Writing Captions for Proposal Images: Capturing the Wow! Factor In proposal writing, you may get only one chance to capture the attention of your reader. As much as it pains me as a writer to say this, in many instances, images carry more weight than words. What adds credibility to the images selected is their captions. So that's the purpose of writing captions? To help define the "WOW! Factor" or the images included. Photos and photo sequences added to proposals can impress prospects as they show off the "WOW! Factor" or each project. (Ah, highly technical marketing jargon - don't you love it?); but, it's the captions that explain what's behind the image. For our purposes, the WOW! Factor can be defined as: - Challenges you overcame during a project or process - Relationship-building during the course of the project - Benefits to the client during the course of the project For example, in a recent proposal for an architectural firm that was targeted to get work in a hospital, I included two really good images of a nurse station under construction (with a construction worker slinging a hammer and 2x4s surrounding him to frame a doorway) and at completion with appropriate lighting, both shot from the same angle. These were put into a presentation side-by-side, and the impact is significant. The viewer sees that this completed space in progress - a simple statement, but it puts humans back into the design equation. In this case, there is a construction worker; but beyond that, this place is where patients pass, nurses work, etc. Accompanying captions could suggest the benefit of the layout's ergonomic design to health care workers' productivity and increased communication between patients and health care workers because of the lowered desktop. The purpose of each caption is to sell the benefit (that word again) or value of your work in one sentence. plus the photo - and it may, in many situations, be the only thing that diffreentiates you from competitors. I am going with the assumption that each and every one of your highly crafted phrases and carefully chosen words in a 10-page proposal won't be read, and that these images and captions may be the only chance you get to impress prospects with your great skills. That is, after all, what you are selling, is it not?