Héritage Intake Questionnaire For Social Media Marketers

Pricing social media services without a full picture of the client's needs can lead to undercharging. "I need help with Instagram" might mean three posts a week with light captions, or a full content calendar, daily stories, community management, and monthly reporting. Without a thorough intake process, it’s difficult to avoid quoting the lower version of the project but delivering the higher one.

A well-structured intake questionnaire for social media marketers helps you:

• Understand the true scope before committing to a price
• Identify which services the client actually needs versus what they think they need
• Spot complexity early: multiple platforms, ad spend management, approval chains
• Establish what's in scope and what requires a separate conversation
• Build proposals that reflect the real workload rather than an optimistic estimate

A thorough intake document should cover the client's business context, their current social presence, and their expectations for the engagement.

• Business overview: industry, target audience, competitors, and brand voice
• Current social media status: active platforms, followers, and recent performance
• Goals and priorities: brand awareness, lead generation, community growth, or direct sales
• Content expectations: posting frequency, content types, and whether the client provides assets or expects full production
• Approval process: who reviews content, how many rounds, and expected turnaround
• Budget range: whether the client has a figure in mind, even approximate
• Previous experience: what's worked before, what hasn't, and why they're making a change now

The questions most important for pricing freelance services aren't always obvious, because the real scope drivers are often buried in the process. How many stakeholders need to approve content? Does the client require participation in regular calls? Are they expecting ad management, or just organic content? Do they have existing brand guidelines, or do these need to be developed first?

The Héritage intake questionnaire for social media marketers is designed to draw out this kind of detail before any pricing conversation. With specific answers, a marketer can build a proposal that accounts for the actual time involved. That's what separates a quote that holds up from one that quietly erodes a retainer month by month.

It also changes the client conversation. A proposal that references specific details from an intake form shows clients that the pricing is reasoned, not arbitrary. That makes it easier to hold a number when clients want to negotiate the value of deliverables.

This template fits at the top of the client workflow, before sending a proposal or naming a specific price. Use it:

• After an initial inquiry or discovery call, to gather more detail
• When a prospective client's scope is unclear and needs defining before quoting
• As a standard step for every potential client, regardless of project size
• When replacing informal email quotes with a structured intake process