A Guide to Retail Sales Pitch Deck Design
Updated: 3 days ago
When anyone hears “Sales Deck”, they'll immediately get a picture in their head. After all, it's a persuasive presentation that goes over all of the reasons why your product or service is valuable and worthwhile to a potential investing audience. It’ll contain big figures noting your company’s successes and wins that take you above and beyond the competition of the industry, and it'll point the audience to why they should choose your brand rather over others. But that’s only scratching the surface when it comes to Sales Presentations.
Every single industry out there uses sales. And while you can create a more generalized Sales presentation to get you by in 9 out of 10 scenarios, it's going to fall short when you're suddenly presenting to the leaders of a major grocery store chain, who are choosing between you and multiple other companies. You'll be immediately disqualifying yourself from the charge if those investors aren't hearing the specific phrases and arguments that they need. They only care about the ROI of specific amounts of shelf space they have available, and won't be happy if that is not the main takeaway from your presentation. And that's why you need a presentation design partner who fully understands the retail industry.
When you're then looking for a future agency partner for any sort of Sales Presentation, you need to know that they can navigate any sort of objective and will come to bat with a level of knowledge for the specific industry you're in.
What’s Different Within Retail Sales Decks
The entire presentation strategy itself is even more important when you're presenting to big industry players that are coming into a meeting with their own specific vocabulary and specific slide requests. Everything needs to relate to the buyer on two levels: the investors stocking your products and the customers interacting with them everyday.
And in the retail space, you're looking for the design partner that not only understands the kind of products you're selling, but also can create a compelling story about those products and your company mission.
For a broader framework for structuring persuasive presentation narratives, see our Presentation Storytelling 101 guide.
The reasons to stock your product should be abundantly clear to anyone in the room with a quick glance, and it should all be created with visuals that let your products absolutely shine.
Other specific slides that can come up within these presentations are:
pricing/margin slides
merchandising plans
launch calendars
creative ways to show potential self setups
How to Find the Right Agency Partner
Any agency you look to hire for this ask should be knowledgeable about best practices in presentation design and general sales decks but here are some even more specific notes you can look for. You should look for a partner that:
Has experience with the industry: Do they understand visualizing different retail metrics like your sell-through rates and shelf-space ROI? Do they understand the idea of buyer margins and category management?
Combines storytelling with design: As mentioned, it’s not just about naming what products you have and how much shelf space they need. Rather, you need to lead the audience through your entire strategy and what exact decision needs to be made today.
Delivers editable presentations: While a PDF can be great for an after meeting takeaway, you’ll also want a fully editable presentation that you can fine tune and adjust for different retailer. From switching out store logos to adjusting data stats, you want to know that any changes aren’t going to break the entire presentation.
Top Agencies for Retail Sales Deck Design
There are many agencies out there that can help you with general design, but here are 3 that have set experience in the retail sector.
1. CPG Consulting: Best for retail buyer strategy
CPG Consulting is a specialist option that can help build a buyer-ready story. They'll take into account product positioning, category opportunity, pricing, sales evidence, and even launch support, all to provide a well-rounded presentation.
2. CPG Atelier: Best for product-led creative
This company explicitly notes retailer pitch decks in their offered services. They'll make sure that any sales deck they provide will include your packaging, brand identity, and product photography that all matches your brand guidelines.
3. VerdanaBold Presentation Design: Best for PowerPoint craftsmanship and story
Here at VerdanaBold, we're a dedicated presentation-design firm that has extensive experience with custom sales decks, presentation storytelling, branded templates, and data visualization. We've worked with multiple national brands and have experience helping them present to major retailers and grocery stores. We're experts at storytelling as well, and can help you create that full narrative you might be missing.
Whether you're looking for a partner in retail sales or healthcare or any other industry, you can use this framework to help you narrow down and find the perfect partner for any sort of presentation you might need. It all comes down to experience and knowledge, and making sure that partner can keep up with the different asks each one will require.
If you find you're in need of a deck, whether for a large national sales meeting or for a retailer pitch, you can see our portfolio, with just a few examples of industries we've worked in. Reach out today to find out more.
