Sales Communications > Bids, Pitches & Tenders
Bids, Pitches & Tenders
Identify, distinguish, sell
Writing a bid, pitch or competition entry is a sales activity – so you need a sales mentality and professionalism to do it successfully. Because it’s a highly competitive situation, you need to differentiate the proposal, as well as your organisation. Your proposal has to be distinguished from others, and you have to draw out the benefits in a way that is directly relevant to your target audience. Insight into the audience need is critical in directing those choices.
The importance of copywriting for bids, pitches & proposals
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Increased conversion - preparing new business proposals is expensive, usually unpaid, work. So it’s crucial to have a high conversion rate. Our clients typically double their conversion rate if we're involved during the bid development phase and contribute to the positioning and drafting of the bid.
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Focus on what’s important - organisations have a tendency to focus all of their attention on proposal development, assuming that this will win the business alone. It won’t. It’s the way in which you position the proposal in relation to your audience’s need that is key to winning.
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Assess the competition - what are your competitors likely to do? Being a step ahead and anticipating competitor movements means you can establish a distinct positioning of your own.
Considerations for bids, pitches & proposals
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Target audience - who are the audience? What is it they want most, or most want to avoid? By answering these questions, pitch documents can appeal to the emotions of the decision makers as well as their reason.
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Positioning - demonstrate rather than claim. If you are bidding for a premium brand, demonstrate premium in your bid.
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Benefits of the Barnaby Benson approach
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Experience - Barnaby Benson spent five years as a new business director in advertising agencies, laterly with Omnicom Group who trained him in the dark art of pitching. Our skill set combines pitching, sales and brand positioning. And of course, years of copywriting experience to make every line attention grabbing and persuasive.
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Irresistible bids - we figure out the emotional loss/gain for the potential client, using it to inform the angle for the proposal.
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Fresh pair of eyes - your focus, understandably, is on making the strongest proposal you can develop. A fresh pair of eyes check that it’s as powerful and clearly expressed as you believe it to be - and we bring the sales skillset to adapt a bid where needs be.
Get in touch
‘The pitch could not have gone better. Thank you for your expert help, hugely appreciated and valued.’
Julian Jordan
Managing & Founding Director
Agency Fish
'The sessions have been very useful and the success rate has improved on these tenders - so we are doing something right.'
Peter Knight
Managing Director
Northern Overbury Plc