New product launch #1: product pitch

We devoted the previous article to the importance of product pitch presentations for startups and middle businesses. This time, we want to go deeper and focus on product presentations that should be excellent to promote your service or product to prospective customers. It is a key stage in business success to save all efforts invested and all contributions made. 

It is the presentation of the product to investors and other stakeholders that is the most creative, interesting, and complex process. In order to create a high-quality presentation of a service or product, it is deficient to simply list the product characteristics or features in slides. Most likely, investors will perceive such product presentations as weak and not convincing.

Effective product presentation is painstaking PowerPoint work that pays off with high conversions. Therefore, further in the article, we will talk about how to succeed in product design presentation.

Note: This guide talks about the startup pitch. It differs from a sales pitch while this one targets your existing or future customers, and in the case of startup pitches you target your investors. It means that startup pitches usually take it further than sales pitches, so the presentation design will differ accordingly.

Speaking about the presented product, it doesn’t really matter what you are trying to pitch, promote, or sell. What really matters is a list of benefits the investor or customer gets. To create successful presentations, you should avoid focusing on product features. Otherwise, you have to help investors to answer the question “Why should I invest?”

So, we would highlight 2 things to keep in mind while creating every product presentation slide:

1. Benefits instead of Features.
2. How does your product actually affect the person who is using that? 

New product presentation deck that works includes:

• Introduction slide: warm the audience up, lay out the pitch foundation, avoid strong statements not to confuse the audience. 
• Problem slide: tell the story, explain precise people’s pain points, steer clear of unfamiliar terms.
• Solution slide: remain clear and concise, stay away from technical jargon.
• Market Validation slide: show the need for an actual solution, show how the idea is new, show how many people researched for that solution.
• Market Size slide: make clearly bold statements, (if you are sure) tell the market share you are likely to get.
• Product slide: showcase how it works in practice, add product (application/website) screenshots.
• Business Model slide: illustrate your plan, describe the target audience, anticipate expenses.
• Market Adoption slide: demonstrate ways you will target offers to TA, use formulae if applicable.
• Competition slide: list all substantial and serious competitors in your market, explain how you plan to surpass them.
• Competitive Advantages slide: deduce on resources and capabilities that will win the race.

Present product roadmap presentation

A roadmap is an expectation-setting tool that enables investors to look deeper into your product strategy. Investors are focused on long-term projects, so they will invest in startups with clear goals to avoid getting derailed. Product roadmap in presentation assists in communicating your high-level priorities without losing your audience. It is also your opportunity to establish user problems and the bigger picture before jumping into a discussion around features and benefits.

• What stages are required to launch the product? 
• Which objectives do you expect to meet in 1, 3, and 5 years?
• What problems need to be urgently solved?

These and more questions can be answered with the roadmap to continue the conversation with stakeholders (check out the example image below). You can answer these questions either directly or marginally, but the goal is to show investors you know what you are working on. Eventually, you will nail down a presentation success by revealing a strategy based on the planning phase and periodic reviews covering the results of past releases.

Being both a beginner and expert, you should stick to the “SOAPBOX” framework when working on a roadmap:

• Subject – know your presentation topic;
• Occasion – realize the presentation context;
• Audience – investigate the audience;
• Purpose – define goals for this product presentation;
• Before – check legwork to be done before the presentation;
• Objection Handling – prepare key objectives to address before or during the presentation;
• eXecute – think about how to deliver successful, informative, and compelling material.

How to improve your design presentation

1. Use presentations.
   A beautiful set of designs and brilliant concepts require the right approach. Professional agencies know how to engage in your story and make people care. People far from the presentation industry focus on information mostly, which does not lead to ultimate success and deals.
2. Use stories.
   Your story should be plain but interesting to captivate, as well as logo and fonts. Otherwise, we recommend concentrating on how your product will help people achieve some of their goals or ease pains.
3. Use notes.
   Have a list of things you want to mention to make sure you hit everything important. You may refocus because of inner panic or complex questions, so you better keep points in order.
4. Use product design presentation boards.
   You can customize them by yourself or address professional pitch deck services, but it creates a good impression. 

Research for product presentation templates

The product presentation ideas are vast on the web, and you should not be afraid of plagiarism unless you copy-paste them. We mean you should review many product presentation samples to come up with something original. It is totally okay to be inspired by designs of professionals or custom agencies if you still want to do it by yourself. 

Additionally, product presentation examples show not only visual components but also give suggestions for presentation content. For example, it covers category analysis, product lifecycle, BCG matrix, empathy map kano model, product market mapping, market attractiveness, marketing launch plan, repositioning strategy, product feasibility review, launch monitoring dashboard, and more tools and techniques.

In the world of current technologies, it is easy to customize slides. To do so effectively, consider all points we mentioned in both articles, rely on all questions included, and remember the first secret of great design – look broader, look closer, and think young.