Marketing Basics Series
Do you have an Elevator Pitch?
One of the basics of marketing your company/the company you work for is having an Elevator Pitch.
Not sure what that is? It’s a few sentences about what you do, whom you do it for, and how you are particularly fantastic at it. It’s as if you got onto an elevator with someone, struck up a conversation, and they asked you what you do/what your company does. You need to get it all across by the time the elevator doors open back up again.
Of course you can use this pitch any time you meet someone, and possibly never in an actual elevator! Short and sweet is what you want it to be.
If you have one but it’s not getting you results, consider refining it, redoing it, or enhancing it.
If you don’t have one yet you can create one with a few simple questions:
1) Who is your ideal client/customer?
2) Why are they seeking help (what need are they trying to solve)?
3) What are their concerns about working with you/anyone (and how can you alleviate those concerns)?
4) What is the point of difference in how you do what you do — what is special/unique about your services/products?
If you answer these four questions succinctly, then put them all together into a slick paragraph, you’re there!
Here’s a great example of an elevator pitch (full disclosure, it’s ours for LDM):
We work with those who are not getting results from their websites… and it doesn’t matter if they are a company that needs to generate bigger and better clients or a non-profit that needs bigger and better donors – the bottom line is that your website needs to bring in more money. That’s what we help you do.
What’s especially important to point out is what the above doesn’t do. It doesn’t share the usual, pedestrian approach to content: our company name is this… our services are that…
The best Elevator Pitch does this: enables the listener to hear themselves in that situation. Once you connect those dots — you likely have opened the door to the conversation to land the business.
[Illustration by our own in-house designer Allie Cormier]