Imagine this: you are an in-house designer for a brand and you have been tasked to create a product mockup for a new product to pitch to potential investors. Per your management’s request, you are free to “just be creative”—though they still supply you with sufficient information regarding the product in question. The thing is you never made a mockup for pitching purposes before. If you are currently in that position, here are some tips on how to conquer product mockup to secure a pitch.

Know The Product

No, seriously, how can you represent something if you don’t possess any knowledge about it? Before drafting a mockup, make sure you spend some time understanding the product. You also have to make sure that the mockup is in context with the design. For example, if the product is a mobile app, the mockup design should show the UI of that app in a smartphone.

After making sure the draft matches the product, the next thing to do is to delve to the more technical aspect. The R&D department usually has provided the mockup designers with some data, including product segmentations, niches, and what sets them apart from competitors. Create a mockup that can communicate these messages subtly. 

Identify Your Market

This is a crucial step before launching your product. In order to convince investors, sometimes you have to design a mockup of the product being used or consumed by its target market. Those in charge of deciding the target market usually provide this information, you just need to interpret it into the design. Continuing the example on the mobile app, if the app is targeted towards college students, then show it being utilized by college students.

Decide On Your Medium

While one mockup design is sufficient in most cases, when it comes to pitching a product, you may have to create more than one design. This is especially true if you are pitching for a marketing campaign. After designing the mockup of the ad, you usually have to create a mockup for every advertising medium you want to put the ads in.

For example, the marketing department decided to put advertisements in printed media, social media, and billboards. This means you have to make at least three separate mockups depicting the product in each medium. This is necessary to see how the advertisement would look after it was deployed.

Prepare Your Content

Product? Check. Target market? Check. Medium? Check. All that is left to prepare is the content of the mockup itself. Aside from the represented product, you will need copywriting and accompanying images or vectors. For example, you can add a hand holding the product to add a hands-on experience feel to the design. A copywriting text is optional, but nice to have in a mockup, especially if you are pitching for a marketing campaign. 

Create Your Product Mockup

Alright, everything is ready, you have familiarized yourself with the product, you know the target market is, the content is also ready, let’s start cooking! Currently, there are at least two popular ways to create a product mockup: using design software from scratch or with templates, and using online tools.

Create from Scratch

Most designers prefer designing their mockups from scratch. That way, they are not restricted in any way and can create just the right mockup based on their experience. Design software like Photoshop, CorelDraw, or Clip Studio Paint is perfect for this occasion, and they also have various tools to play around with.

However, creating a product mockup from scratch has its own drawback. Compared to using a template or online tools, it’s more time-consuming. You have to make a draft first, you have to personally handpick the accompanying design elements, setting the lighting—anyway, it’s ineffective if your project is time-sensitive or you have tight deadlines. 

Using Templates or Online Tools

Compared to designing your own mockup, it saves quite a lot of time using a ready-made template. You just need to insert the product image and the copywriting, if any, though sometimes design software is still needed to do that. However, there are also a bunch of online tools that don’t require design software. You just have to open their website, choose a template, and upload the content.

Creating a product mockup for pitching purposes is basically the same as for any other purpose, it just has different audiences. Follow these tips, and your pitch is secured.