Designing pitch decks is something we do all the time here at Azola Creative. Pitch decks are an integral part of selling a business or product to potential customers. But to actually make the sale, you need to have a deck that makes a connection. And you cannot do that by throwing a deck together haphazardly.
We have seen so many pitch decks that were loaded with potential but still failed to make a connection. In nearly every case, those decks lacked three important things. From our perspective, they are the three top characteristics of a winning pitch deck. A pitch deck that has all three is virtually guaranteed to make a connection.
1. Easily Readable
The basic principles of pitch deck design are not complicated. The very first principle every designer must embrace is making decks easily readable. Other people in the industry might choose the word ‘legible’ instead. Either way, the point is the same.
Have you ever visited a website that was so difficult to read that you were forced to leave it after just a few minutes? Maybe the text was too light to see. Perhaps the web designer chose a font that was hard to read. Either way, you left because you couldn’t stand to look at it. Pitch decks are very similar.
Customers want to be able to read and comprehend. They want to be able to look through the deck and not have to strain to read text or absorb graphics. It does not matter how dynamic your presentation is if potential customers cannot even make it through the entire deck because your slides are unreadable.
2. Simple in Its Message
The second key characteristic of a winning slide deck is a simple message. Whether you are attempting to pitch a startup or a new product, customers want you to cut to the chase. They are not interested in a huge back story and a lot of industry jargon. They are unimpressed by verbiage.
You know what customers want? Simplicity. They want to understand the message contained in each and every slide without having to work for it. Bear in mind that a pitch deck is a teaching tool designed to impart previously unknown wisdom. It is a tool designed to convince people to take a chance on you. Keep the message simple or you run the risk of losing your audience.
3. Easily Understood
Hand-in-hand with message simplicity is message comprehension. Too many sales teams, when designing pitch decks, try to be excessively creative to the point of being vague. They feel like an obvious message is either too simple or too patronizing. Both assumptions are wrong.
Being vague doesn’t work. Beating around the bush is tiresome. Buyers want and expect you to be obvious. They want you to lay your cards on the table with complete confidence that you know what you’re talking about and you believe in your own idea. If you need to convince them with vague illustrations and obscure references to things they may or may not know about, they may begin wondering whether you have anything of value to offer. That is not a good place to be.
Designing pitch decks is one of the things we excel at. The Azola team designs winning slide decks backed by industry expertise and years of hands-on experience in sales and marketing. We know what it takes to get your ideas across in a way that makes a connection. If you don’t, why not let us design those pitch decks for you?