Paper sales proposal is rapidly becoming an old fashioned thing in a connected and interactive world. It's clear that sales proposal have evolved in many ways. Sales proposal files have been replaced by fancy proposal tools. You can also call it a technological leap.
Today's selling world has become more competitive than ever before. Buyers have become more sophisticated.
Now, the look and feel of your sales proposal is equally important as the content and quality of it. In this day and age, you can't have a general sales proposal approach; they have to be cutting edge to dazzle your potential clients. It doesn't have to be a crazy formal document, especially if you don't need to present it to the bank or the investor.
The time has come where you need to create a glamorous living sales proposal that will shine and help you win the deal. In simple words "Interactive Sales Proposal".
Why You Need To Implement An Interactive Sales Proposal?
To make the entire reader experience memorable.
How often you view a PDF file on mobile or on a tablet?
Quite often, right? But do you go through the same struggle as me? Like,
Wait for the PDF file to download.Zoom in to read the content.Swipe left to right to read.Again zoom out.
Now, imagine the same file goes to your prospective client in the form of a sales proposal. Clearly, you missed your chance. As they say, First impression is the last.
I have some more reasons to tell you why PDFs are outdated?
They Are Not Interactive
A typical monotonous proposal doesn't influence the client to read furthermore. When a proposal contains only plain text and a few images the prospective clients will not be able to focus on the main objective.
Imagine you have the latest video of your product that explains everything about it and you want to include that in your proposal but because you are using PDF you can't.
We live in a world where turning your idea into reality has made it more possible than ever before. And this lack of interactivity of PDFs gives full stop to all your amazing ideas and again decreases your chances of winning the deal.
They Are Not Trackable
Has this ever happened to you?
You sent an important mail and expect a quick reply. But, after time passes.....nothing. You start wondering whether the recipients ever opened your email? But fortunately, there are some tools that allow you to track your email.
But imagine, you will be notified whenever someone views your proposal, or you could know time that person spends on reading it or which part of your sales proposal holds his attention the most, etc.
Wouldn't that be great?
But unfortunately, you won't be able to implement all these things that give you all the insights if you send proposals in PDF.
They Are Not Flexible
According to Adestra, 64.4% of email opens occurred on mobile devices.
Viewing PDFs on mobiles still remains a terrible experience. And the main reason is that PDFs are not flexible at all. Mobile screen readers are not able to pick up the text successfully. It's really frustrating to pinch the screen, again and again, to zoom out and zoom in to find your spot in the document.
It's visually impossible for your prospective client to read PDF proposals on mobile, it will make it harder to communicate the value of your product and sadly you will have to face one more rejection even if your product or service fulfills the pain points of the prospective client.
Lastly, It Was Absolutely Nice Knowing You PDF
PDF has lived its life amazingly. Without a doubt, PDF was once a pacesetter in online paperwork. However, it has started showing it's age. Because the information that is locked inside a document won't sustain in a rapidly increasing mobile world.
Businesses are exploring new ways to manage their data.
How To Create Interactive Sales Proposals?
Wouldn't it be amazing if your prospect notices every bit of your sales proposal without a single distraction?
Let's find out how.
Use Video To Make Your Sales Proposal Effective
The face of a sales proposal has changed. But many companies still serve their information via text and then again keep wondering about the low conversion rate.
Statistics are clear, humans are visual creatures. Video is the way people prefer to learn anything new.
It's exactly similar to Visume (Video resume). We all know that video resumes are extremely interactive. Each minute in your Visume is worth a thousand words. You can convey a lot in a 3-minute Visume than what you could have with a 200-page booklet about yourself.
So, why not simply copy the same idea and create an awesome mp4 sales proposal. It is an excellent way to stand out from the competition.
Audiofy Your Sales Proposal
Imagine, your prospect loves early morning jog and while jogging if he listens to some interesting stuff on podcast that immediately lifts up his mood.
So, don't you want to grab that opportunity?
Audio interactivity provides another level of engagement. You can highlight your key strengths and convince the prospect that you are the right person for a project. And plus it shows, that you are ready to go the extra mile.
Include Interactive Pricing Table
You can create your proposal as a Webpage. In that, you can add interactive pricing tables with a range of pricing options where customers can edit the quantities, select products or services that best fit their needs. In short, they can create a tailored version of your product or service for them.
Interactive pricing table also allows clients to select additional services. For example, if you have some additional services like content strategy development plan, social media marketing etc, and if they want one of those services, then your proposal should display the updated pricing in real-time.
Your proposal should have an ability to communicate pricing with your prospect.
GIF It Up
It is been a while now when the globe was introduced by GIFs. The more the technology gets older the more easily it fades away. But there are few exceptions like GIF. At the age of 31, they are becoming more popular and fashionable than ever.
GIFs can attract anyone's attention and make your average elevator pitch distinct from others. It gives you easiest way to connect with your prospect, show off your key elements in style, and make the process joyful.
Brad Zeff, Chief Content Officer and General Counsel of Giphy and Samantha Scharff, the CEO of Giphy Studios are two people that are trying to animate the globe and redefine digital communication. We’re the people that bring you all the GIFs.
"Our mission is to make everything move" says Zeff.
So you can make use of these GIF’s to make an otherwise plain text proposal into an exciting moving picture.
Wind-up:
An interactive sales proposal is a new approach to convey one very important message that the sales proposal don't have to be that boring, formal document. It's time to break the routine and create something exciting. We created the sales proposal checklist for readers that want to improve their sales processes.