Top takeaways from Pitch Coach and Amplify Director, Stewart Bewley:

Create intimacy with your audience. Try to imagine that you are having a conversation with a person you know really well who is sitting on a sofa with a cup of tea. Forget about the camera, bring out a very relaxed tone of voice and be really engaging.

Structure your pitch as a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Take your audience on a journey, being explicit about what is the problem you want to solve, and how you intend to do so. Keep it simple and be compelling.

Start strong and help people to remember you. Deliver your pitch opening with a line that engages your audience, and tell your story in short sharp sentences. Enjoy saying each word, take a little bit more time than you normally would to pronounce them.

Dont forget to end well! You definitely want your audience to be interested in learning more. Ask yourself what is the lasting impression you want to leave the audience with.
 

Ready to go on camera? Take a moment to exercise. The eyes are the windows of the soul, you need to let them shine bright in a video. Here are some practical exercises that you can do to warm up your face and make your eyes look alive:
 

• Warm up the tongue clean your teeth with your tongue eight times clockwise.

• Say Prunes, squash up your face and say Bananas as loud as you can, wide opening your face.
   

The camera picks up everything. You want to be as natural as possible but dont forget about your physical appearance. Make sure to take good care of your hair, teeth, and make-up.

Technical Tricks for delivering the Best One Minute Video Pitch from our MassChallenge videographer, Jeffrey Danford

Have good audio. Sound quality is the most important part of your video, so prioritize it over everything else. Having an external sound recording device, or at least a microphone other than the one on your camera (e.g. a lavalier microphone plugged into the camera) will greatly improve the quality of your audio.

Look for the light. You want your shot to be well lit and you want the person pitching to be the brightest part of the shot. The key is having the light source facing him/her, and one of the best and cheapest ways to achieve this is to sit in front of a large window.

Choose your room carefully. Generally speaking, the smaller the room and the lower the ceiling, the better it is for recording due to reduced echo. Choose a quiet space (but one thats still well lit!) and aim for a plain background, or at least a non-distracting one – especially if youre making the video by yourself.

Apply the rule of thirds. As the person pitching, you want to be looking at the camera lens the entire time, and rather than being off at the corner, you want your body to be taking up most of the middle of the screen. Ideally, your eyes should be placed about one third of the way down from the top of the screen. Also, you may prefer a fairly close framing from the chest to just above the head, rather than trying to include too much of the body.

Find a friend! Having someone else with you can be very helpful. He or she can tell you if something sounds good (or if you should repeat it), or if you are emphasising a certain word incorrectly. Find someone to watch you, and if they can look at the camera at the same time, even better.

Capture the viewers attention: start with some music. A great way to start is by presenting your logo (or website, etc.), ideally with some light accompanying music or a jingle. Think about watching a video that starts cold and very quiet at the beginning vs. one with a warm, friendly, musical intro. The latter feels more comfortable and will pique the viewers interest before you start. Once you get into the video itself, add your title your name and position within your company somewhere on the screen with either black or white text to make it visible.

Make use of free and easy to use video editing software. iMovie on Macs or Windows Movie Maker on PCs are both free and perfect for making a simple one-minute video pitch. You can easily edit your clips, insert titles, and add music or other audio tracks.