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A Quick Guide to Pitch Deck Handouts

If you’re dealing with a topic that involves a dense amount of information, it’s ridiculous to assume that the audience will try to memorize every detail. As the presenter, it’s your job to do most of the heavy lifting. You need to craft your pitch deck carefully, taking time to simplify and illustrate complex details. It’s your job to give them an experience that stands out and is easy to remember.

This isn’t always an easy task, especially if you’re expected to share a lot of facts, data, and complicated concepts. Still, there’s one way you can make sure everyone can easily review the key points of your pitch deck. You can turn your core message into a concrete takeaway by creating pitch deck handouts.

Why are pitch deck handouts important?

Pitch deck handouts aren’t always ideal for every scenario. However, if yours is similar to what we’ve just described, handouts can be beneficial for both you and your audience.

For starters, you can make use of handouts to include additional details about the points in your pitch deck. Since pitch decks are meant to be simple and concise, you would have to cut a lot of the data out from your slides. Your handouts can then serve a similar function to end notes or an appendix page.

With pitch deck handouts, your audience is also more likely to listen to what you’re saying. Most of the time, a lot of people worry about taking down notes and missing out on something important. If you give them something they can review in the future, they will be more likely to sit back and just absorb your entire delivery.

After the pitch, your handouts can also serve as a great reference material for your audience. If the data or facts you provide are particularly important and informative, they can refer to you in their own reports and pitch decks.

One of the challenges to delivering pitch is making sure your audience remembers all the key details. By creating pitch deck handouts, you can provide them with something they can easily access and look over.

Useful tips for creating pitch deck handouts

All that said, there are a few things you should keep in mind when making handouts for your pitch. It’s not enough that you distribute a printed version of your slides. As we constantly point out in this blog, your pitch deck is a visuals aid, specifically created to make your pitch more engaging and dynamic. Your pitch deck handouts need to be more detailed and exhaustive than that.

Here are our quick tips for the best pitch deck handouts:

Keep it structured and well-organized

Aside from containing all the helpful information you had to cut out of your pitch deck, your handouts should also be properly structured and organized. Like you would with a pitch deck, organize everything into the main sections of your discussion. From there, you can expound on the details you had to condense. You can also add graphs and other illustrations you used to represent data.

Handle extra information with care

While you should provide the audience with additional info, keep in mind that too much can be overwhelming. Your job is to discuss a topic in an accessible way. Loading everyone with every piece of data you have will hurt this objective. Knowing your subject matter well, you can easily strike the balance between ‘too little’ and ‘too much’. Your pitch deck handouts should delve a bit deeper, but it shouldn’t feel like a cornucopia of information.

Don’t forget to cite references

It’s important to cite the references you used in your pitch deck. This shows the audience that you used credible and reliable sources. They can also check them out easily should they want more information. It will also be helpful if you can provide them with additional resources that might be helpful. Leave them with a list of websites, blogs, articles, and books that can provide them with additional insight on your discussion.

It might take an extra step, but creating pitch deck handouts can bring plenty of benefits. Give your audience something they can read and review long after your pitch. For a pitch that’s heavy with data and complex concepts, handouts can increase the impact you leave.

Featured Image: Joel Penner via Flickr

3 Steps to Simplify Your Complex Technology Pitch Deck

Delivering a pitch about technology-related topics can be quite challenging. For one, you will have to simplify various concepts for the benefit of your audience and to maximize your allotted pitch time. You’ll also need to organize your ideas into concise and easy-to-understand pitch deck slides.

You need to keep your technology pitch deck from being looking too complex. On top of it all, you have to make a connection with the audience. It becomes even more challenging when you’re presenting to people who are not familiar with the topic or technology you’re discussing.

If you’re in a similar situation, here are three key pointers to keep in mind when working on a technology pitch deck presentation:

1. Focus on the core message

Avoid over-explaining the concepts in your slides by zeroing in on the key points you want to share. Before you open PowerPoint, start by creating an outline. What is the main takeaway of your pitch? Is it really necessary to explain particular concepts? If it is, which part of your explanation is the most crucial? Keep editing and trimming down your points until you arrive at the main ideas you want to share.

2. Explain with images and illustrations

As we know, research has shown that visual elements can better engage the attention of an audience. Instead of piling paragraphs of text onto your technology pitch deck, you can make use of images to expound on key points. You can also make use of flowcharts or SmartArt graphics to illustrate concepts that might be harder to understand.

3. Don’t forget the story

Knowing that you’ll be presenting about technology, you might want to simply focus on answering the “how-to’s”. But other than that, you should also remember to tell your story. At the heart of all the tech-speak, what is the narrative behind the topic you’re presenting? A story is a great way to make an emotional connection with your audience. As an example, consider this ad run by Apple for the iPhone 5s.

Conclusion

Creating an engaging technology pitch deck is challenging, but it isn’t impossible. All you need to do is create a solid plan and focus on making a valuable connection with your audience.

While interesting stories may temporarily engage, don’t forget to link it all back to your core message. Text can be effective in getting straight to the point, but illustrating your point may be even better in catching people’s attention. Make use of diagrams and other images to relate to your pitch.

Giving people hard facts can tire people out. Structure your pitch deck like a story with a convincing hook, line, and sinker. Don’t forget to tie it all in with a powerful conclusion and call to action.

Need a nudge in the right direction? Here at pitchdeck.com, we create different types of presentations and technology pitch deck is one of our specialties. Contact us for a free consultation today.

Featured Image: crabchick via Flickr

Technology PowerPoint: Developing a Killer Pitch Deck for Your Video Game

Just like a traditional sales proposal, a video game pitch includes a summary that highlights a game’s selling points to a prospective publisher.

It details how profitable the game would be if ever the publisher agrees to develop or fund it. For an independent game developer pitching a game idea to an established publisher, a technology pitch deck can help communicate any concept more effectively.

Select the X Meets Y Formula

To grab your prospect’s attention, creating a very short version of your pitch would be a great idea. It gives you a way to set the stage for a longer concept pitch.

The best shortcut for this would be the formula:  X meets Y. For example, Warcraft is Dune II meets The Lord of the Rings. Got it? Another example: Max Payne, which is any John Woo film meets The Matrix. Mash-ups of well-known properties or genres may be a bit unimaginative, but it allows your audience to grasp your idea much faster.

If you can’t explain the concept quickly, your prospect might assume that your game isn’t ready yet for primetime and reject your proposal. A short pitch offers a great way for you to explain what your game is all about.

Level Up with Visuals

Technology pitch deck presentations work best when they feature graphics and imagery.

When pitching to gaming companies, we can’t stress enough how important visual aids are. Compared to the way it handles textual data, our brain processes graphic information way faster.

Additionally, people in the industry are visual thinkers and communicators. When you use visual aids, you are speaking their language and thus, giving your idea a chance to be assessed in a better light.

It would be great if you can come up with a professionally produced pre-production art to accompany your technology pitch deck slides. It creates the impression that you put so much thought into your proposal.

technology-powerpoint

Structure Your Proposal

While it is great to prepare a short pitch, it also pays to have a more detailed proposal handy. It should include all important details about your game.

The following are some of the information that you shouldn’t forget:

The High Concept – Pretty much like an elevator pitch, the high concept explains your idea as accurate as possible in a short sentence. Take note of the following gaming high concepts and learn:

  • Minecraft: Construct a 3D world with other players.
  • Unreal world: Survival game set in the Iron Age.
  • Super Mario: A platform game with a surreal world setting.
  • Sonic: A fast-paced platform game that features a fast hedgehog
  • Pacman: Navigate a maze while grabbing all the dots and avoiding bad guys.
  • Angry Birds: Slingshot birds at enemy pigs in this physics-based game.

Genre – The concept of genre in the gaming industry often has more to do with a game’s position in the shelves than its design or story. In general, a game’s genre is classified based on their type of gameplay.

Some of the most common video game genres are the following:

  • Adventure – Legend of Zelda, Tomb Raider
  • Strategy – Warcraft, Age of Empires
  • Role Playing Game (RPG) – Diablo, Final Fantasy
  • Shooter – Doom, Half-Life
  • Platformer – Super Mario Bros. Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Fighting – Street Fighter, Tekken

Other elements that you should include in your game technology pitch deck are the in-game story, setting, target audience, hardware platforms, marketing, and risk analysis. You should also tackle the gameplay description and features. If there’s still time, focus on the mechanics to show how players will interact with the game. You can start by describing the story to capture attention.

Then, shift your focus on what makes your gameplay different from other games of its kind.

Pitching a video game idea is not all fun and games. So be sure that you practice. A lot. For the win.