep a laser focus on the customer.

2. Retention VS. Win

Both Branding and Themes need measurable criteria to evaluate the process and determine how to improve. However, the measurements are different.

The metric for branding success is reader retention. Does the marketplace connect your branding favorably with your firm?

The metric for a proposal theme is your hit rate(1). Did you shortlist? Did you win the contract?

3. Repetition: Good VS. Bad
Marketing celebrates new exposure of a brand. However, the leak of a proposal theme is a disaster.

Branding campaigns succeed by plastering the brand on everything: letterhead, faxes, trucks, email signatures, mailing cartons, PowerPoint slides, brochures, disks, etc. The more exposure the brand gets, the better the chances for retention in the minds of people.

We design a proposal theme exclusively for the specific opportunity at hand, at the current moment in time. Recycling or repeating themes is for amateurs. When you recycle a theme, you expose yourself as an uncreative force unable to distinguish between customers. Keep in mind, the winner knows what is unique about this customer’s project.

4. Sober VS. Fun
Branding is a sober and deliberate process. After all, the final design will be seen many times, for many years. A wide variety of people will interpret the design, and from many viewpoints. An error can have long term repercussions, so care and conservatism rules branding designs.

Teams design the best themes quickly and with a light touch. Frivolous and fun themes do a better job of capturing the attention of the decision-makers, and doing their job of helping the proposal reviewers to remember details in your proposal.

5. Broad corporate VS. Team approval
A branding campaign must pass muster throughout an organization. This adds to the conservatism of the final design.

A proposal theme has a small intended audience, and one that is outside your own organization. The only parties involved in a theme design are the sales/business development team members who know the customer.

6. Timeless VS. Fleeting
A branding campaign must be timeless. Everyone will be seeing the campaign over a long period, and many times. For instance, today’s popular colors could look very dated in a year or two, so branding campaigns are careful with color selection.

Themes for a proposal are contemporaneous. Their lifespan is a month or two. Current events can be effectively included in a proposal theme because the reviewers will be finished with the proposal in a short time.

7. Multi-media VS. Single showing
Branding campaigns appear in many mediums, so the images are tested carefully. A logo that looks great in color, but is indistinguishable when scanned to black and white (i.e. faxed or copied) doesn’t work.

Proposal themes only need to appear once. There is no need for alternative methods of reproduction. Heck, it can even be a unique non-reproducible item.

8. Many authors VS Few
For the reasons cited earlier, many people will involve themselves in the design of a branding campaign. For the reasons cited earlier, the fewer the number of people involved in designing a theme, the more effective it can be.

9. Time VS. Speed
Branding campaigns take time. Rushing is merely an opportunity to miss something. One Marketing Director told me that they wouldn’t undertake a branding campaign unless they have at least 6 months for design and planning.

Proposal themes tend to come in a moment of inspiration (or silliness) and we immediately move on with the rest of the work necessary to respond on time with a proposal. We allot hours, not days, for theme development for a proposal.

10. Security and Control
Marketing departments monitor and control use of branding elements to ensure consistency. A branding campaign has less impact if changes are made along the way.

A theme includes strategic aspects which are business confidential and should not be shared with anyone outside the immediate proposal team. A security breach of your theme creates an ideal opportunity for competitor ghost stories, so I change a theme rather than risk using a compromised theme.

I’ll be speaking about Proposal Themes at the Milwaukee Sales and Marketing Professionals Society in October this year. I’m bringing along some of my favorite proposals and talking about the wild ways we’ve arrived at winning themes. If you’d like to attend, please contact Tom Sobczak for more information: tom.sobczak@gasai.com

(1) Hit Rate: measurable criteria for proposal performance, ratio of proposals created divided by proposals succeeding.