What Makes an Effective Pitch Deck and How Do You Present One?

What Is a Pitch Deck Presentation?

A pitch deck is a presentation that lets potential clients and investors learn more about your business. They are usually filled with a lot of content, facts, and figures about your organization. Use a business pitch presentation to give an overview on how your strategy or concept can help the clients. While this business presentation won’t usually win over the potential clients and investors in one sitting, it does give them a way to get to know you and your business.

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What You Should Include in Your Pitch Deck Design

The design aspects that you use in your pitch deck can make or break your presentation. Your pitch deck design should be easy to follow, organized, and intriguing. There are other things you should use when designing a business pitch deck.

Stick to a Visual Theme

The first step you should take when designing a pitch deck is to select a template that is a good representation of your business. A template will help your presentation stick to a visual theme. You can find templates in deck creation programs like Microsoft PowerPoint. After you’re selected a starting presentation template, incorporate your business’s branding. Change the deck’s color scheme to the colors of your business if you have any. Add your company’s logo to the deck’s slides as well.

Using your business’s color scheme and logo will help leave a lasting impression on the people you’re presenting to.

Use Charts and Tables

Your pitch deck might be filled with a lot of data and numbers. Simplify this informative content using charts and tables. Bar graphs, pie charts, and tables help your viewers digest the information easily. These elements are also great ways to compare numbers from different time periods and categories. It’s important to label everything in your charts and tables so your potential clients know what they’re looking at.

Organize Content Using Icons and Tiled Layouts

Use icons and tiled layouts to add visual flow to your pitch deck. You can place groups of text under icons or in tiles based on what the topic is. These visual elements can help you break down complex ideas into smaller, more digestible parts. They can also prevent you from having to create a new slide for a topic that only has a handful of relevant information or data.

Incorporate Photos

Photos are another visual aid that give your pitch deck a lasting impression. People are more likely to remember a stellar image than they are to remember a slide full of words. Since you don’t need to have a photo on every slide, the photos that you do include in your pitch deck should be relevant and powerful. If you sell products, include different images of the products throughout your slides. If your business offers a service, include action-packed photos that show what the service looks like. You should also include photos of your team members when letting the potential clients know who they’ll possibly be working with.

Use a Type Hierarchy

Create a consistent and visually appealing type hierarchy in your pitch deck. The title of your presentation should be the largest-sized text. The headers on each slide should be the next largest text, and all the headers should be the same size. If you want to use secondary headers, they should be the same size as each other but also smaller than the main headers. The body text on your slides should be the same size and font. Apply this same concept to any photo captions, infographic text, and footer text you use in your pitch deck too.

How to Present an Effective Pitch Deck

Your pitch deck presentation should entice the potential clients to want to meet with you again. Along with a stellar and organized design, you’ll still have to effectively present the content that’s in your pitch deck. There are 10 sections you might discuss when presenting your pitch deck.

Introduce Yourself and Your Team

The first thing you should do in your presentation is introduce yourself and any team members who will be involved in the business process. The potential clients and investors will want to know about who’s presenting to them and who they’ll possibly be working with if they continue the vetting process.

Explain the Problem That Exists

You must explain the problem or need that makes your business a necessity. Stating the problem makes your potential clients and investors aware that one exists while also setting up the flow of the rest of your pitch presentation.

Emphasize the Solution

After you’ve explained the problem, emphasize how your business’s products or services serve as solutions. Pinpoint the different ways your business’s offerings can tackle the problem that the potential clients are having or that the target market is experiencing.

Explain How Your Product or Service Works

Provide a detailed explanation on how your product or service works. Take the potential clients and investors through step-by-step procedures on how to use the product. If you’re trying to convince them to get a certain service, describe what the process will look like and how they will benefit from the service.

Back Up Your Success Rates

If your company has already achieved levels of success, emphasize that to your potential clients and investors. Include data that backs up your business’s success rates. Show that your business has traction based on the measurable success of past partnerships.

Describe the Market

Highlight the outreach of your market. You should provide data that describes the size of your target market and be able to make additional predictions based on the market. Reaching a large market is another way to persuade potential clients and investors in your pitch deck presentation.

Analyze Your Competitors

Describe how other leading competitors are addressing the problem. Highlight how your business is more effective in solving the problem than those competitors. Explain how your business has considered the effectiveness of alternative solutions to the problem.

Explain Your Business Model

If you’re asking people to invest money into your business, you should explain your business model to them. Your business model should discuss how your company plans to make a profit. Provide projected numbers on how much the profit might be and when the revenues are expected to come. Your business model should convince investors that they’re not partaking in a money pit.

Justify the Budget

Money matters. Walk the potential clients through your planned budget and what amounts of money they might have to invest throughout the process. Emphasize why the clients would benefit from your products or services as a way to justify the amount you’re asking.

Provide Next Steps and Contact Information

Usually, the next step after an effective pitch deck presentation is at least one more scheduled meeting, like a full partners meeting. These meetings require more in-depth details that are specific to the clients you’re trying to attain. Before you conclude your pitch deck presentation, provide your contact information in case people have questions or feedback before the next scheduled meeting.

Having a strong pitch deck design and delivering an effective presentation will increase the likelihood of you attaining the new clients or investors.