4 Types of Sales Presentation Platforms: Which is Best for B2B Sales Teams?

If you search for a sales presentation platform on Google, you'll be met with an overwhelming amount of options from various brands vying for your attention. However, what you may not realize is that these platforms fall under different categories, each with its own unique use cases. Not all of them may be suitable for your organization's B2B sales team.

In this article, we'll delve into the four types of sales presentation platforms, helping you to make a more informed decision when it comes to selecting the best option for your organization.

Sales Presentation Platform vs. Presentation Platform: Understanding the Key Differences

Although both types of platforms contain the word "presentation," there exists a significant difference between a sales presentation platform and a general presentation platform. The keyword here is "sales," as sales presentation platforms are tailored to fulfill the specific needs of B2B sales organizations. These platforms offer an array of features, including the ability to create visually stunning and impactful presentations quickly, distribute them in a modern, mobile-responsive manner, and track their performance and engagement metrics.

On the other hand, general presentation software platforms are designed for one-off presentations such as delivering internal updates and monthly reports. These platforms lack the necessary tools and functionalities required by sales teams for their sales efforts. It's essential to understand the difference between the two types of platforms to ensure that you choose the right one that meets the specific needs of your organization.

The Four Types of Presentation Platforms: A Detailed Breakdown

1. The Standard Presentation Platform

The standard presentation platform is probably the most familiar to you, as you've likely been using it since middle school when your teacher asked you to create a report on the history of the Roman Empire. In this category, you have presentation software such as PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Keynote, which are by far the most common presentation platforms in the world.

So, are these the right sales presentation platforms for your B2B business?

Pros:

There are two categories to consider, and the first is price, as all of these platforms are very affordable. Google Slides comes with your Gmail account, Keynote comes with your Mac account, and PowerPoint is included in Microsoft Office, which is common in most businesses and relatively affordable.

Another advantage of these standard presentation platforms is that they're easy to use, so you can open them up and create a presentation from a set of templates provided to you by the software.

Cons:

The downside to using standard presentation platforms for your business is that they're not designed to scale. If you have a large sales team, using one of these services is not ideal for distributing your presentation, as there are no control factors. When you hear the term "Frankenstein sales presentation," these presentation platforms are often the culprits. Presentations are typically stored on platforms like Dropbox or Google Drive, shared with team members, and downloaded, modified, altered, and used freely. This is where presentation dilution within an organization occurs and can be very damaging to your business.

In summary:

These types of presentation platforms are perfect for internal use, such as making a monthly report or a presentation that will never be shared outside of your organization. But if you are using these platforms for sales presentations to remote sales teams, you need to be mindful that this is not the best delivery mechanism for your presentation.

2. The Cloud-Based Presentation Platform

Every time we search for the term "sales presentation platform" on Google, a new cloud-based presentation platform shows up on the market. In this category, you have some legacy brands like Prezi, which got their big start making presentations with a very cool zoom effect that was not seen on the market and quickly became popular. Other players include Beautiful.ai, Pitch, Mediafly, Tiled, Canva, and a handful of others.

How do these presentation platforms meet the needs of B2B sales teams?

Pros:

The big advantage of platforms like these is that they are cloud-based, so they can be accessed from anywhere and shared with ease, allowing for seamless collaboration on your sales presentations. They are also fairly easy to use, with a plethora of templates and design elements so that even non-designers can quickly create dynamic sales presentations. Most of them come with nifty interactive features, so your presentations feel a little bit more dynamic than a traditional one you would get out of PowerPoint.

Cons:

One of the big disadvantages, in our opinion, is that these presentation platforms are popular, which means that your competitors are probably using them. And the way they work is they're built off of templates, so you choose a template and basically input your brand's content into that template. So if you're in a very competitive landscape, your presentations may look like your competitors. The colors may be different, but the layout and format, and potentially all the elements used within, are not much different. 

The other big disadvantage is that they aren't designed for large-scale distribution across your B2B sales team, although all of them come with sharing abilities.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, these presentations are not mobile-responsive. They will work on a mobile device, but it forces your viewer to pinch, zoom and scroll through your content, not optimizing the content treatment formatting for the device. In our opinion, this is a necessity in today's B2B sales landscape.

In Summary:

If you're a small startup business looking for a flashy template presentation that is quick to make and has some really cool, slick-looking animations, then any of these platforms in this category are a good fit. You'll find that you can make really great presentations for your team rather quickly, and the price point is not going to break the bank. Most of these platforms range from $15 to $50, depending on the size of your organization, and if you are truly a startup, you can probably get into them for free.

But if you are a large-scale or rapidly-growing organization, be mindful that these presentation platforms really aren't designed to scale with you as you grow, and you could run into the same types of issues that you would with traditional presentation platforms.

3. The Sales Enablement Platform

Sales enablement platforms have made their way into the presentation platform category thanks to Google, but they are not actually presentation platforms. Some of the big players in the current market include Showpad, Highspot, Seismic, and Big Tin Can.

So, how do these platforms meet the needs of B2B sales teams?

Cons:

Sales enablement platforms are like robust storage systems where sales content can be stored and accessed easily. They allow sales teams to access various types of content, including case studies, product sheets, whitepapers, and presentations. However, these platforms do not offer presentation design capabilities. Sales reps have to rely on external tools like PowerPoint or Google Slides to create presentations.

Big-name platforms can be very expensive, ranging from $20 to $50 per user depending on the size of your organization, and come with a steep learning curve. 

Pros:

If used properly, sales enablement platforms can be highly effective for scaling businesses, but it all comes down to how they are set up and what control parameters are put in place for the team. It's important to ensure that your sales team doesn't go rogue with the sales presentations.

Another really nice feature of most of these platforms is that they allow you to create "playbooks", which are suggested sales talk tracks using all of the content available within the sales enablement platform, ranging from presentations to videos to one sheets.

In summary:

For B2B sales teams, sales enablement platforms are a better fit than traditional presentation platforms because they are specifically designed for sales teams. However, it's important to keep in mind that these platforms are not designed for creating sales presentations but rather for distributing presentations that have already been added to the system. They do offer the same lack of control risks as using Dropbox, but they also offer a handful of sales-focused features that your team can benefit from.

4. The Modular Presentation Platform

Fairly new to the sales presentation platform market are modular presentation systems, which are hybrid platforms designed specifically for B2B sales organizations. Although there aren't many players in this space, two platforms worth considering are Digideck and Nuvue.

So, how do these platforms meet the needs of B2B sales teams?

Cons:

The main downside of working with brands like Digideck and Nuvue is that they focus on the content that goes into your presentation platform, which means you may need to leverage their creative services to build engaging visual stories for your sales team. This could result in additional creative services costs that may be a challenge for some organizations.

Pros:

These platforms are built for presentation management, enabling your sales team to quickly find and create presentations based on approved assets within your system. This is ideal for brands that sell multiple products and have long sales cycles because you can quickly drag and drop sales content to make customized presentations on a per-meeting basis. Additionally, these platforms come with robust tracking and analytics features for sharing and collaboration, so you can easily share the right content with the right sales teams within your organization.

In summary:

Modular presentation systems are the best fit for B2B sales teams, especially those that are scaling quickly. However, you may need to pay a little more upfront for creative services. Both Digideck and Nuvue are known for creating highly visual, powerful sales stories, and using their technology to lock them down and share them with their teams. Depending on your creative services needs, this could impact the overall cost of your platform. Nuvue ranges between $15 and $25 per user per month, depending on the size of the organization, although we cannot speak to Digideck's pricing. 

Making the Right Choice: Selecting the Sales Presentation Platform for Your B2B Team

Based on the information provided, we believe the best way to decide which sales presentation platform is right for your team is to assess your team's size, growth plan, and sales cycle. If you're a startup selling one product with a small team and a short sales cycle, then using traditional or cloud-based presentation platforms is probably the best fit.

If your organization is in a growth phase, sells multiple products and services, then you should consider a sales enablement platform combined with a presentation platform or explore modular sales systems.

No matter where your business falls, we cannot stress enough the importance of creativity in your sales presentations. If you choose to use traditional or cloud-based platforms, be mindful of templated systems and avoid making your presentation look like your competitors'. We highly recommend bringing in a presentation specialist to help you develop your sales story in a manner that truly sets you apart from the competition.

The Winning Combination: How Nuvue’s Combination of Creativity and Technology Can Help B2B Sales Teams Succeed

Nuvue was founded on the idea of helping sales and marketing leaders in B2B organizations improve their visual storytelling and sell their products and services more effectively. With over 20 years of experience, it's our passion to transform flat and dull presentations into engaging visual stories that help sales reps sell with ease.

Our presentation platform was developed to address the common industry need of getting sales teams to sell products and services as intended. From this need, Nuvue's presentation management platform was born.

By combining B2B creative thinking with a platform that allows sales teams to deliver stories consistently and with control in just seconds, you'll not only see scalable growth but also increased morale across your sales organization. Providing your sales team with a tool that helps them succeed will have a positive impact on their motivation and confidence.

If you'd like to see how Nuvue has helped B2B brands like yours improve their visual storytelling and deliver more effective sales presentations, schedule a demo today.