First impressions are important for making an impression on potential investors or clients, and your website is one of the first things people will check out before they decide to do business with you.
Entrepreneur magazine recommends creating a pitch deck (or slide show) to give your site visitors more information about what you offer instead of just having text. Making a good pitch deck isn’t that difficult, but there are some best practices that can help make it even better. Here are 12 tips for creating an effective pitch deck:
Contents
- 1. Keep your pitch presentation short
- 2. Create a headline on your presentation deck
- 3. Use images on your pitch deck design
- 4. Highlight benefits
- 5. Describe your process for your investor deck
- 6. Make your startup pitch deck personal
- 7. Give them the details
- 8. Use customer service statistics
- 9. Add contact information
- 10. Show them what makes you different
- 11. Keep it clean
- 12. Test it!
- Conclusion
1. Keep your pitch presentation short
This may not be popular advice because everyone wants to tell their story, especially since no two stories are ever the same. However, if you’ve got only three slides together in your pitch deck, try telling them something that will relate to everyone.
2. Create a headline on your presentation deck
Slide one should include a brief headline for your business, along with your logo and tagline if you have them. If not, add in some other branding elements such as a slogan or Twitter handle. Then move on to slide two.
3. Use images on your pitch deck design
People can’t see all of the details of what you’re offering online, so use pictures! You don’t need to go crazy and overwhelm your audience with too many graphics – just focus on a few key elements. That way, they’ll remember it when they decide to do business with you instead of forgetting why they found you in the first place.
4. Highlight benefits
Always present information about how the visitor will benefit from using your business. Will they get a big discount, avoid long lines or work with someone who really gets their needs? Add in some of these benefits with visual cues like graphics of smiling people or shiny objects.
5. Describe your process for your investor deck
Slide three should clearly explain what you offer, how long it will take, and the total package price for the end-user. Be specific by adding background information (what you do), details (how you’ll do it), and the end game (what they get out of using your service).
6. Make your startup pitch deck personal
People enjoy doing business with companies that know their customers, so be sure to include photos of employees on slide four – especially if you don’t have physical locations for your company. Even better, invite potential clients to check out your company page on Facebook or Twitter to learn more about who works there!
7. Give them the details
Talk about what you do and what separates you from the competition in terms of pricing, products, and services. For example, if you’re offering to help people find jobs through your website, briefly explain how it works and why employers will want to use it.
If you don’t have enough information to fill up all 12 slides in your pitch deck, add another page that contains more information for clients who are interested in hearing more about working with you.
8. Use customer service statistics
These can be important when trying to establish credibility for your business, so talk about how many customers come back and how many people you’ve successfully helped find jobs or other opportunities. Be sure to add in some screenshots on slide eight of your positive press, customer testimonials, awards, etc.
9. Add contact information
Make it easy for guests to get in touch with you on the web by including clear buttons with your social media profiles and ways they can call or email you using clickable icons that lead back to your site’s contact page.
10. Show them what makes you different
You’re not just offering another company that does things the same way as everyone else – talk about why this is important and where they fit into the picture! Again, use visual cues like graphs, charts, diagrams, or flowcharts to add emphasis and help your client understand exactly where you fit into their overall picture.
If you are having a hard time with this, then let Venngage, the premiere pitch, and graph maker app, help you out! Easily make graphs and charts for your pitch deck with hundreds of templates to choose from.
11. Keep it clean
Leave out all the extra elements that don’t add any value to your pitch deck. This includes huge images, too many colors, text in every font imaginable, and other design elements that start looking cluttered and distracting instead of professional and effective.
12. Test it!
Before publishing your pitch deck online, take a few minutes to ask someone what they think about each slide based on how easy it is to comprehend at a glance while scrolling through the whole presentation quickly. If people aren’t getting the main points from one or two slides, use another (more refined) version for future visitors by rewriting these slides and leaving the rest of your pitch deck as is.
Conclusion
The most important thing to remember about any presentation is that it should be easy for people to understand. Keep this in mind while designing your slide pitch deck for your website, and you’ll have a winner on your hands every time!