3 Essentials for A Marketing Presentation That Sells

You’ve sat through boring sales presentations: they present a lot of interesting data points but don’t convince you to invest.

Maybe you didn’t catch all of the presentation because you were trying to read too many words on too many slides.

The offer was confusing, and the main idea was fuzzy.

You walked away unsure how it would make your life better.

Now it’s your turn to create a marketing presentation. You don’t know where to start, but you’re certain you don’t want to create a presentation like the one we’ve described.

Coming up with a presentation that sells is no easy feat. Try Googling how to do it, and you’ll come up with diverse (and sometimes opposing) opinions among marketing experts on what works.

But we’ve found a few points of agreement among marketing leaders that we trust at Sigl Creative. We’ve gathered that information into a couple of blog posts for you. Today and next Monday we’re sharing some essential content for your next marketing presentation if you want to persuade prospective customers to buy.

#1 Ask your audience to believe one thing.

Marketing experts emphasize the importance of focusing on one main idea throughout any sales presentation, and different experts give this main idea different names.

StoryBrand CEO Donald Miller calls it the “controlling idea,” which he defines as “the idea all of your communication is trying to prove.”

ClickFunnels Co-Founder Russell Brunsen calls it the “Big Domino.” According to his book Expert Secrets, the Big Domino is “the exact thing that you need your audience to believe if they are going to take action at the end of your presentation.”

Whether you call it the Big Domino, controlling idea, or something else, it’s the one thing you want people to believe by the end of your marketing presentation.

Why only ask your target audience to believe one thing? When Brunsen was learning about the importance of the main idea, his mentor and friend Perry Belcher — also the co-founder of DigitalMarketer — said conversion rates were cut in half anytime his companies created offers with multiple points or ideas.

His advice to Brunsen in Expert Secrets is good advice for you too: “Look at how many things a prospect has to believe in order to buy what you’re selling. If it’s more than one, you need to rework your sales presentation.”

Your main idea should be portable, meaning it must be short and easy to memorize. It should also be customer-centric.

“Take your online presence from functional to exceptional” — that’s our main idea at Sigl Creative. By the end of a marketing presentation, we want you to believe it’s really possible to take your online presence from functional to exceptional.

Once you’ve identified the one thing you want your target audience to believe, you’ll filter all of your marketing efforts through that lens.

#2 State and agitate the problem.

Think about marketing presentations you’ve seen that persuaded you to invest in a product or service. At some point in the sales pitch or email or webinar, chances are you thought, “Yes, they get it — that’s my problem!”

Good marketing presentations describe the problem and explain how you solve it.

We know you don’t want to speak negatively about your target audience. Describing their problems might feel a bit harsh.

But think about why you started your business. What hole in the market did you believe your business could fill? What problem did you think you could solve?

Maybe you even started your business to solve your own problem first!

Here’s a brilliant opening to a welcome email series by the creators of the Evergreen Planner. They created this planner to solve a problem they had and sensed other mompreneurs had it too:

If we had found a planner on the market we loved, we never would have created the Evergreen Planner system.

Since jumping headfirst into kids and entrepreneurship, we’ve had a lot to manage. We just didn’t have time for the planners already out there. They were clunky, over-designed, too cutesy, too intense, or just “meh.” We were tired of getting lost in our own planner, tired of getting cramped by one-size-fits-all formats, and tired of drawing (and redrawing) the perfect bullet journal layout every single day. We were certain that planning didn’t have to feel like another chore.

You probably resonate with their problem, especially if you’re a busy mom. Many women will want to buy the planner based on that paragraph alone because it puts words to a problem they’ve felt, extends empathy, and demonstrates authority.

In your sales presentation, you might frame your origin story in a way that describes your target audience’s problem. Or you might describe their problem using “you-centered” language. Then you’ll want to restate or agitate the problem throughout your presentation.

Donald Miller even recommends leading with the problem in your marketing presentation — it’s that important.

You invest in products and services that solve your problems, and your customers do too. Make sure your presentation tells your audience, “I understand your problem, and I have a solution!”

#3 Tell your audience how your solution will change their future — for the better.

In Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller writes, “Never assume people know how your brand can change their lives. Tell them.”

Leading with statistics about your product or service is tempting, but people invest emotionally before they invest logically.

They want to know how your product or service changes the story they’re currently living for the better. Just like with their problem, your target audience needs you to put into words what their future could look like.

We like these brainstorming questions from Miller’s book to help you get started:

• What does your target audience have?
• What are they feeling?
• What’s an average day like?
• What’s their status?

Another way to do this is to tell the story of your own “aha” moment. Tell the story of how you created a new opportunity that changed your story and the stories of others for the better. Brunsen calls this the “Epiphany Bridge’’ story.

In Expert Secrets, He writes, “…you have to go back and remember what it was that gave you the epiphany that caused you to believe in the new opportunity. That story — your Epiphany Bridge story — provides the emotional connection and bridges the gap from the emotional to the logical side.”

He asks this question: “What was the core Epiphany Bridge story that made you believe in the new opportunity that you are sharing with others?”

Let’s look back at the example above. The founders of the Evergreen Planner describe a problem, but they also give you a glimpse of their Epiphany Bridge story: “We were certain that planning didn’t have to feel like another chore.”

What’s your Epiphany Bridge story? Tell it!

Remember: your target audience is the hero of your brand’s story. You’re the guide helping them win the day. Paint a picture of their happy ending if they choose you as their guide.

We’re just getting started with your marketing presentation — we haven’t even talked about your offer yet! Check back next Monday for more tips on this topic. Don’t have the time or expertise to create a sales pitch from start to finish? We love helping people like you share your passion with the world. Schedule a call today, and let’s talk about how we can collaborate to create a presentation that tells your story and sells your product or service.