Features
Why Sked?
Sked Social is a third party app and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any social network platforms.
See our Terms & Privacy Policy.
See our Terms & Privacy Policy.
Download
follow us
© 2024 Sked Social. All rights reserved.
Make the pitch, get a strike.
Whether you’re a freelance social media manager or run a social media marketing agency, scoring new clients isn’t always as easy as it seems. You might have aced your marketing, built a strong social media following and even have a few prospective clients lined up. But if you don’t land the pitch then you’re not likely to secure the clients.
However, with the right pitch deck, services guide and custom proposals, you will be turning all of your prospects into your clients.
To help you get there, we have put together a complete guide to the services you can offer as a social media marketing agency, all the best practice tips and tricks for creating a pitch deck, the top way to design a winning proposal template and the strategies you need to close deals with new clients.
What services can you offer as a social media marketing agency?
When it comes to running a social media marketing agency, you can choose to specialize in a specific service area or run a full-service agency. Some common services offered by social media marketing agencies include:
- Social media strategy: Designing a marketing plan to help a client meet their social media goals. A social media marketing strategy usually involves creating a content plan and strategy that’s based on your client’s social media targets, such as developing a memorable social media presence, generating more engagement or reaching new customers.
- Social media audit: Conducting a social media audit involves getting all of the key data from a client’s social media channels together to analyze the effectiveness of their current social media efforts. This will give you a better insight into your client’s strengths and pain points, and help you design a more effective social media strategy going forward.
- Social media content creation: This is when you create content for a client’s social media platforms. Depending on the platform, you might need to employ a wide range of creative skills, including taking photographs, filming videos, designing graphics and writing captions. Plus, you can create content for a client’s social channels on an ongoing basis or manage their social media campaigns on their behalf.
- Social media management: this service is all about organizing and overseeing a client’s social media platforms. Managing a client’s social media platforms may require you to schedule and post their social media content, as well as monitor comments and engage with their social media audience to boost their channel’s engagement rate.
- Social media reporting: this service includes a write-up of a client’s social media performance. A social media report will usually present key data on the effectiveness of a client’s social media activities, offering feedback on what’s working and what’s not. This report will show the client what you have been working on and how your efforts are helping them achieve their social media goals.
Influencer marketing: Partnering with high-profile Instagram or TikTok users to promote your client’s products and services. This involves an influencer endorsing the product or service to their large social following and potential customers. An influencer’s social media followers usually trust the influencer’s recommendations, leading them to try the product or service themselves. This service involves you managing the entire influencer partnership, from scouting the talent to creating briefs to reviewing content and generating reports.
What is a social media marketing pitch deck?
As you can see, there are plenty of different services you can offer as a social media marketing agency or freelancer. With so many other businesses offering similar services to you, it’s essential to find an effective way to market your services and win new business.
A social media marketing pitch deck is a presentation that gives potential clients a snapshot of your agency and the services that you offer. It usually includes a brief overview of your agency’s unique selling points, what you do best, your points of difference and how a client could benefit from working with you.
A social media marketing agency will draw on its pitch deck during discovery calls and meetings with potential clients. If you create the right pitch deck then it can be an essential sales tool that will help convince clients to work with you.
How to create a social media marketing pitch deck
Now you’ve learnt why your agency needs to pull together a pitch deck, you’re probably wondering what this presentation needs to include. Luckily, we’ve got all the answers for you!
Ready to create an effective social media marketing pitch deck? Here’s your step-by-step guide.
Step 1. Get to know your potential client
The best pitch decks are always personalized to each prospective client. While it might seem a lot easier to just make one pitch deck to use for all of your future clients, this Semrush study shows that a “personalized agency sales pitch is more likely to determine your success than factors like price, value propositions, case studies, or benchmarks.”
This means that you need to do your homework and gain a good understanding of both your client’s business and their social media goals. To do so, you will need to learn about the services and products that they sell, their past marketing efforts, along with their current social media use and how they can be improved.
You can find out some of this essential information by doing a social media audit but it’s also worth using questionnaires and Zoom discovery calls to ask your prospective client some more specific questions. That way, you can gain a better understanding of your potential clients and deliver a more effective pitch deck.
Collaborate effortlessly, save time and spend less
Why settle for a lackluster social media management tool when you could be using Sked Social? With unlimited collaborator access, streamlined approvals and advanced auto-post technology that lets you schedule to all major platforms, Sked Social offers everything you need.
Get Started for FREE
Step 2. Map the field and assess their competitors
It’s essential to research your client’s field and learn about their competitors. Conducting a competitor analysis of similar businesses in their field can help you to assess their competitor’s weaknesses and find areas of opportunity for your client to succeed.
To do so, you will need to look into the channels and content formats that your client’s competitors are using, along with the content pillars they’re leveraging and even their tone of voice. Once you have this information, you don’t want to copy the competitors but use the information to identify any gaps in the market and find ways for your client to own their niche.
This information can then be used to inform your pitch deck and show your client that you can help them stand out from their competitors.
Step 3. Clarify how you can help
This step is all about showing the client how you can help their business. Essentially, this involves you identifying a social media challenge that your client is facing and offering your own social media marketing services as the solution.
This stage of the presentation should also include the following key pieces of information:
- An introduction to your agency and your areas of expertise.
- An overview of your team members: this will bring a personal element into your pitch deck and will help build trust with your prospective client.
- Statistics and data about the impact of social media marketing and why business owners should consider it.
- An overview of the packages and services that you would recommend for this client, and how they will help your client achieve their goals.
- A detailed breakdown of each service, including the timings, costs, and deliverables.
Remember to handpick specific services or design a bespoke package that will suit your client’s business needs, size and budget. This will help your client see that you understand them and their unique business goals.
Step 4. Explain the way you work
It’s important to discuss your working style and process with your client as this will help them see what working together could look like.
It’s important that you both have the same expectations around your social media workflow, and you will need to outline your expectations around the following:
- Communication and meetings: how often you will run meetings and whether your predominant form of communication will be via email, over the phone or on Zoom, through online messaging services or in person.
- Content creation and approvals: the content management tools, apps and software that you will use, such as spreadsheets, calendars, Trello, Asana or Monday.
- Roles and responsibilities: you and your client should be on the same page about who is responsible for each task in your workflow process, including ideation and strategy, content creation, scheduling, reviewing and approving.
- Metrics and KPIs: how you’re going to measure the success of your social media marketing efforts and how often your client can expect to receive a social media report on your progress.
Step 5. Add social proof through case studies
It’s important to give your prospective clients an insight into your successes with other clients by showcasing relevant case studies and client testimonials within your pitch deck.
Having other clients give testimony for your social media abilities is a powerful way to build your prospective client’s trust in your abilities. If your prospective client can see that other clients are happy with your work then they will expect that they will be too.
Just remember to highlight case studies and client testimonials that are relevant to your prospective client. This might be case studies from clients within the same industry or testimonials about the services that you’re offering this client.
Step 6. Next steps
The final part of the pitch deck will give you and your prospective client an opportunity to take the first steps toward working together.
This is when your client has the chance to ask you some more questions, and you put forward a proposed quote for them to review and approve.
If your client is happy with your pitch then they might be ready to sign a contract and move forward in your work together.
Designing a social media proposal template
After the client has seen the pitch deck, they’ll likely request a custom quote or proposal. This is where everything you have shown the client comes together in a neat package for them to review. Your social media proposal should include the following:
- Cover page
- Table of contents
- About us: an overview of your company and team members, the services you offer and your specialisations.
- Social proof: a selection of your certifications, awards, Google ratings, case studies and relevant client testimonials.
- Package and services: a summary of the services that you’re offering your client, why they’re important and their predicted outcomes.
- Pricing: an outline of your pricing. This can be broken down per hour, per project or per month.
- Workflow: your work process and how you will work together. Here, you can set out your expectations around meetings, communication, roles and responsibilities.
- Call to action: this will contain the final quote, a suggested starting timeline and a proposal approval process.
- Thank you: the final slide usually includes your contact information and a message thanking the client for their time.
5 steps to win new clients as a social media agency
Keep things concise
It’s important to avoid overwhelming your prospective clients with excessively long presentations. A good tip for presenting is to follow the 10/20/30 presentation rule, which suggests that a presentation should have 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and minimum font size of 30 points
Add visuals
Visuals will often capture a person’s attention more than words alone. In fact, studies show that almost 80% of people remember what they see, compared to 20% of what they read, and just 10% of what they hear. This means that using photographs, icons, graphs and other visual elements in your presentation can help generate more interest in your presentation.
Personalize your pitch deck and proposal
Personalizing your pitch deck and proposal will give you a better chance of securing a new client. You can do this by making sure that your pitch is tailored to your client’s needs, taking into consideration their industry, competitors and target audience. Offering a truly bespoke package will show that you have gone the extra mile and really care about the client’s success.
Make it easy to say yes
Simplifying the approval process will make it easier for clients to move forward with your proposal. You can do this by using digital contracts and online signing tools in your contracting process, which can make the entire process much smoother for you and your client.
Follow up
If a few days have passed since the presentation and you haven’t heard anything from the client then it’s time for a gentle follow-up. A friendly email or phone call will show that you’re proactive and on top of things, and sometimes even convince a client to say yes.
And that’s a wrap!
Pitching is an essential part of running a social media marketing company and doing it right can score you some great clients. With a personalized pitch deck that highlights your own social media marketing skills, along with your client’s social media needs, targets and objectives, you won’t have any trouble securing your next great client partnership.