Types of proposal

There are many types of proposal including RFP (Request for Proposal), informal proposal, business proposal, marketing proposal, project proposal, sales proposal, research proposal, grant proposal, book proposal, speculative proposal.

Some require us to respond in very specific ways; e.g., an RFP requires detailed responses to particular questions. Grant proposals may be similar, where applicants must complete specific forms. Research and book proposals are fairly specific and we don’t deal with them here.

Focus of this website

Our focus is on what we call informal proposals that might go by the name business, marketing, project and sales proposals. A quote on a product can as easily be termed a business proposal or a sales proposal. A training program could also be a business or sales proposal or even a marketing proposal if it involves customer service.

The design of a new computer network can be a project proposal, but might just as easily be a business proposal.

Kinds of proposal request

Proposal requests vary. It can be as simple as – we have a particular problem to solve; e.g., we have a sales conference to organize – how would you go about it? Or, we’d like to market our new widget to a broader demographic. Can you help us? That’s the type of proposal challenge we want to address.

So - the proposal name such as project, business, marketing, sales, may not matter that much. What does matter is the process and it follows a form or proposal format as you will see in the proposal-writing guide.

For more detail on types of proposal check out How to Write Proposals, Sales Letters & Reports.