Learn More About Proposal Software
What is Proposal Software?
Proposal software provides features that streamline the process of writing, managing, and sending business proposals. In terms of helping with proposal writing, proposal software offers simple document builder interfaces that make proposals visually appealing as well as easy to read and follow. Some businesses spend countless hours manually building proposals whereas proposal software cuts that time down by providing proposal templates as well as drag and drop features to add visually appealing pictures and content. Proposal software also comes with e-signature integrations which allow customers to promptly scan the document and find the areas where they need to sign.
In terms of helping manage proposals, proposal software generally provides analytics and notification features that can help users track how clients interact with a proposal. This allows users to see how many times a client opened, viewed, or commented on a proposal. Additionally, both the customer and the business that sends the proposal can comment in the proposal if there are any questions the client has. This allows for easy conversation to happen rather than back and forth emails.
What Types of Proposal Software Exist?
Cloud-based proposal software
Cloud products often operate under a SaaS model and are run over the internet (in the cloud). These are generally sold as a subscription and require a recurring payment, most often as monthly or yearly payments. Cloud-based proposal software offers the major advantage of real-time collaboration with the client. This way a company can share their proposal via the internet, then the client can comment in real time and the business can respond with answers. The alternative is downloading the proposal and that can require many back and forth conversations over email or a phone call
On-premise proposal software
An on-premise proposal software is often a one-time payment for a perpetual license. This type of solution is becoming less common across most software vendors as subscription models are taking over. However, for some businesses, an on-premises solution may make sense. For example, on-premises solutions give companies confidence that their servers are locked down and they don’t need to trust another company with their private data. This can make proposals more secure if the data is only being shared between the business sending and receiving the proposal.
What are the Common Features of Proposal Software?
The following are some core features within proposal software that can help users in various ways:
Document builder interface: Proposal software allows users to easily search and add features to a proposal with a document builder interface. This includes customizing the proposal with different templates, branding, and even media. This can be a huge factor in displaying a company’s value. For example, for a landscape or interior design firm, it will be extremely useful to provide videos and pictures displaying how effective their work is. This makes the proposal look clearer and more professional for other businesses.
Collaboration: Oftentimes, a proposal will need members across a variety of teams to jump in and provide expertise where it’s needed. Proposal software allows multiple users to work on the same document, which provides more visibility and support for each proposal. Users can also easily create, edit, and collaborate on supplemental documents, as well as track changes right within the proposal software.
Assembly and approval workflows: A huge benefit of proposal software is task and team management. This allows companies to automate workflows by routing documents to the correct individuals for adding content and approval.
Analytics: Proposal software provides companies with a variety of analytics tools. With engagement tracking features, teams can track who is looking at their proposal, how often, or for how long. Businesses can also use proposal effectiveness reporting. This allows users to see which pieces of content are performing the best and grants the user with custom reports and dashboards on proposal volume and acceptance. These analytics tools will help users craft more effective proposals in the future.
Other Features of Proposal Software: API Integrations, CPQ Integrations, Engagement Tracking Capabilities, Proposal Effectiveness Reporting Capabilities
What are the Benefits of Proposal Software?
Speeds up proposal time: Proposals are often a long, drawn-out process that can take months for businesses to complete. Proposal software reduces the time it takes to complete a proposal by automating plenty of repetitive tasks within the overall proposal process. This includes canned responses to familiar RFP questions, preexisting proposal templates, and automatic price quoting. These features, among others, allow businesses to spend less time on tedious tasks and focus on the overall quality of their proposal.
Improved collaboration: In addition to automation, proposal software aids in content management, team collaboration, and workflow management. With proposal software, employees can work on the document with their coworkers, assign tasks out to relevant teams, and track proposal deadlines.
Who Uses Proposal Software?
Sales teams: Sales teams are a huge part of the proposal process. They are often the ones who must effectively communicate the value of a company’s work, and in doing such, they must respond to RFPs with effective answers. Proposal software allows the sales team to collaborate in real time on a proposal, which allows everyone to add their expertise. Proposal software also allows sales teams to speed up the entire sales process by giving the requesting company the ability to sign the proposal online. Furthermore, proposal software integrates with CRM software, which houses all necessary contact information that must be included in the proposal. This helps identify key stakeholders to include in the proposal.
Marketing teams: A proposal is an important marketing tool for most businesses. Proposal software allows marketing teams to take control over branding and use customizable templates to present proposals with a clear and professional look. Proposal software offers a variety of templates that can be used to play to a company’s strengths. This includes templates that market a company’s SEO, social media, content marketing, video production, and much more.
Proposal managers: Proposal managers can use proposal software to lead team efforts during the proposal process. WIthin proposal software, proposal managers can use project management tools to assign tasks and track the progression of the proposal. This helps keep teams focused and aware of proposal completion deadlines.
What are the Alternatives to Proposal Software?
CPQ software: Configure, price, quote (CPQ) software helps companies automate the lifecycle of the quoting and proposal process, starting with the moment a customer supplies their needs in a company’s offering and ending with sending a detailed quote to the customer or prospect. This can be used as an alternative to proposal software as CPQ software offers many of the same features in addition to pricing features.
Software Related to Proposal Software
Related solutions that can be used together with proposal software include:
CRM software: Many proposal software solutions can integrate with CRM software. If a company uses a CRM, they can research proposal tools for potential integration with that CRM. Ensuring that proposal software integrates well with current systems or expanding the search to more complex systems that can manage proposals is key to choosing the right software.
CPQ software: Proposal software works hand in hand with CPQ software. When companies are crafting their proposals, they often need to send out detailed quotes in line with what they are offering. CPQ software helps companies pull accurate quotes and helps make the proposal process much smoother.
E-signature software: E-signature software gives users the ability to gather signatures on documents shared electronically, eliminating the need for physical documents to record signatures. This is a great tool to integrate with proposal software since most proposals require signatures from the requesting company
Challenges with Proposal Software
Shifting from legacy systems: Proposal software can store documents in their native format, such as Microsoft Word and Excel, PDF, or HTML. The way the existing systems of a company handle these file types, and their preferred document type, can be a potential roadblock when they transfer to using proposal software.
Which Companies Should Buy Proposal Software?
Virtually every business that has an enterprise sales team will, at one time or another, send out a proposal to another company. For this reason, proposal software can truly be utilized by businesses in nearly any industry that must tailor sales proposals to a client. While some proposal software are created for certain industries such as construction, education, healthcare, or financial services, most proposal software are industry agnostic and can be used across any industry that has an enterprise sales team.
How to Buy Proposal Software
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Proposal Software
Requirements gathering for proposal software is critical to ensure that the business is implementing a product that meets all of their needs. While some businesses are more focused on the aesthetic presentation of their proposals, other businesses might be more focused on the integration with e-signature software. Whatever a company’s requirements are it is always best to create a list of the must-have features that the business needs to consider purchasing proposal software.
Compare Proposal Software Products
Create a long list
Long lists are created by eliminating software options that do not provide critical functionality. To make a long list for proposal software, a buyer should look at the following functionalities and deem which products provide the necessary functionality:
- E-signature
- Template creation
- Media support for images, audio, and video
- Analytics
- Collaboration
- Quote management
- Contract management
- Payment integrations
- Assembly and approval workflows
Create a short list
Once a buyer has narrowed down their list from the above functionality, it’s important to prepare even more specific requirements. For example, if a company is in a certain industry, they should make sure that there is functionality that might help them create proposals for that industry. Likewise, if a company uses a certain CRM they should make sure that the proposal software integrates with that CRM.
Conduct demos
Demos are one of the most important stages in the buying journey. This allows a buyer to sit through an actual product demo and see if the product matches all of the requirements. To make sure the demo runs smoothly, users must ensure that the vendor has all of the requirements beforehand so they can showcase their features properly.
Selection of Proposal Software
Choose a selection team
The selection team for proposal software should include at least one member from the enterprise sales team, customer success team, and marketing team. These are plausibly the teams that will use proposal software most often, and as such, they should have the most input on desired features of the proposal software.
Negotiation
When negotiating during the purchasing stage, the selection team should always strive to have implementation and ongoing support fees included in the cost. This way if any ongoing support is needed then businesses can always contact their customer success or support representative.
Final decision
After the negotiation stage is conducted, the final decision requires buy-in from everyone on the selection team. It’s important to get everyone on the same page to ensure that all requirements are met and the final decision is supported by everyone involved.
What Does Proposal Software Cost?
As with any software purchase, the price of proposal software can fluctuate based on a lot of things. The first thing that will affect pricing is the number of licenses or seats that a business needs to purchase. This essentially means the number of users that have access to the software with their own logins. For proposal software, this can range anywhere from $19 per user per month up to $70 per user per month. The more seats a user wants to purchase, the more they’ll have to pay.
The reason for the wide range in pricing per seat can be based on a variety of factors. For example, some proposal software is run on a model where the user is charged based on the number of proposals they want to use per month. While the most basic plans allow users to have five active proposals at a time, the highest-priced plans generally allow users to send an unlimited number of proposals per month.
Another factor that contributes to the price of proposal software is the features included. The lowest tiered plans may include basic features such as e-signature and templated proposals, where the most expensive plans include integrations with other software, analytics, and client input forms.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Below is the breakdown of the estimated time to ROI according to the review data on G2 as of December 18, 2020:
- 55% of buyers see an ROI in 6 months or less
- 28% of buyers see an ROI in 7-12 months
- 10% of buyers see an ROI in 13-24 months
- 7% of all other buyers see an ROI from 24 months onwards
Implementation of Proposal Software
How is Proposal Software Implemented?
Implementing proposal software is generally a straightforward process. According to G2 review data as of December 18, 2020, 68% of users were able to implement and go live with proposal software in under a month. Generally, this process is broken down into a few key stages:
- Software installation
- Process review and needs analysis
- Design, configuration, and integrations
- Training
- Post-implementation support
During this process, some users may find a stall in implementation time when it comes to software integrations. Some users like to implement their proposal software with other products in their software stack including CRMs, content management systems, payment processing, and more. This can be a lengthy process so businesses must be prepared for longer implementation times if they go this route.
