Getting a respected individual or organization to endorse your product is one way to increase consumer confidence, awareness and preference. With the right endorsement, you can get direct access to even more potential customers through a website, mailing list or other contact methods. Creating a product endorsement proposal requires addressing a host of marketing and communications considerations and should benefit both parties to the arrangement.

Write an Executive Summary

Begin the proposal with an executive summary, which is an overview of what your larger proposal contains. List the main points of the endorsement, including the benefits to both parties. Avoid detail, saving that for the body of your proposal. Use no more than a single page to explain your idea for the endorsement and why the reader should continue reading. You might write the executive summary after you’ve written the main portion of your proposal, as you'll be distilling the contents from that larger document.

List What you Can Offer

Give the potential endorser a list of the benefits you offer. You might be soliciting a celebrity, trade association, nonprofit organization or youth sports league. Include the direct benefits not only to the endorser but also the endorser's audience. For example, a trade association might receive a fee for endorsing your product, get its name and logo on your website and packaging and receive a discount on the purchase price of your product for its members. You might save your monetary proposal for the end of your document, enticing your reader to continue. Let the potential endorser know the benefits in broad strokes. After you’ve laid out the rest of the proposal, you can better make the case for the cash and other benefits you will offer. Don’t be concerned with all of the fine points and legalities in a proposal; you will hammer out those details once you begin negotiating.

List your Expected Benefits

Include a section outlining what you will expect from the endorser. This should include how you will use an individual’s name and likeness or a businesses name and logo and the main responsibilities the endorser will have in promoting your product. List the access you’ll need to the endorser’s audience, which might include website banners and links, prints ads in a newsletter or magazines, posts on a Facebook page, tweets sent by the endorser and a mailing list. You might also request a specific number of public appearances by an individual, a free booth at a trade show, the opportunity to send coupons or samples to members and a speaker slot at a conference or annual meeting.

End With a Summary

Recap your proposal. Restate what you intend to offer the endorser, but only mention specific compensation if you don't think you can negotiate a better deal in person. You might want to use the document to tease the potential endorser by showing your benefits but not making a monetary offer until you get a response to your initial proposal.