How to Write an Elevator Pitch: The Ultimate Guide for 2023

How to write an elevator pitch? Let's see!

Elevator pitches are never out of fashion, and they have been capturing the essence of fast-paced conversions since the ‘90s. It’s a quick, short, and crisp pitch of an idea, a story, a thought, a project, or a product delivered in a way that leaves the audience rapt.

And sales experts and marketers out there know better than anybody that this is not an easy feat to achieve.

The idea is, by the time you walk out of the elevator, your prospect looks at you drift away into the sunset with dreamy eyes completely and thoroughly fascinated by what you just said. And also, inspired enough to act on it.

Well, with remote work, it is kind of hard to capture that exact look. Unless you pick the one medium that has been leaving audiences fascinated since its inception. Videos.

Videos are the perfect medium to create elevator pitches today. And we shall go through a step-by-step guide on how you can milk video elevator pitches to the last drop of conversion.

What is On-Camera Elevator Pitch?

A quick, simple, persuasive, and inspiring speech delivered to make a sale, and a quick one at that, through the camera (on video), is an on-camera elevator pitch.

Except when it is on-camera, you don’t have to worry about the elevator doors closing on you. On-camera elevator pitches enter your prospects' sphere of attention wherever they may be present (as long as they have working internet).

As long as you have a suspect-turned-prospect, you have the opportunity of creating your on-camera elevator pitch.

Why On-Camera Elevator Pitch

Easy, Convenient, Accessible

On-camera elevator pitches are not just an efficient sales tool on their own, but when you compare them to elevator pitches in the traditional sense, they are a thousand times better.

I guarantee you that any salesperson would rather sit in the comfort of their home, record, and edit an elevator pitch and only when they are fully satisfied with the outcome, share it with the leads.

Sales reps, for long, had to suffer embarrassment on account of simple errors while speaking.

Just fumbling a couple of words meant the end of their careers. With an on-camera sales pitch, no salesperson ever has to worry about being charming and charismatic with the click of a button to thankless leads.

And in the same sense, leads don’t have to worry about putting up with thankless elevator pitches in person. Instead, they can watch the pitch on video, whenever they feel like it.

Fun to Watch

With an on-camera sales pitch, viewers or buyers have fun whilst watching. Videos inherently are fun to watch as a medium, regardless of the seriousness of what is being said.

The engagement of senses on a deeper level combined with the elements of a classic elevator pitch makes it a fun watch.

Especially if you work towards engaging your audience in such a way, you will see a plethora of leads would simply enjoy talking to you. And this is an extremely powerful situation for any salesperson to be in.

Play with Elements

When you give an elevator pitch, you talk about abstract things, some things that make theoretical sense, and some that are simply facts.

However, you frame your speech in such a way that it seems like whatever you are saying is the best thing ever. And when you do that, there is a chance the listener might not follow you. It takes some amount of imagination.

With an on-camera elevator pitch, you show your audience what you are saying. You can use innumerable visuals to supplement each abstract idea, every fact can be represented using screen recordings of proof.

This ability to play with elements is certainly unique to videos, in the sense that you get to show people what you want them to otherwise visualize.

Personal Access and Emotional Connect

Well, this is simply the case with videos. They bring forth the ability for people to make deeper connections.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that you show your face on camera, and the lead makes a connection with you as a person and not you as the pitch spamming their inbox.

Moreover, with an on-camera elevator pitch, you get the opportunity to quickly tackle several issues that your viewer or buyer might be facing. And open up the possibility of a solution with your product as the offering.

People love videos, and if you are creating a personalized on-camera pitch for the buyer, they will recognize your effort.

Step-by-Step Process of Crafting Your On-Camera Elevator Pitch

Start with a Concise Script

The entire premise of elevator pitches is that they are supposed to be delivered on an elevator ride, i.e., a very short amount of time. For this, you need a concise and piercing speech that contains everything it should.

If you are new to writing scripts, don’t worry. A little experiment goes a long way. Get some initial help here.

Start with throwing out ideas in quick succession. Think, what exactly do you want your buyer to know. And from this list pick your best ones. These are things like the unique, most-wanted features of your product.

Now, you can proceed to the visualization process. How do you want your video to flow? Imagine the flow of your on-camera sales pitch. When will you be talking about what? Starting with praise helps.

Once you have a consistent perspective of what you want your video to look like, get it going on the notepad in the form of a script.

Although it is never recommended to create a restrictive script, for an on-camera elevator pitch, a restrictive script works much better.

Add Room for Visuals

The script will contain mostly what you will say. But for an on-camera elevator pitch, you need to supplement whatever you are saying with appropriate visuals.

This could be anything. Say you are talking about some specific feature of your product, it would help to include a screen recording of that feature as it is at play. Of course, for a physical product, a camera recording should do.

This doesn’t mean you have to fill the entire video with visuals, but that you take the opportunity when it fits.

Set Up Space and Hit Record

On-camera elevator pitches are created to impress, and when the duration is so short you have to make sure everything is perfect.

The one thing you need to pay extra attention to is the lighting, make sure you have enough lighting in the frame. Quality lighting is best achieved using soft key lighting, and a setup of three-point lighting.

Secondly, ensure that you are in a noise-free zone. Purchase a high-quality microphone that cuts out any unavoidable background noises, if you want. But a standard earphone mic also works well for budget users.

Dress up according to the standards of your industry, there is no generalization for this. If your audience is the kind that appreciates casual dressing, do that.

Now, the most important thing, i.e., your camera. You don’t need to hash out a lot of money to get the best quality camera out there. Even a decent HD webcam works. And you might already have an HD cam built into your laptop.

Now that you have it all set up, download the StoryXpress Screen Recorder, and hit record. This simple tool will let you record your webcam, and screen both at once, or apart.

Take a breather.

Keep your script handy.

Hit record.

Insert Call-to-Action

Using the Screen Recorder, you can instantly add a relevant call-to-action to your video. This is extremely important for an on-camera elevator pitch.

With an on-camera elevator pitch, you have but one goal, get that sale. You want to ensure that lead goes to your product page and eventually converts. And on camera sales pitches are supposed to leave them inspired.

When your lead is all dreamy-eyed, you don’t want to wait for them to Google you. You need to put a link right there in front of them in the form of a compelling call-to-action.

Create Smooth Edits

An on-camera elevator pitch is supposed to be precise and extremely well-edited.

Well, with the StoryXpress Video Editor, you can edit your videos right after you record them. This tool lets you trim, blur and crop sections of your videos as well as add clips.

Share on a Private, Customized Platform

A video is as good as the platform it is presented on. Say you make a spectacular on-camera sales pitch and host it on YouTube.

Now, before the lead watches this video they will get an ad. And you can be sure, this is an ad from your competitor. And even if none of your competitors are running ads on YouTube, there are recommendations from them at the end of your video.

That’s why you need to host your videos in a premium, ad-free space.

On-Camera Elevator Pitch: Best Practices

Keep your Delivery Natural

Although for an on-camera elevator pitch we are using a restrictive sort of script, that doesn’t mean that your tone has to be restrictive.

Keep your dialogue delivery extremely natural. Even if your script isn’t exactly conversational. Maintain a healthy balance between following a script and giving it a realistic tone of voice. Never, ever read out of the script.

Add CTAs

Pretty much like a regular pitch deck, it’s crucial to make your on-camera elevator pitches actionable using relevant CTAs.

Add up to two CTAs, anything more than that seems way too desperate. You can use CTAs relevant to the content of your on-camera elevator sales pitch. For example, if you are using a one-time offer, link it as soon as you mention it using a CTA.

Use an Attractive Thumbnail

Thumbnails are the insight that viewers have into your on-camera elevator pitch before they click on it. And therefore, these are as important as the sales pitch itself.

You can use a GIF thumbnail. This could be a preview or a custom GIF thumbnail. Both work well and do the job.

If you are using an image for the thumbnail, then go all out and make the most creative image possible. Images make good thumbnails too, but creators tend to do too much and it doesn’t translate well.

Add Inspirational Music

By the time the viewer has watched 30 seconds of your on-camera elevator pitch, they should be left with inspiration and curiosity.

For this, music is your best bet. Some inspirational music in the background as you speak, just the right amount of music, works wonders to achieve this effect.

You can use copyright-free music throughout the video as well.

Show your Product

Well, this can’t be said enough. But you have to show your product. The entire idea of an on-camera, video sales pitch is to help your viewers see what you are selling. Else, a textual elevator sales pitch would do.

Screen recordings are a super easy element to add to your on-camera elevator pitch. You can show features, and using the StoryXpress Screen Recorder you can annotate your screen.

Elevator pitches are a classic and are here to stay.

You find on-camera elevator pitches on every short video platform like Instagram, and even TikTok. Video elevator pitches work and suit pretty much every audience.

Hope after this read, you are ready to craft your on-camera elevator pitch!