We get it. Pitching to retail buyers can be a daunting and nerve-wracking process. If Dragon’s Den has taught us anything it’s that being prepared is everything in giving a great first impression of you and your brand.
Particularly if you don’t know your stuff on market research, competitors and more.
The Good Food Group have compiled our 5 top tips for creating an awesome pitch presentation to take with you to your next meeting:
1. Data. Data. Data.
Let’s be real. We all love the facts, as well as creative graphics and stand out product packaging – it’s always best to have everything you are pitching to be based around real life figures & statistics, including:
- Competitor Research – Know who your competitors are. What are they doing well? What opportunities are they missing? How will you convert their customers over to your brand? What makes you different?
- Size of the prize – This is a great way to show off any impressive figures you may have. In simple terms, it just means your brand’s overall potential for success within your industry.
- Customer Demographics & Journey – As well as having a detailer customer profile(s), that feature age, gender, hobbies, purchase habits and more; it’s also a great idea to map out the retailer’s current customer journey & how your brand/product would positively impact this.
2. Go easy on the text.
It might seem like an obvious point to make, but you’d be surprised how many brands just fill their presentation pages with paragraphs and paragraphs of text, because they’re scared of missing something out.
In reality, short yet informative concise text that gets your point across and catches the buyers’ eye is the way to go. They will engage with these highlighted callouts that showcase the most important facts, more than having to pick them out of a 5 line paragraph.
Back to basics, bullet points work great in getting information across clearly and neatly.
3. Graphics & Imagery To Bring Your Vision To Life…
While it’s important to be concise with your copy, using imagery and infographics to bring your brand story and products to life is a great tactic when pitching to retail buyers.
Pictures as the saying goes, speaks a thousand words, and what you may not be able to get across in your text – can actually be better presented visually for a buyer to digest and see the vision themselves.
Canva is a great way to build out your presentations, with their easy to use design software and range of pre-built templates to choose from – it makes getting creative easier than ever before!
4. Show Off Future Marketing Plans For Your Brand/ Products.
It’s one thing to pitch your products themselves, but you also need to show buyers that you are going to invest in your brand’s longevity in their stores, driving customers to purchase and supporting from an Above The Line marketing perspective.
Whether that be bidding for promotional space, planning large scale influencer campaigns, brand events or main stream radio & television advertising – show off your plans in your pitch presentation to not only get buyers excited about the prospect of your brand, but also to reassure them that you will be supporting the product’s launch and long-term success.
5. Having a “What’s next” Section.
As you might have seen in one of our previous blogs, “5 Mistakes Brands Make Emailing Retail Buyers”, it’s always a good idea to have an end goal in mind whenever you’re interacting with retail buyers.
Buyers are very busy people, so being clear about your end goal, or next steps to progress the pitch/launch is a great way to keep buyer’s interested and fast track your product launches.
This also shows buyers that you are proactive in your approach, and can leave a great first impression of how proactive and involved you may be when your products are launched. For example, in ATL marketing activity and more.