Facebook Marketing + Web Development Proposals … in Progress

Today finds me smack dab in proposal mode. One proposal is for what would be, should we land it, a rekindling opportunity with a former client from my marketing days back in the late 90s. The proposal is for Facebook marketing and administration. As often happens with these kinds of scenarios, the business owner manages most of the Facebook presence for the business but believes he is not maximizing the full potential of Facebook. He believes that he’s taken the company’s Facebook page up to a point where he’s not sure what more can be done; and it is from this very point that he hopes to transition the administration of the page to a provider or vendor who can partner with him and his team to take their Facebook presence to the next level.

What strikes me about this kind of scenario is that while the project is Facebook-centric, its focus on Facebook cannot and should not “ignore” other opportunities for integration and cross-promotion with non-Facebook marketing activities. In the research done for this proposal, we discovered various opportunities outside of Facebook that have yet to be realized. It’s important to always maximize the potential of the platform (in this case Facebook) but also to look outside the platform and into the company’s overall marketing efforts, to date. A lot of inspiration and ideas can flow from sources external to Facebook and in this case, this fact could not apply more. The concept and business niche of this prospect is wonderful and they have various years of market penetration and visibility … and I hope that the ideas shared in our proposal will be well received. I’d love nothing more, honestly, than landing this account because the subject matter being positioned and shared is just super fun and deals with all things related to pets and animals. What a nice break that would be from the more “corporate” kinds of topics we typically find ourselves submersed in

Another exciting proposal we are knee-deep in is for a Drupal web site development project. This is yet another exciting endeavor and I am crossing my toes and fingers hoping that we are selected. Nothing would please me more than to have our web team sink their teeth into this meaty project. We would be subcontractors for the project and the client we would work with, if selected, is a local marketing and communications firm based out of Washington DC metro area. You should have seen what we were sent in so far as project requirements. I was floored to see the incredible level of detail provided by this firm. They not only sent over completely defined project specs, but they also broke it out into Phase I, II and III!! Omg, trust me … this is a highly unusual treat. Normally web clients (or prospects) want everything AND the kitchen sink stuffed into Phase I. Knowing that three clear phases were already identified from the get-go shows me that this company *knows* what they are doing. This fact was further emphasized by the incredible wireframes that were sent to us, showcasing the desired layout of the Phase I site page by page. Honestly, we’ve never been sent that level of detail from anyone before. It was *refreshing* to receive this kind of organized, on-point project information. Let’s hope things pan out …

Clearly when you are doing up proposals, there’s zero guarantee that you’ll win the work or account. Still, you have to try, right?? Let’s see how things go. I can tell you that yes, winning accounts obviously means new revenue for the company. That is a given for any business. But what excites me much, much more are the real-value opportunities to make a meaningful difference and positive contributions in the social media engagement or web site development arenas of our prospective clients’ marketing efforts.

Wish us luck…