The Importance of a Proposal Style Guide and Why You Need One

If I were to ask you to show me your brand, what would you give me? Your logo? Your website? Your most recent proposal or brochure? What about your drawings, or your project documentation?

The truth is, your brand should manifest in all of those things. It should be consistent across all platforms and documents within your company. Whether a client picks up your proposal or a spec book, they should always do so with an expectation – one that stems from your brand promise.

We could talk about brand all day long, but today I want to focus on branding as it pertains to your proposals. More specifically, let’s talk about your proposal style guide.

Do you have a proposal style guide?

If your answer is yes, good job! You’ve taken a huge step toward reining in your brand and controlling your communication objectives (why do you even need me?). If your answer is no… read on, my friend.

Why You NEED a Proposal Style Guide

A style guide provides rules and structure on everything from tone of voice to color palette. It can be as simple as a one-page reference sheet, or it could be a multi-binder rulebook with super-specific details. Whichever route you choose, a style guide is a critical tool to help ensure all of your communications look and sound uniform.

Even if your company is just you, wearing all the hats, you plan to grow eventually, right? Your style guide will serve as a reference manual and training tool for future employees, teaching them how to use your brand appropriately in emails, project documentation, etc. It gives them something to reference that isn’t you, too. 😉

If your company is larger, with a dedicated marketing department that handles all things brand and communications related, a style guide is still a useful training tool for new hires and a reference for current employees. It ensures consistency in your proposals, especially when you have multiple proposal writers responding to RFPs.

What Your Style Guide Should Contain

It is easiest to break a proposal style guide into two sections: visual and written. Visuals refer to your brand’s aesthetic, including the color palette, type palette, and logo (and logo uses). Some style guides will also give detailed rules for page setup, titles/headers, bullet points, call boxes, pull quotes, page numbering… the list can get extensive, depending on how much control you want/need over your proposals.

The written portion of a proposal style guide refers to things like language style and tone of voice and formatting for hyphenation, phone numbers, etc. MailChimp has a great style guide that goes into amazing depth on writing style (bonus: you can use their template to build your own!)