Top 5 ways to make your next pitch stand out

In this article, we'll provide our team's TOP 5 ways to make your next pitch stand out from the crowd. The key points we'll discuss include.

1. Multimedia
2. Rule of 3
3. Self-Editing
4. Staging Materials
5. Live Versus Emailed

So let's get started!

(5) Live versus emailed - One easily fixable mistake we see time and time again, is the use of a single set of pitch materials for both live and emailed pitches. When you’re pitching someone on a live video conference, in a room, to an individual or a group, pitch materials are an excellent way to drive home your offering and make it memorable. There’s no question that visuals paired with your voice are a winning combo. However, when live materials contain paragraphs of text, you are actually working against yourself in the room. Any time the human brain is presented with words to read, at the same time a person is speaking, the written words will always win. We can’t help it, we’re just wired that way. Think about that last time you tried to read something while someone was talking to you. Drove you nuts right? Well that’s exactly what happens when you try speaking to people about your offering while at the same time providing too much text for people to read. The easy fix? Create your full set of materials with all the text you need in order to fully describe your offering, then make a duplicate of it and start deleting all unnecessary text for your live pitch. Typically this means no more than one short sentence, or a couple of number factoids. Just what’s necessary to get your point across. You could reduce it to just the headers and sub-headers. The ideal path however, is to semi-script your verbal pitch, then work to adjust your materials to truly support your story.

(4) Staging Materials - Along the same lines of having two sets of materials for a live pitch versus an emailed pitch, having different materials for different stages of your sales conversations can make a huge difference. For example, if you’re offering is new to someone and requires a lot of explanation, try starting out with just enough information to get them interested, and nothing more. If you send someone a chapter book to read when when they haven’t even read the summary, they are unlikely to start reading. Your goal initially should be to spark interest, just enough so that their curiosity is peaked. This goes for anything from a TV show pitch, to a sponsorship proposal, to a new investor opportunity. Starting with a compelling few sentences via email, then a one-pager, then a brief, eventually leading to a full-blown proposal or deep dive followup materials into your allows your prospect to gradually buy-in to what you’re pitching. Along the way you’ll earn the opportunity to ask questions, learn what motivates the buying decision process, and perhaps get the chance to pivot your approach or even your materials to better connect with their needs.?

(3) Self-Editing - Nobody wants to read a long deck. At least not until they are invested enough in what you’re offering to necessitate a longer read. Staging materials is a great start, but taking a pass (or better yet having someone else take a pass) at cutting down the text in your materials will go a long way. Take a stab at combining 2-3 sentences into a single sentence. Ask yourself how critical each line of text truly is to the key takeaway of that specific slide. If it’s not, then either remove it or move it to where it’s most applicable. When it comes to pitch deck text, less is definitely more. Your goal is to sell confidence in both your offering and you / your team. Your materials are merely supporting that effort, and shouldn’t be required in order to understand the full breadth of your offering. If it can be said more easily in a conversation or email, then reduce your text by leaving those points to land elsewhere.

(2) Rule of 3 - Generally speaking, the human brain can easily handle 1-3 key takeaways in a single pass of a deck. That’s it. The deck may be referred to multiple times before a sale is reached, with greater detail retained with each fresh read. However, in most cases you may only have the first read-through in order to gain a second or third. So if you blow the first read, you won’t get a second. That’s why the rule of three can be helpful. One example would be a slide with statistics. Try to have a singular key takeaway, then limit yourself to just 3 of the most important supporting facts for that key takeaway. Don’t try to cram 5 or 6 or 10 stats on the page. Trust us, slamming people with lots of factoids won’t improve the support of your key takeaway. Or to look at it another way, say you are pitching branded content format ideas. Try keep it restricted to no more than three of your best ideas initially. It’s much easier for an executive to recall those three ideas and voice them to their internal media buying team later, than it would be for them to remember 4 or 5 concepts. If they trust your company or offering, but they just don’t love the concepts you’ve provided, they’ll ask for more option. Adding more concepts won’t improve your chances if you haven’t convinced them you’re a good fit for them already. The rule of 3 is more of a rough guide to try and reign in the amount of information we’re expecting readers to actually retain after they close your pitch deck. Again, less is more so leave the longer list of details for followup calls or supporting materials. Just focus on actually getting that next call.

(1) Multimedia - As a company that specializes in multimedia materials, we are a tad biased on this one. However, considering the seismic shift to Zoom and fully digital sales cycles the pandemic has ushered in, multimedia should be seriously considered. A PDF does an ok job as a passive overview of your offering. What it doesn’t do, is engage readers, capture their imagination, or provide any means of expansion across the sales cycle. Cloud-based materials, materials which are built in web-based platforms, therefore allowing the use of video, audio, animation and other multimedia tools, is truly the way to go in 2022 and beyond. These materials can either be similar to a “slide to slide” PDF, but simply include multimedia content, or it can be as robust as a fully self-navigable prevention complete with menu’s and click-able interactivity that will bring your opportunity to life. These materials also provide deep digital insights and tracking, so you know who opened your materials and how much they actually reviewed. Plus they optimize the workflow for your team whether you’re a one-person show or divided between marketing, sales, and executive teams. PDF’s and PowerPoints can even become counter-productive over time, risking changes to your branding, story, and mistakes in old data points, positioning, or worst of all… pricing. The top platforms today for cloud-based digital materials include Digideck by SportsDigitas, fullfeel.io by Zoomifier, and even Google Slides. If your budget is tight, consider moving your PowerPoint or Keynote pitch over to Google Slides as a starting point. I savvy marketing team or design resource can provide animated GIF’s of videos or other multimedia content to use in your materials, sparking new life into your existing materials. While Google Slides doesn’t allow layering video files, GIF’s are a common workaround to this restriction. You can even add click-able menu items and buttons for some basic navigation control so your readers can control their own journey, making it more memorable and impactful. If you do have the budget however, more robust platforms with far greater breadth of tools and functionality are highly recommended. If you’re looking for a sure way to improve your pitch materials heading into 2022, cloud-based multimedia is the way to go. For more information about cloud-based materials CLICK HERE to view our cloud-based digital white-paper on the subject.

Some or even all of these tips may seem somewhat simple or obvious, but to master them takes experience and skill. If you’re finding yourself needing help, consider a free consultation with our team. Pitch decks are all we do. Our specialists, from designers to animators to sales experts, understand the challenges you face, and how to best overcome them. To set up a free consultation visit us at https://falkordigital.com/calendly/

Thanks for taking the time to read our Top 5 tips for making your next pitch stand out, we hope this information was helpful.?

May the pitch be with you!