No longer just for sales calls, networking or job-hunting, the elevator pitch can be an essential tool for a spectrum of destination marketing activities. It’s little wonder, as these quick spiels can reveal the standout aspects of your organization or community and do it in a quick, focused way.

How quickly? If you’re not familiar with the tactic, picture: In the time it takes to ride an elevator just a few floors (we hope not longer), you’ve dished out a maximum dose of intrigue in your organization to your captive audience of riding companions. It’s an idea that’s been around for ages but has gained even greater usefulness in recent years due to everyone’s limited attention spans. Almost all of our communication needs to be quick pitches these days. Here are a few tips to get started.

Purpose

This is different from small talk, which can just fill the silence. An elevator pitch has a purpose. Ask yourself, “What is the most important thing I could say in just a minute?”

 Prepare

Is your head chock-full of facts about your organization that you can call on in any situation? Great. But the idea with this is to have something prepared and ready to go. Try humor as a starting point. For instance, if I had a few moments to tell someone what Rhyme & Reason is all about, I might mention our mascot is a toy pony. It demonstrates one of our core values — make time for fun — and it’s memorable.

Delivery

Be prepared to the point that your pitch doesn’t sound prepared since that’s about as discreet as a fire truck. Confidence is good and so is authenticity. Although this tactic could have its uses online or in an email too, plan on if you were doing it face to face and what words would have the most impact.

Recycle and upcycle

The ability to summarize our thoughts is a useful skill for a variety of reasons. Beyond having a quick response when someone says, “Tell me what you do…,” your elevator pitch creates a jumping-off point for any marketing project, whether a social post or ad headline. It can help keep your message on point.

As marketers, unlimited venues where our messages get out and our audiences legit hear them would be nice, but that’s no one’s reality. This idea is just one more tactic to help focus in on the core message and make it super sharable.