Capturing and holding the attention of prospects long enough to convey your message requires a proposal that stands out visually. Making sure your message achieves the win you’re after requires even more than good looks. Truth is that delivering what it will take to win requires a well planned, superbly designed, and thoughtfully presented proposal. The blog post below from Bridged Design makes my point far better than I can.
With Proposals, Presentation is Everything… from the Bridged Design blog
Whether you blame the internet, television, smart phones, Google, the government, aliens, Tim Tebow, etc., our attention spans have been shrinking. In the time it took me to write that sentence, I checked Facebook twice, sent a text, and watched as ESPN tried to convince me that the 2012 Olympic basketball team could stand up to the Dream Team (never!). More so than ever, we want our information quick and to-the-point so we can move on to the next thing. The design of your proposal needs to adapt to this reality.
While this methodology may sound simple, we regularly come across proposals that are verbose and packed with confusing info-graphics. Proposal design should be thought of similar to marketing—know your audience, make your point and be memorable. Many proposal practitioners are beginning to realize the importance of design in helping the overall presentation of the bid, serving as more than “information”, and becoming a staple in representing how professional and competent their corporation is.
A variety of research shows that integrating visual elements with language (or text) increases comprehension, aids decision-making, makes a better impression and is persuasive. Visual design and hierarchy gives the eye a break from monotonous text. Proposal reviewers often have many proposals to evaluate in one sitting, thus key information needs to be easily accessible. Effective design can make a proposal easier to read and understand, and also conveys an impression of professional, quality work. Poor implementation of visual design has the opposite effect.
Which of the following two proposals would you prefer to review? Which one do you perceive as more professional? The content is exactly the same, but this example illustrates the subliminal power of perception.
Figure 1
I Like It, But Why?
Researchers Melanie Dempsey (Ryerson University) and Andrew A. Mitchell (University of Toronto) set out to test the power of branding messages by conditioning consumers to like or dislike fictional brands using negative or positive words and images. At the end of the process, subjects were unable to recall which brands had been associated with positive or negative messages, but they did express a preference for the positively matched brand. The researchers called this an “I like it, but I don’t know why” effect. They concluded that, “Choice decisions of consumers are not only determined by evaluations of rational information but are also driven by forces that are generally outside of rational control.” (source: Dooley, Roger Brainfluence, (2012)
This same logic holds true for proposal reviewers. As illustrated in Figure 1, the professionally designed proposal on the right engages the reader and guides them through the important facts (based on evaluation criteria). Even though document design is not an evaluation criterion, it still has a profound effect on the way your information is understood and perceived.
It Ain’t My Fault
It may be a scary thought, but there are people like me on every selection committee who are reading your proposal. And though members of a source selection committee would never admit this under oath, several have admitted in casual conversation that they are much more likely to mentally invest in your pitch if it’s clean, well-written and gets to the point of why you’re the best choice to fulfill contract requirements. If every page is met with a wall of text and crammed with confusing graphics, I’m checking out. It’s not my fault… it’s the internet… or television… or Tebow, or…