How To Create an Influencer Marketing Proposal (Free Template)

Table of Contents

• What Is an Influencer Marketing Proposal?
• What Is an Influencer Proposal Template?
• Difference Between a Pitch and a Proposal
• How to Create Your Influencer Contract Template
• Sharing Influencer Profiles

Discover how to create a winning influencer proposal template that will impress clients, decision makers, and stakeholders.

Influencer marketing has shown great promise for brands. In fact, influencer-generated content has been shown to outperform branded posts. Just as you need an influencer contract to protect your brand and outline everything from payment terms to expectations, brands also benefit from having an influencer proposal template that gains the buy-in of decision makers on leveraging influencers in the first place.

An influencer proposal template isn’t the same as an influencer contract. Sometimes called an influencer agreement, an influencer contract helps to set the right expectations for all parties involved and offers protections regarding content, payment, and work terms. It also makes life easier for marketers when you’re in talks with multiple influencers. (Side note: Klear also has an influencer contract template you can grab for free.)

On the contrary, an influencer proposal template is mainly for internal stakeholders. You’re proposing the idea of using influencer marketing and how you plan to go about it.

Here’s what you need to know about the influencer marketing proposal process and how to create your own influencer marketing template you can reuse with all of your influencer relationships. Bonus: We’re offering a free proposal template to save you a step!

What Is an Influencer Marketing Proposal? 

Every marketer knows that a proper marketing strategy needs influencers. However, there are still some people who could use a little more convincing or help to understand the impact and value. For this, there is an Influencer Proposal Template.

A proposal template allows you to clearly define your strategy and objective for decision makers and clients. It also frames how influencers will play an integral role in achieving your goals on social media, whether it’s to grow your following on Instagram or TikTok or generate more sales through other social media channels. 

Essentially, an Influencer Marketing Proposal states the “what, how, and why” of an influencer campaign. It helps maintain full alignment between you and your stakeholders and ensures all parties are entering a project with the same expectations. 

What is an Influencer Proposal Template? 

A template gives you an editable framework for creating influencer proposals. It allows you to personalize your proposal to each prospective client you’re serving in a scalable, guess-free way.

Using a proposal template is a key part of a broader influencer marketing plan that will help you stay organized. You can download our free template below, or keep reading to learn how to create your own.

Difference Between a Pitch and A Proposal

While a proposal may sound like a pitch, the two are quite different. Your pitch is your introduction. It is a way to present your skills and value to a potential client or partner. The proposal can only happen if your pitch was successful. After you have convinced a client WHY you are qualified, the proposal shows WHAT you will do with your skill set. 

Think of it as a concert. The pitch is the opening act that gets the crowd excited, and the proposal is the headline that people paid money for and better show up on time and deliver. It’s your time to shine! 

Your pitch preludes your proposal, and of course, complements it. But without a solid proposal, your pitch ultimately falls flat.

Imagine going to a restaurant that has received great reviews. You finally get reservations and upon arrival are impressed by the cool, if aloof waitstaff, chill playlist, and custom interior. The menu is looking promising: classic dishes with a modern twist, described in a way only a true food lover could concoct. You place your order and wait an hour for the first course to arrive. No biggie; you brush it off. Your food is finally placed in front of you, looks beautiful but tastes like . . . NOTHING. No flavor. Sadly, the rest of the meal follows the same pattern. 

That’s what happens when your proposal doesn’t match your pitch: Uou look good on paper, but there’s no substance to it.

That’s why anytime you collaborate with influencers, you need to set clear expectations for what you plan to accomplish. Using a template alongside other tools, like an influencer contract checklist, gives your project more substance and creates guidelines to which all parties adhere in an influencer marketing campaign.

Create Your Influencer Marketing Proposal 

Your influencer proposal should offer your clients a holistic approach to influencer marketing and outline how a campaign will support their brand’s goals. Doing this requires starting macro and then offering micro steps.

Here’s what you should include in your influencer collaboration agreement template.

Step 1:  Define Your Campaign

The first stage of your social media proposal is for defining your campaign. What will your influencer marketing strategy look like? What topic will it address, which target audience will it reach, and why is this relevant? Which social media platforms will you use (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc.)?

Step 2: Outline Your Objective 

Next, explain the goals of the campaign, and set clear KPIs that will help track and monitor your social media success.  The KPIs you choose should tie directly to your campaign goals; there’s no need to measure everything.

Step 3: Define the Role of Influencers

Explain how influencers will support your social media goals. Articulate which type of influencers you’ve decided to collaborate with (industry and influencer type). Give as much information as possible to support your decision. 

Step 4: Propose Influencers

Don’t just suggest a concept; show how you would execute it. Give examples of influencers you’d wish to collaborate with on social media and why they’d be a great fit.

Create easy-to-digest influencer profiles that highlight success metrics like true reach, engagement, and past collaborations. This will help your clients understand your decision-making process and set clear expectations for campaign performance.

Also, define how you plan to manage influencer relationships. Maintaining open communication is key to effective collaborations, and clients need to know you have a system in place for conversations and follow-ups.

Sharing Influencer Profiles

A key part of your influencer marketing proposal is having a method for sharing potential influencers with clients and decision makers. When suggesting an influencer, gather insights that emphasize their ability to generate relevant impact. Such insights include true reach, audience demographics, engagements, top content, and collaboration portfolio. 

This process is easier when you have a consistent way of managing influencer relations. Ongoing communication, tracking, and opportunities are all part of healthy influencer relationships and can make it easier to get an influencer on board when you start a new campaign.

Gathering all of this information manually can be extremely challenging, especially if you are proposing multiple influencers, lack confidence in how to find influencers, or aren’t sure how to approach influencers through emails.

But choosing the right influencers is one of the most important parts of a campaign proposal. As the influencer industry is developing, it is important to emphasize data-driven metrics for identifying “influencer” rather than obvious metrics like follower count. The use of such data will position you as an industry expert and give your clients confidence in your ability to run winning campaigns. 

Klear automatically aggregates influencer performance metrics into a one-page influencer profile that can be downloaded to a beautiful PDF and shared with decision makers. You will have more time to focus on what really matters, like creating an awesome proposal, and leaving the nitty-gritty work to us.

Ready to take your influencer strategy up a notch? Schedule a call with one of Klear’s influencer marketing experts!