Want to learn how to design the perfect pitch deck to promote your brand? Check out these top presentation tips to boost your small business.
A pitch deck is a vital asset for small businesses. Pitch decks can help you connect with potential customers, explain the benefits of your products and services, and help you increase conversions and make sales.
In this article, we’ll cover the critical elements of a pitch deck, top pitch deck design tips, and essential resources to streamline the pitch deck creation process.
The Key Elements of a Pitch Deck
Every pitch deck is different, but each should include five elements: the problem, the solution, social proof, team details, and a call to action. Let’s dive in!
The Problem
What problems does your client’s company solve for its target audience?
They could offer business consulting services, develop power tools, or even sell yoga pants! Whatever the case, your clients solve real issues for their customers. Your pitch decks should highlight these issues in a way that creates urgency. That way, your client’s target audience will want to act now, not later, making your pitch decks more effective.
The Solution
Don’t leave the audience hanging! Your pitch decks should touch on a relevant problem and provide a viable solution, i.e., the products or services the company sells. Explain how said products and services remedy the specific issue.
The best way to do this is to highlight the main benefits. For example, “Our yoga pants are soft, durable, and stylish.” Translation: you won’t want to take them off, you won’t have to replace them very often (especially with our industry-leading warranty), and you’ll look fantastic!
Don’t get caught up in the features at this point – nobody cares what your client’s yoga pants are made of. They just want clothes they’ll love wearing, so focus on that.
Social Proof
You know that your client’s products are the real deal, but the people perusing your presentations might be skeptical. Showing social proof (like testimonials) can give viewers confidence in the brands you work with and entice them to purchase.
It’s hard to sell anything without social proof these days. For example, when did you last buy something on Amazon without reading a few reviews?
Add social proof to your pitch decks, and they’ll convert viewers into customers.
Team Details
Your pitch decks should include team details, too. This is especially true if your client happens to be a service provider or if the goal of the pitch deck is to entice investors to invest rather than individual customers to buy.
Team details give viewers another reason to believe in your client’s company. This is because your client’s company doesn’t just create great products or deliver outstanding services. It’s composed of talented, hardworking, and reliable individuals, which makes all the difference.
Call-to-Action
What do you want viewers to do after they see your pitch deck? Tell them.
Calls-to-action, CTAs for short, are bits of text that encourage people to (surprise) take action. STAs such as “Buy Now,” “Download Now,” “Sign Up,” and “Learn More” are popular examples.
The best CTAs are short, enticing, and written in the first person. For instance, “Download Your Free Report Now” or “Send Me My Free Yoga Pants.”p
Designing a Pitch Deck: 5 Tips for Creating the Perfect Pitch
Pitch deck design is essential, but it is something other than rocket science. If you implement the five tips below, you can design a pitch deck that looks great and accomplishes its primary objective.
1. Keep it Simple
The best pitch decks are simple. Remember, your presentations don’t need to dazzle viewers. In fact, they shouldn’t. They just need to convey information in an appealing and easy-to-understand way.
Avoid clutter, limit text when possible, and make sure each of your decks has a sleek, clean look about them that doesn’t distract viewers from the information they contain.
2. Use Visual Hierarchy
Have you thought about the visual hierarchy of your pitch decks? You definitely should.
According to the Interaction Design Foundations, “Visual hierarchy is the principle of arranging elements to show their order of importance.“
The right visual hierarchy will help you guide the viewer’s attention to the most important information in your pitch deck, ensuring critical details are seen and understood.
Visual hierarchy is composed of a few characteristics: size, color, contrast, alignment, repetition, proximity, whitespace, and texture and style. Manipulate them for better results.
3. Choose the Right Color Scheme
A strong color scheme will help you design a pitch deck that accomplishes its goals. Different color schemes convey different moods, so choose the colors that match your client company’s vibe, and you might have a winner.
Colors can help reinforce a brand’s identity, too. For instance, if you were to design a pitch deck for Coca-Cola, you’d make it red and white!
4. Nail Your Typography
Your pitch decks need to be uber-legible. To make this happen, focus on typography, i.e., the specific font you use, the size of your letters, the color of your words, etc.
Don’t underestimate this tip. If your company’s target audience can’t read your work, your decks won’t be effective. If your decks aren’t effective, you won’t get hired to create them.
Find the balance between “This looks amazing!” and “This is easy to read.”
5. Fill Your Pitch Deck With Visuals
Finally, feel free to add images, charts, graphs, and other visual elements to your pitch decks – especially if said decks include a bunch of numbers, metrics, and KPIs.
Visuals make complex information easier to understand. They’re also more fun to look at than a wall of text. Add them in, and your pitch decks will become legit sales tools for your clients.
Do’s and Don’ts When Designing a Pitch Deck
At this point, you know almost everything you need to know to design a pitch deck. But before you do, we want to share two dos and don’ts that will help improve your decks:
- Do tell a story: Bullet points are a simple way to convey information. But if you want your pitch decks to be successful, you need to go beyond bite-size details and tell a story. Doing so will engage viewers on a much deeper level. Use text and images to promote a narrative rather than just share facts, figures, and statistics.
- Do show your passion: Proving your experience, business skills, and knowledge will benefit how you tell your success story.
- Don’t fear not having all the answers: Starting up is a journey. It’s okay not to have all the answers from the get-go. You can always keep on learning and work with advisors.
- Don’t focus on yourself: Your pitch decks should always be about your client company’s target audience. What challenges do they face? How can your company solve these challenges with its products or services? Don’t waste time listing your client’s accolades. Instead, focus on the benefits they provide to customers.
To Wrap Up
Once you learn how to design a pitch deck, you can help small businesses sell more products and services, connect with investors, and raise capital. In other words, you’ll know how to create one of your client’s most important assets.
Remember, every successful pitch deck includes five essential elements: the problem, the solution, social proof, team details, and a call to action. The best decks are also simple, use an effective visual hierarchy and color scheme, and include legible typography and visuals.
Your pitch decks also need to tell a story. If all you do is list your clients’ accolades and explain their products’ features, no one will want to view your work. It’s that simple.
Why design your next pitch deck from scratch? Use one of these proven pitch deck templates from Envato Elements to create top-level work, making you more productive while churning out professional-level designs.
