It’s important to make a good first impression. It could be the only impression you make so to give yourself a second chance you need to stand out for all the right reasons.
Ideally you want to find a way of making your prospect pick out your proposal from a sea of similar offers without resorting to gimmicks or looking unprofessional. Sounds hard? Well with the help of one or more of these three tools: flippingbook software, slideshow software and video creation software, you can create that killer sales deck you’ve always dreamt of.
Digital brochure
Flippingbook software is a way of emulating the experience of reading a brochure or catalogue online. You can usually make the same brochure – from the same PDF file – available on any device as they use HTML5 to render the pages. There’s a nice touch in that swiping left or right “turns” the page and, if the volume is turned up, you’ll hear that authentic swish.
But that’s where the simulation ends. Being a digital book, you can embed videos directly into the text, have hyperlinks that direct the reader to your website, play a backing track to set the mood and much much besides. Most providers also allow you to share your creations through social media at the click of a button allowing you to leverage your followers.
Reliability
If you’d rather go with a tried and trusted method of presenting your material then you can’t go far wrong with a slideshow. They have the advantage of being universally known and there are lots of templates out there that can help you get an edge when designing that killer pitch.
It could be a good choice if you want to embed a chart or data from another application. You can link to the most recent version, so you can always be sure that you’ve got the most up-to-date figures to hand.
The big problem with slideshows is that it’s very easy to make them look amateurish. Overuse of slide transitions and animations together with using a dated looking template can very quickly put you in the reject pile.
All Singing and Dancing
For some types of sales pitch a video makes a lot of sense. Perhaps you want to showcase how your product works, or show how your product improves a situation by telling a story. A video may not be the sole tool in your armoury, but it can be a powerful one.
Creating a video can be as simple as opening up a video capture program using your webcam to “go live” or as complex as hiring a production company to film a product demonstration.
Most sales videos will end up on social media so the keys to greatness are: keep it short and sweet, and add subtitles so your viewers can watch with the volume muted.
Mix it up
A flippingbook will stand out in a sea of slides by being different. It’s best used as a tool when you aren’t present – you can embed audio and video to guide the reader through your product or service and most providers – both on free and the paid-for plans – offer an easy way to share your flippingbooks through social media.
Of course, there is still a place for the slideshow. They can form the basis of a promotional video and can be a good choice for taking along to a pitch meeting where you want to be able to gauge the mood of your audience before progressing.
With the rise of social media more and more marketers are realising the benefits of producing videos. A short video, especially one that the viewer will see multiple times, can increase brand awareness significantly. Sales departments are taking the from their marketing colleagues and realising that in some cases – for example product demonstrations – a video makes a very good choice.
These tools work best when used together to create a great sales campaign. Each tool has its own strengths and weaknesses, so it is important to select the correct tool for the task at hand. In a way a flippingbook is almost in a different category as it can be created from a slideshow or can incorporate your sales videos. Does that make it the Swiss Army Knife of the sales department?