Fox Business ran a good story on crafting a good elevator pitch. You can read the story here, or view the embedded video included with the story below (an example elevator pitch…and, in my opinion, not a good one)…

The Fox article is a good example of a pitch designed for investors or potential partners or distributors. But it’s also important, from an integrated branding perspective, to have an elevator pitch directed at consumers as well.

Wikipedia’s entry concerning the elevator pitch is more in line with this model, in my view…

An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).

A variety of other people, including entrepreneurs, project managers, salespeople, evangelists, job seekers, and speed daters commonly use elevator pitches to get their point across quickly.

An effective elevator pitch generally answers questions such as:

• What the product is
• What it does for the buyer (e.g. the benefits)
• Who we are

Prepare your elevator pitches in advance…well in advance. Memorize them. And, use them. Jerry Garcia once said, “the cards aren’t worth a damn if you don’t lay ‘em down.” Wise words.

I’ll be posting an entry sometime in the near future specifically dealing with the elevator pitch in my series on Integrated Branding.