How to Create Your Elevator Pitch and Tagline

An Introduction to Creating Your Elevator Pitch and Business Tagline

Having an "elevator pitch" for your business is an essential networking tool, and it should be catchy and memorable. There should be a point to it with a clear call to action and illustrate what pain point you solve.

Your elevator pitch should be a short and succinct (like a one-paragraph-or-so) summary of your business that you could deliver to another person in the time it takes for an elevator to open, move a few floors, and come to a stop.

You need your elevator pitch to attract people who may want to become your investors, employees, suppliers, or customers. The more people remember you, the more likely they will do business with you.

Similarly, your tagline should also be catchy, with a memorable three - to nine-word phrase that captures your audience’s imagination.

What are the Key Components of an Effective Elevator Pitch?

The most effective elevator pitches consider many components that give them the power to persuade. What your pitch should do is cut through the clutter of everyday conversation by focusing on brevity. Using this opportunity to pique the listener's interest in a very limited amount of time.

A pitch should be no more than 200 words and should last less than 90 seconds. Clarity is another important attribute of a good pitch. At the get-go, potential clients should understand what you're offering. To get to the point without any wasted breaths, you must learn to run through what makes you stand out in terms of value and distil it down to a simple solution.

Great elevator pitches are adaptable and should be tailored to fit the audience in front of you. If the pitch is tailored to the person who's listening, it increases the odds of converting it in some way. This is of course only possible if you provide your pitch second after theirs. It’s important to also try and create amore “general” pitch so you can deliver this to someone if you’re forced to go first.

For every size and stage of business, delivering an outstanding elevator pitch is the first step in establishing the business’s public narrative.  The idea behind this is, to help your customers, suppliers, etc engage with the story on an emotional basis. Consider using a convincing value proposition.  What I mean here is, think of the "what's in it for me" factor in the proposition. This not only covers what you're providing, it also sells why people should care about what you're providing.

How to Craft a Compelling Business Tagline

An effective tagline will naturally draw attention to the business. When concentrating on crafting a tagline, it's not just about featuring the unique selling proposition of the business. Instead, a tagline is supposed to encapsulate the business—its mission, values, and the pain-points. This phrase should easily slot into website copy, marketing campaigns, and product launches, signifying how important a tagline is. While the tagline is typically much briefer than the elevator pitch, it's just as vital when it comes to branding the business.

It's suggested that it should range from 3 to 7 words, and should use the perfect combination of words, tone, and style to create a single, memorable phrase. The key here is to use taglines that are emotionally driven (just like the elevator pitch) and designed to be very short in its delivery.

Finally, ensure that what you've come up with is something that has real lasting power, given that the business can use it in a variety of different ways. Does it hold together your brand positioning and personality? Does it leave a lasting impression?

Practical Tips for Refining Your Elevator Pitch and Tagline

The best way to do this is to see if you can establish an ROI (return on investment) on your pitch and tagline. Are you seeing a transfer of business from your pitch or not? The more honed and confident you come across, the easier this gets. It can’t be helped at the beginning that you will likely “um and ah” as you convey these words and phrases, but as you time test this in public it will become faster and more concise.

Practically speaking, a business owner should ensure that they have all the answers and solutions to the problems faced by the consumers in their pitch.

Check out the following suggestions that can help you create and develop convincing elevator pitches and business taglines:

·      Avoid jargon.

·      Simplify your pitch to a two-minute explanation of the pain points you solve.

·      Communicate your mission, vision and values.

·      Always offer a call to action!

Now let me give you an example of how to work this out for yourself:

Consider asking them a question, e.g. “If you knew you could feel more relaxed, calm and rested by simply sitting down with me once for 30 minutes, would you think that was a good thing or a bad thing?”

Then answer that question by saying “yes, in only 30 minutes I could show you techniques and strategies that could make you feel like this everyday if you wish. I have a programme that can help you do this at your convenience at home or in the office.

Then you move onto the second half of your pitch so, if someone asks, "Tell me more," you can offer a 90-second explanation that doesn't require reading PowerPoint slides. It's human-speak, not business-speak, that simply encourages people to ask more questions.

Examples of Successful Elevator Pitches and Business Taglines

I have found some examples below of other businesses online and their elevator pitches and business taglines.

Elevator Pitches:

Apple: "We believe that people with passion can change the world for the better." Netflix: "We're about seeing stories to their end."

Matrix Partners: "At Matrix, we believe innovation has the power to transform lives and help build a better future."

Tabasco: "Some like it hot."

Business Taglines:

Amazon: "Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History."

Gem Sticker: "Stick and Rewrite Anywhere with Gem Sticker from Writey."

Ferrari: "We're not game-changers, we're rule breakers."

Coco Chanel: "In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different."

Your elevator pitch changes each time you respond to someone, so you need to keep it personal to them, but the message should remain the same. It is something that moulds into a very easy to say passage over time and will need to be worked on regularly by yourself. However, once you have your tagline firmed up, it really shouldn’t need changing again.

If you need any help with this, please contact me today.