Ultimate Guide to Upwork Proposals
Rules, Tips & Proposals Analytics
On June 1st Upwork resumed its test of New Performance Analytics. And we are soooo excited! It’s one of those updates that we’ve been waiting for and asking from Upwork for years because it allows collecting information on the success of our proposals. We actually got more than we could hope for - the graphs of Upwork Proposals Analytics show a clear funnel of how proposals convert into contracts and even separates the information by organic and boosted results.
We can’t wait for the test to complete and have this update for everyone.
Here are more details of Upwork Proposals Analytics.
Instead of seeing how often Clients discovered your profile, Upwork added the following metrics: profile visits, invites received, and proposals sent over time.
There are two drop-down menus in the Analytics tab. The first allows you to choose to display either profile views, invites, or proposals. In the second menu, you can set dates for when you would like to see the data. Then you’ll then see a chart with information about:
- The total amount of views/invites/proposals;
- Percent change in views/invites/proposals;
- Connects spent on the availability badge (only for profile views and invites)
The Upwork Proposals Analytics is shown a bit differently.
A bar graph represents each stage of the proposal: sent, viewed, interviewed, and hired. On the right, you see how many proposals were organic and boosted. At the bottom, there are indicators that allow you to compare yourself against other freelancers in the same space, indicating if you have been interviewed or hired more or less than others whom Upwork considers your peers.
Upwork Best Practices for Cover Letters
For each job posts clients are likely to get 5 to 50+ proposals. So, every little detail matters if you don’t want to waste connects and start doing the job instead of sending out endless proposals.
The main rule is don’t use a standard template for all jobs, personalize your CL. You may think that you are already adjusting your CLs, but they still don’t work as well as you want them to. Here are our expert tips from Etcetera business development manager Myron on how to make sure your cover letter will truly speak to the client.
Research is the core of success for Upwork proposals!
So, before applying for the job, read all the information about the client:
Look at the client information to check if you’ll comfortable working with this client considering their country and time zone.
In order to understand the client and his job better, we go in to the clients work history section. We study what projects he has done previously, on what rates he was working with freelancers, what is the geography of freelancers they worked with.
Once you studied the people he worked with, you can click on those jobs and check previous job postings to understand what kind of pains client used to talk about in his previous job posts, this helps us understand what information about us we should mention.
Check reviews to the client from other freelancers. To do that – go to the work history of freelancers they worked with and and try to find client’s name, usually freelancers address them directly by the name in their feedback message. We all love when people call us by our names, don’t hesitate to use this.
Check the reviews that the client wrote for other freelancers. It will give you insight at what they value and appreciate. It may be fast delivery for some clients, or meticulous attention to details and perfectionism for others.
After all these steps you should have a clear understanding of the best tone of voice and meaning to use to approach the client. Now you can go back to the job post and study the project description in detail. We try to understand what kind of problem client is trying to solve, and it’s not simply about executing the job. Unconsciously clients leave a lot of signs and pains description in their job posting. For example, when ever client mentions that he expects transparent communication that means that he is scared you won’t be involved in the project enough to deliver quality work.
When we made our research it’s really important to write clear proposal. Don’t overwhelm clients with unneeded information. Focus on their tasks, and pains in order to show that you are an understanding freelancer with deep expertise.
The structure of best Upwork proposals:
Greetings(name)
- Hook message (in to the tone of voice that we chose, it could be either formal or with humour, or casual). Types of hooks are:
- appeal to the value/pain of the client that you found during research;
- clear offer on how to solve their task using your expertise;
- emotional connection with the client (”You have a very cool idea/niche that I think has outstanding potential and I want to be a part of it”);
- continue the dialog with the client – take client’s statement or question from the job post and write your reply to it;
Share relevant portfolio works. The project shouldn’t be exactly the same, you can always show how you just solve this kind of problem.
Now push on the pains, make client feel confident about hiring you. Tell him about how you work, what are your core values that seem to be the pain relievers for him.
Ask relevant question. If you are a professional, and you understand the task, as a relevant question, that will interest client and will prove you understand the task.
CTA — finish your proposal with a clear call to action, motivating the client to schedule a call or take another next step that should lead to proceeding with the communication.
Other details for best Upwork proposals:
Answer any screening questions the client may ask with more than just a few words. Make sure to answer them in detail and use this opportunity to show your expertise. Client will see your answers to the screening questions even before the CL, so if you put just a couple of words here the client may close the proposal and go to the next freelancer without even looking at the cover letter.
- Check if there are any secret questions the client hid in the job post to make sure that the freelancers read it.
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