Nuts & Bolts

Creating a pitch deck?  5 ways to design a winner

By:  Cristian Oana, Sep. 30, 2021

https://venngage.com/blog/creating-a-pitch-deck/



A sales pitch is a short, well-structured speech or presentation that explains a company’s product or service and how they are of value to the audience.

To make a solid pitch deck, you’ll want to know what motivates people to buy. If you have an idea of what your target market wants and needs, it will be much easier for you to speak their language.

In this guide on creating a pitch deck, we share tips and business pitch deck templates that will inspire you to build your own pitch deck.

Haven’t designed a pitch deck before? With Venngage’s templates, impress your potential investors even without design experience.

How to make a pitch deck
Here are five easy steps to design the best pitch decks to convince your prospects. These tips will help you build decks, like the example below, and stand out in a competitive landscape.

Write for your target audience
The best way for marketers to identify their target audience is by conducting market research. This task can be challenging due to time constraints and budget restrictions but it is worth conducting.

There are less expensive ways to identify your target market. Personal conversations, competitor analysis, and client surveys help you determine your business model.

Once you have identified your target audience, you’ll need a solid pitch deck voice. That’s what Uber did when the company pitched its idea. We recreated their initial pitch deck below.

A good pitch deck voice is like a writing style for different audiences. You can have a formal, casual, conversational, or scholarly tone in your pitch decks, and each one has its individual nuances.

For example, when speaking conversationally, you’ll use a more relaxed tone with a few pauses and breaks. Adopting that tone will help keep your pitch deck focused on potential investors.

This alternate version of the Uber pitch deck adopts a more casual tone. The sentences are shorter and sharper, but they highlight the reasons why this is the business to invest in.

With Venngage for Business, you can download your pitch decks in a variety of formats, including PNG, PNG HD, PDF, Interactive PDF, and a PowerPoint presentation.

Highlight your unique selling proposition
A unique selling proposition is what sets your product apart from others. It’s what makes your business model special and worth investing in.

This is the reason potential investors will consider your idea, or buy your product or service instead of going to your competitors.

A standard Guy Kawasaki pitch deck dedicates two slides to your value proposition. Use them well to position your brand as the definitive solution for your target market.

You can customize this template and use images, icons, and other details that represent your brand and make your presentation memorable.

There are three key points that a pitch deck presenter needs to make to convince clients about their unique selling proposition’s benefits in the shortest time possible.

The first decision is the headline. It needs to be short, catchy, and easy to remember. It needs to get the reader’s attention and keep it for the entire sales pitch.

Once you have made this decision, you need to decide which benefits your sales pitch should focus on. This decision will help you determine your product’s value to your customers.

Here’s an example of a value proposition from a business with a unique idea. Since hotels have more space than is actually used, this fictitious company has a plan to use them for clients.

Gather data to support your claims
A lack of transparency in your statements can be a major downfall for a company because it may be difficult to prove that the claims are true.

Sales pitches must have data from scientific and experimental studies to make them believable.

Claims without scientific evidence to back them up could cause prospects or investors to doubt your product or service. They might lose interest in buying what you are selling.

Consumers want to know that the products they buy are safe and effective. Your pitch deck is the best place to show potential investors that your business model is sound.

Show the data you have gathered in your slide deck. But also share the sources for your data, either as hyperlinks or footnotes. Also mention how you came to your conclusions.

Transparency is a major concern in marketing and sales pitches, so brands must be careful about the performance and capabilities of their goods or services.

Create pitch decks faster using Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature. Add team members to designs and share feedback instantly.

Get to the point of your pitch deck quickly
Sales pitches are also known as elevator pitches because you don’t have much time to make your point.

The first thing to do is make a short and engaging pitch deck. Your pitch deck should have some visuals, little text, and use simple language that everyone can understand.

The deck should also be concise enough to convey your story in one minute or less. This investment pitch deck is short and to the point. You have little time to make an impression, so make it count.

Remember to use evidence-based claims backed by facts and studies to make solid and effective statements.

If you can convince the potential client that you are a valuable resource, they will greatly consider your proposition.

Add your branding to the pitch deck
Your presentation should use your business’s colors and language.

If the brand has a specific writing style or voice, incorporate it in your presentation for coherence.

Fortunately, it’s easy to customize Venngage’s pitch deck templates with high-quality images, icons, and data visualizations.

This marketing deck includes numerous branding elements, including brand colors and fonts. It immediately stands out as belonging to the company pitching to investors. 


With Venngage for Business, you can add your brand logos and identity using the My Brand Kit feature. Enter your website and the editor does the rest.

FAQs about creating pitch decks

How do you build a pitch deck?
There are numerous elements to a pitch deck. Assign a topic to each slide but don’t add too much text. Overcrowding a slide will make it hard to read or follow.

Don’t add all your information to the deck. The deck acts as a guideline. The rest is up to your presentation skills.

Remember to keep your pitch deck to a maximum of 20 slides. If your pitch is too long, you will lose your audience’s interest.

What should a pitch deck include?
The essential slides of a slide deck are:

  • Introduction slide about your company
  • Slide about the problem you are targeting
  • The target audience and demographics
  • How your business model will provide a solution
  • Past successes
  • Competitor analysis
  • Your team
  • Financial statements
  • The business vision
  • Closing slide for questions
How do you make a pitch deck for free?
With Venngage, you can start creating a pitch deck for free. Choose an investor pitch deck from our library. Our templates are already filled out with some information and data, making them easier to customize for your business.

Easily add your branding, edit the text and charts for your pitch. You can also upload your own images or choose from Venngage’s library of stock photos. Share the pitch deck online or download it with a Venngage Business account.

Design a pitch deck that will impress investors and help you grow your business
Creating pitch decks is a great challenge that presents many opportunities to improve and convince your customers. But it’s a challenge that many businesses have successfully risen to. So can you.

"Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow."

MAHATMA GHANDI

Choose Your Words Wisely: Sales Linguistics 101

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but it's not true that words will never hurt you- particularly if you're trying to close a sale. Using the wrong language. . .

Time Management Hacks for Self-Employed Professionals

Now that I'm self-employed, I almost always get the same question "What do you do all day?" whenever I tell someone that I'm a freelancer and I work at home. . .

How to Stay Motivated While you Build Your Business

Remember the day you launched your own business? You had spent months or years deloping your idea. You may have sacrificed a steady job to become. . .